Bloomberg Talks
00:00:02 · Luca Ferrari, Tim Stenovec
[00:00:02] S0: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. [00:00:07] S1: We've got Luca Ferrari, the co founder, CEO and chair of Bending Spoons, joining us from the Nasdaq. Also with us Bailey Lipschaltz, Bloomberg News IPO reporter who joins us here in the studio. Look, I want to start with what exactly the portfolio is and sort of how you want to communicate to investors what you're going to do with assets that many people remember from the world of web one point zero.
00:00:32 · Luca Ferrari
[00:00:32] S0: Thank you for having me. First of all, let me explain how we operate, because it's a quite unusual, perhaps unique. We've spent the last thirteen years building what I consider an exceptional platform, a very high time in density, a culture of high performance and rationality, fifty plus proprietary technologies and operating system for running digital businesses as effectively and as efficiently as possible, and a lot of data that helps us make better decisions at the stage of acquisition and operations. Now, what we do with this engine as we go and acquire digital business design, express potential, and we integrate them very deeply onto this platform in a way that I haven't seen anybody do before. They share the entirely the same technological layer. We have a core team that moves fluidly across all our businesses and we transform them deeply. We rebuild the ORGA technology, the monetization, We accelerate innovation, latching the features. So, let's say, pretty unique model. And as you were describing, we have established over time a portfolio of brands, some of which are very well known and some of which are more dated. We also have bought more up and coming companies, but there's a bit of both. We win. We do well, not necessarily when the company we buy is a young or old, growing fast or more stagnating, but and we can make that trajectory a lot better. So that's what we try to excel.
00:02:04 · Bailey Lipschaltz, Luca Ferrari
[00:02:04] S2: Look at we were talking earlier about this and I just am interested if you can explain for viewers kind of the path to better monetization. Again, you have about a half a billion monthly active users, but only a small fraction of that are actually deriving value from What does that mean for the company going forward? And how do you grow that? [00:02:21] S0: Yeah, exactly, help a billion people use our products quote unquote only a nine million people, so roughly two percent pay for them, which obviously is an opportunity. We also believe that it's important to provide excellent value to our customers, so we're not looking to monetize as much as possible, and we're happy to have a vast population of users who use our products without paying and they bring value through word of mouth and that will probably continue to be the case. But yes, we have an opportunity to monetize better and we have a history of doing that I think quite successfully, So yes, going forward, hopefully we can improve the percentage of our users to to pay for our products.
00:02:21 · Luca Ferrari, Bailey Lipschaltz
[00:02:21] S0: Yeah, exactly, help a billion people use our products quote unquote only a nine million people, so roughly two percent pay for them, which obviously is an opportunity. We also believe that it's important to provide excellent value to our customers, so we're not looking to monetize as much as possible, and we're happy to have a vast population of users who use our products without paying and they bring value through word of mouth and that will probably continue to be the case. But yes, we have an opportunity to monetize better and we have a history of doing that I think quite successfully, So yes, going forward, hopefully we can improve the percentage of our users to to pay for our products. [00:03:01] S2: And yeah, look at no, just thinking through though kind of what changes when companies go public? Now you have to answer to public investors and obviously that draws the potential towards, you know, partnering with AI companies, letting them train their ll ms off of their data. How are you guys thinking about the potential partnership opportunities? Again, it's no longer a company where you and your friends are running it. Now you have to answer to the public investors. Is there any sense of pressure from them that you would need to better monetize and therefore partner with say a open AI or anthropic.
00:03:01 · Bailey Lipschaltz, Luca Ferrari
[00:03:01] S2: And yeah, look at no, just thinking through though kind of what changes when companies go public? Now you have to answer to public investors and obviously that draws the potential towards, you know, partnering with AI companies, letting them train their ll ms off of their data. How are you guys thinking about the potential partnership opportunities? Again, it's no longer a company where you and your friends are running it. Now you have to answer to the public investors. Is there any sense of pressure from them that you would need to better monetize and therefore partner with say a open AI or anthropic. [00:03:34] S0: I think managed points as in being a company run like friends like that in a long time. We feel we are a highly professional organization. We've had a blue chip investors on board for many years. We will Bailey give for a durable capital have been with us for many years at this point, so we have operated you know, as regrossly and seriously as it gets for as long as I can't remember. Obviously, the constituents will be a little bit different as a public company, but we are well. I don't think we're going to change our views. We're trying to maximize value ten or twenty years out and we'll continue doing that. In terms of data, we have never sold any data. We've never enabled any third party to train their models on our data. We don't have any plans to do that and un less, you know if that changes, but right now that's our sins.
00:03:34 · Luca Ferrari, S3
[00:03:34] S0: I think managed points as in being a company run like friends like that in a long time. We feel we are a highly professional organization. We've had a blue chip investors on board for many years. We will Bailey give for a durable capital have been with us for many years at this point, so we have operated you know, as regrossly and seriously as it gets for as long as I can't remember. Obviously, the constituents will be a little bit different as a public company, but we are well. I don't think we're going to change our views. We're trying to maximize value ten or twenty years out and we'll continue doing that. In terms of data, we have never sold any data. We've never enabled any third party to train their models on our data. We don't have any plans to do that and un less, you know if that changes, but right now that's our sins. [00:04:19] S3: Look, I'm trying to understand that a little bit more too, about the business model. You guys have identified more than a thousand digital businesses in Europe and North America that could be a track of acquisitions over the next few years. That's according to your listing document. It feels like, are you just buying your way to growth and masking perhaps a slowdown and retention. Is that the strategy?