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20VC: Bending Spoons: The Most Untold Success Story in Startups: Lessons Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation... Bootstrapped with Luca Ferrari, Co-Founder and CEO @ Bending Spoons

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Mar 15, 2024

Luca Ferrari, Co-founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, shares the secrets behind his bootstrapped company’s incredible journey to 500 million downloads and $360 million in sales. He reflects on his early life and lessons from failures, emphasizing the value of humility and adaptability. Luca reveals his unique talent acquisition strategies, favoring practical assessments over traditional interviews, and discusses the importance of making strategic acquisitions. He also highlights his aspirations for Bending Spoons while addressing the evolving role of AI in the job market.

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ANECDOTE

McKinsey Salary Sharing

Luca Ferrari shared his McKinsey salary with his Evertail co-founders while they worked full-time on the startup.
Evertail ultimately failed, teaching Luca valuable lessons about team building and thoughtful product development.

INSIGHT

Acquire, Then Improve

Bending Spoons' unique strategy involves acquiring products with proven market fit and then improving them.
This approach mitigates the risk of building products nobody wants, a lesson learned from Luca's prior startup failure.

ANECDOTE

First Product and Acquisition

Bending Spoons' first product was a simple fonts app called Fonci, coded by Luca and a co-founder.
Their first acquisition was a keyboard app for $15,000, highlighting their iterative, bootstrapped approach.

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