Bending Spoons Platform Model Drives Lean Product Teams

Key Quotes

"I learned that you should care about what you're thinking of building and and yeah and so that failed or i mean it's still alive but it didn't scale in a hypergrowth way and then i just like i wanted this hypergrowth feeling and the way I discovered bending spoons was on the internet and I just read the things that were written on their website and they were so ambitious so clear so like we know what we are we are having great results but we are not satisfied we are at the scale of downloads of like twitter or spotify or stuff like that and they are unknown right and I was like who are these people who are getting these results while being unsatisfied by the scale they're at and so I started studying I just applied as you normally do and yeah I brought some liquor to mateo one of the co founders for my first interview and I like to think that that's what got me the job and yeah and that was almost eight years ago now"

Federico Simionato explains that his initial startup experience taught him the importance of validating the core idea behind a product. He discovered Bending Spoons through their ambitious online presence, which highlighted their success coupled with a drive for continuous improvement, prompting him to apply and ultimately secure a position there. Simionato suggests that a creative gesture, like bringing liquor to an interview, can also make a memorable impression.

"I think the best background to enter as a pm is either being an entrepreneur which teaches you to think about things that matter or being a very good analyst of some kind like somebody who's done very deep thoughtful analysis over how something works and mckinsey for instance like luca did or but even in an academic career it can be but just something who's very thoughtful and looks at the root causes of some behaviors or some things that will happen I think those are both things that matter a lot for a pm and so that's what matters a lot as a pm"

Simionato emphasizes that a strong foundation for a Product Manager (PM) role comes from either entrepreneurial experience, which fosters a focus on impactful ideas, or from a background in deep, analytical thinking, such as that gained in consulting or academia. He believes these experiences cultivate the ability to understand root causes, a critical skill for effective product management. Simionato highlights that these analytical and entrepreneurial mindsets are what truly matter for success in a PM role.

"I think the underlying principle is the same you have to find out what matters and you have to make it good the way you do that evolves in time I think with ai you can build prototypes faster and so that allows you to test easily which is something you couldn't do in the past but the underlying principle of you need to focus on what matters is still very true today"

Simionato observes that while the methods for product development have evolved, the core principle remains constant: identifying what is truly important and executing it well. He notes that advancements like AI enable faster prototyping, which in turn facilitates easier testing of ideas. Simionato asserts that despite these technological shifts, the fundamental need to focus on what matters most is still paramount for product success.

"Two ways we try to find the best ideas by one analyzing the top line so how valuable is this idea how much revenue is it going to bring how many more customers is it going to bring and we try to be very qualitative about it is it a step change compared to the previous way you do things and these things are generally alternative because you cannot analyze how much of a step change it is if you don't have a prototype"

Simionato explains Bending Spoons' approach to idea generation involves two primary methods: assessing the potential impact on the top line, such as revenue and customer acquisition, and evaluating if the idea represents a significant improvement over existing solutions. He points out that truly understanding the "step change" potential of an idea often requires a prototype to test its real-world application. Simionato suggests that these qualitative assessments are crucial for identifying truly innovative ideas.

"I think evernote is the best example of this many of the things that we do on evernote are not because we want to increase revenue but it's because we want to make the product more useful and in a very unquantifiable way we just trust that by making the product more useful people will keep choosing to stay on evernote evernote is is an archetype is a kind of a product that has great inherent retention because people pour their working hours into it and so they build their content they get familiar with the product but really what we do is we try to make evernote more useful every day even though we cannot for each individual feature that we build analyze its financial performance but it's still something that i would still choose to do every day because it's just so important to people"

Simionato uses Evernote as a prime example of prioritizing product usefulness over direct revenue impact for individual features. He explains that Bending Spoons focuses on enhancing the product's utility, trusting that this will lead to sustained user retention. Simionato highlights that Evernote's inherent retention stems from users investing significant time and content into it, and the company's strategy is to continuously improve its usefulness, even when the financial performance of each specific feature cannot be precisely quantified.

"I think we did on evernote that produced the biggest churn was when we raised prices in 2023 which is something that we thoroughly analyzed and we ultimately made the decision to do it nonetheless the reason being we believed and and we still believe it that evernote provides a great deal of value to people that use it and that we could optimize pricing at the time we thought we could increase prices and people would still consider it a great deal not all of them of course there is a small amount of people who thought evernote was either already too expensive or kind of at their threshold"

Simionato identifies the 2023 price increase on Evernote as the product decision that led to the most significant churn. He explains that despite thorough analysis, the company believed Evernote offered substantial value, justifying a price optimization. Simionato acknowledges that while the majority of users still found it a good deal, some users perceived it as too expensive or at their limit, leading to their departure.

"I think what you want to do is you want to be confident about what you're doing so that you don't fear communication if i'm confident that the price i'm asking you to pay is fair then i can tell you 10 times and you will still make the decision of staying retained if you're trying to like shy away and like should we like use bullshit language and and not really tell people that we are increasing their prices that's a bad move and i and i it means that you're not confident that your product is delivering value to people"

Simionato advises that confidence in the value proposition is key to effective communication regarding price changes. He suggests that if a price increase is genuinely fair, communicating it repeatedly should not deter users who find value in the product. Simionato criticizes evasive language around price hikes, viewing it as a sign of a lack of confidence in the product's ability to deliver sufficient value to its users.

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