The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:47:26 · Federico Simionato
[00:47:26] S2: Mhmm. Again, that it's very case specific. You don't have a playbook that you then apply to each product. Let's take Evernote as an example. On Evernote, we inherited a monetization structure that was based on basically unlocking advanced features. As a user, you would pay to unlock business cards scanning, for instance, or PDF annotation. This creates a mismatch between the experience of a free user and advanced user. Right? Because you literally have access to a different feature set. The way we approached it instead was let's try to make it so that every user sees the power, the full power of Evernote. And so we literally made many features that were previously paid free. Offline is a big one. Like, offline availability of notes and notebooks used to be a premium feature, and now it's free. Instead, we monetize based on content, so based on how much you have on the product. And so if you want to create a lot, then you pay more. If you don't create much, then you can use it for free. So this this basically aligns the incentives of... I'm an advanced user. I use it hours a day. I create tons of notes. I pay more, and I'm perfectly fine with it. I'm a very casual user. I don't use it much. I have a few notes, so I'm just trying it out. You can try the full product without any constraint and you just like reflect the number of notes that you actually have.
00:48:50 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:48:50] S1: How do you feel about the quite aggressive paywalls? I quite often download consumer apps. I'm using it very simply, but age your faces. Instead of the do three and then you pay more, it's like pay more straight away. It's a very aggressive paywall strategy. How do you feel about how aggressive a paywall strategy should be, and any lessons on that? [00:49:13] S2: The best way to monetize a product is always based on what works on that product. So you just try different setups, and you see what works. It has been the case often where we've made the payroll more visible than in the past just because acquiring products that have already grown and that already have a large user base, then you have more to unlock by monetizing people who are already there. Instead, if you're growing a product, then you might want to be a bit less aggressive and just, like, get people to try more of the product for free because maybe it will improve your k factor. It it would increase the amount of people that they refer, basically, if they have a good... A deeper experience with the product without interruption. It... It's very case specific. [00:49:58] S1: Another element that I also just find fascinating from a behavioral kind of psychology perspective is push notifications. Yep. Do you have any lessons on what works, what doesn't work, and how you'd advise product owners?
00:49:58 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:49:58] S1: Another element that I also just find fascinating from a behavioral kind of psychology perspective is push notifications. Yep. Do you have any lessons on what works, what doesn't work, and how you'd advise product owners? [00:50:10] S2: Yeah. We're not big on push notifications. We have used them in some products differently. So on Evernote, I think we don't use them at all. I mean, we use them for reminders, for people who set a reminder for a note or for calendar events, but we don't, like, use them as a marketing strategy just because we think it would decrease the user experience. People would be pissed about it, and they would turn them off. And so that would reduce the usefulness of the product, So we don't do it. On the other hand, when working on live quiz, the the HQ Trivia clone, push notifications were literally the trigger to use the product. Because, of course, it's happening couple times a a day, always at the same time. But if we don't receive the notification, there are fewer chances that you actually remember to play. And so in that case, it was it was a core part of the experience. [00:50:59] S1: Going back to the structure, when you acquire a new business, a Vimeo, an AOL, what happens then? I know it sounds stupid, but, like, does Luca say, hey, everyone. We're acquiring this. Who wants to work on it? [00:51:13] S2: Mhmm. [00:51:13] S1: Is that how it works?
00:51:13 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:51:13] S1: Is that how it works? [00:51:14] S2: We take into account people's preferences. Like, if somebody comes to me and tells me, I like to work on Vimeo, I... I'm like, that's great. I... It's great to know that some people are passionate about one or the other product. I mean, at the end of the day, I think people are... Perform better when they are working on something they are passionate about. To the extent that it is possible, we always try to make it so people are working on stuff that they care about and they're passionate about. So so we definitely encourage people to tell us. But it's not like we find volunteers to to work on a on a product. It's more about functional leads. So our CTO, Mateo, our cofounder, myself, other people, we have in mind the structure of of the product teams, and we try to see where we can find people that are best suited to work on new acquisitions. [00:52:02] S1: And you're like a Jedi ninja that kind of jumps from new product to new product. [00:52:06] S2: Yeah. Lately, I've I've done that quite a bit. It's a bit uncomfortable because you have to start fresh very often, but it's you learn a lot. You learn both about the specific characteristics of that product, but also about... You you start seeing some patterns about how companies are run and these things. [00:52:25] S1: Do you get nervous? It's a big transition moving from, respectfully, the thirty day fitness to Evernote. That's a big transition. [00:52:33] S2: Yes. [00:52:34] S1: And then from Evernote to fucking Vimeo and AOL.
00:52:34 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:52:34] S1: And then from Evernote to fucking Vimeo and AOL. [00:52:37] S2: Yeah. I remember I was on a plane. We were about to take off. I was in Malpens, I think. I was leaving to California to meet the Evernote team. And I was like, what am I going to tell these people? Like like, they are true professionals. And instead, I'm just a guy with with some startup experience, and what am I going to tell them? And so I lacked a bit of confidence. What I realized is that they are people. It's... I I was intimidated by the fact that many of them had, like, twenty years of experience being a VP at Yahoo or or or or stuff like that. And they are smart professionals, but it's not like they are and they have experience, then it means that you cannot talk to them. You can just have very rational conversation with with with people, and you just, like, try to do your best. [00:53:22] S1: Which quality code base was the best when inheriting it? [00:53:28] S2: I don't dive as deep into the code as my colleagues, so I'm I'm not sure. I heard that the WeTransfer code base was very good. Which was the worst or most difficult to inherit? It doesn't have [00:53:40] S1: to be code based, but just like when you went into it as a product lead Yeah. You're like, oh.
00:53:40 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:53:40] S1: to be code based, but just like when you went into it as a product lead Yeah. You're like, oh. [00:53:45] S2: Well, Evernote, I'm not sure it was bad. I actually don't think it was necessarily bad, but it was complex. Like, just compare WeTransfer to Evernote. WeTransfer, in terms of complexity, could be one feature of Evernote, and Evernote has, like, literally hundreds of features. So, I mean, not... Maybe not the simplest one, but but but it's easier as product surface to conceive and and to and to think about. Evernote is just... Has this long tail of small features, and it's twenty years old. When WeTransfer, if you fail and upload, people are going to be frustrated, but it's not going to be the end of the world. If you lose a note on Evernote, you... We will receive phone calls and, rightfully, like, understandably, it's what should happen. And so it's just critical that you do it well. Not only it's more complex, but it's also more critical, and and you should, like, triple check everything you're doing. So, yeah, it it was difficult. [00:54:39] S1: Do you have horizontal paid marketing machines at Bending Spoons? And what I mean by that is does the marketing sit as a function on top of the product teams and they are a paid marketing engine for WeTransfer, for Evernote, for Vimeo, for AOL, da da da, or do you have individual paid marketing machines for each entity?