The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:54:39 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[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? [00:54:57] S2: It's generally individual. You can think of of the function versus team as a matrix. Right? Each person belongs both to a function and the team. So I'm a product manager inside the Evernote team, for instance. So I'm inside the product function inside the Evernote team. And so there are people who are inside the growth and marketing function that work on Remedy, for instance. Almost all people are... Who do this are deployed inside business units. [00:55:22] S1: In terms of their actual location, how do you think about effectiveness of remote in product teams?
00:55:22 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:55:22] S1: In terms of their actual location, how do you think about effectiveness of remote in product teams? [00:55:28] S2: Mhmm. I don't have a strong opinion on it. Meaning that, one, I see that some of our best contributors work remotely or or almost only remotely. And it... It's almost as if having the ability to craft an environment where you are almost cocooned inside your own, like, habits and environment. You can just, like, deliver your best work without distractions. Probably for me, I'm most effective when I'm at the office, but I do love having the flexibility to be able to, I don't know, meet my parents for a long weekend and just work from from their place. I don't think that that there's a clear winner between remote and in person. I think hybrid is is a very good mix of both. When you when you need to to attract this level of talent, it's an extra requirement to have to ask them, you should also be physically in Milan. If it's not necessary, you just drop it. It's it's a it's a false requirement. You know? [00:56:25] S1: You work with American teams that you often inherit [00:56:28] S2: Mhmm. [00:56:28] S1: And European teams that you sit with day to day. How do they differ in terms of work ethic, psychology, mentality?
00:56:28 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:56:28] S1: And European teams that you sit with day to day. How do they differ in terms of work ethic, psychology, mentality? [00:56:36] S2: Honestly, I don't see that that big of a difference to the least. No. It's not like I spot a trend in how, I don't know, the WeTransfer team versus the Evernote team, just to name two that I worked very closely with. WeTransfer was based mostly in in Amsterdam, some people in London too, Evernote in The US, mostly in the Valley. I don't see a a direct difference in culture. [00:57:00] S1: Was the StreamYard acquisition successful? [00:57:03] S2: Yes. I I mean, I'm thinking about ways it it could be defined as not successful, but none come to mind. It was a success financially speaking. We were able to increase revenue a lot. It was a success in terms of how much we were able to improve the product. Yeah. I would say it's definitely a success. [00:57:21] S1: Dude, I wanna do a quick fire round with you. I say a short statement. You give me your immediate thoughts. Which company has Bending Spoons not acquired that you would most like to acquire because it would be great to work on? [00:57:34] S2: I mean, I don't want to sound arrogant, but I think I would love to work on Google. It it would be Why? It's just one of the best product in his in his [00:57:44] S1: Google Search?
00:57:44 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[00:57:44] S1: Google Search? [00:57:45] S2: Google Search. But in general, the Google eco... Ecosystem. Like, they just have so much surface, so so much intellectually stimulating stuff that you could work on. I I... One of my favorite products is Google Maps just because of how useful it is every day. You know? And and just even working on Google Maps will be will be great. Just as as my, like, literally my personal taste, it would be great. But YouTube, Android, Google Search, all the AI stuff that they're doing, it's just like theme park world for four RPM, I think. [00:58:15] S1: What is the most non obvious app on your home screen that you love? [00:58:21] S2: Let's check. [00:58:21] S1: Yeah. Let's do it. [00:58:23] S2: Polytopia. Polytopia. It's it's it's a it's a mobile game. And I actually discovered it because apparently Elon Musk is a big Polytopia player. It's a turn based strategy. It looks like civilization, the game, but it's mobile. It's a bit simpler. When you're... When when you have fifteen minutes, you just play a match there. It's nice. Another one is Napper. Now Napper is a... So I I had a baby in April, and Napper is the app in which I log every time we feed her, every time she takes a nap. So... Yeah. And it's good at predictions too. It it literally is able to tell you when she's going to fall asleep with a... An accuracy of minutes. [00:59:03] S1: That feels like a Bending Spoons company. [00:59:06] S2: Yeah. Do you know what It might be. Yeah.
00:59:06 · Federico Simionato, Harry Stebbings
[00:59:06] S2: Yeah. Do you know what It might be. Yeah. [00:59:08] S1: Yeah. Tough retention. The retention there is like, fuck it. They're four years old. They don't nap anymore. [00:59:14] S2: Depends on how many babies you have, but... [00:59:15] S1: Yeah. That is true. But you're gonna get some churn in between dates. Yeah. Yeah. What is the most non obvious skill that a PM needs to be successful? [00:59:24] S2: I think great PMs are entrepreneurs at heart, at least. Like, people who can come up with valuable ideas, find a way to implement those ideas well, focus on what matters, meaning that the idea needs to be relevant for a goal. Being successful financially is one, but also, like, doing stuff that goes viral and gets a lot of coverage. I mean, it depends on the goal, but you need to be very focused on what matters. The best entrepreneurs are great. Creative people are coming up with ideas. Designers are thinking what the UX should look like. Project managers that get the team to ship fast, and and and they ship fast with the team. So I think I think being an entrepreneurial is is a hell of a skill for a PM. [01:00:06] S1: Replit or Lovable? You can only choose one. [01:00:09] S2: I don't know. I think our teams use Lovable more than Replit. I personally use Replit more than Lovable, though. Why? I prefer the UX. It's just that. [01:00:20] S1: Claude code [01:00:21] S2: Mhmm. [01:00:22] S1: Or cursor?
01:00:22 · Harry Stebbings, Federico Simionato
[01:00:22] S1: Or cursor? [01:00:23] S2: So I I tweeted about the AOL acquisition, and the tweet went viral. And I noticed randomly a few large accounts followed me. It's not like I I I saw all of the followers, and I went through the list, and I didn't have time to to to do it. And so I said, let's see if I can rank my followers by how large their accounts are. But there's no tool that does that. And so I was like, yeah, let's see if I can build a little tool to do that. [01:00:51] S1: I paid a lot of money for this if you... Is it... No. Seriously, do you have that? [01:00:54] S2: I have it. It doesn't work super well, but it works. I built it with cursor initially, and then it didn't work. And then I built it with Cloud Code. And it didn't one shot it, but it... I I saw that it was improving the things that were broken faster, and so I went with Cloud Code in the end. [01:01:10] S1: Wow. Love that. Which wins ultimately? [01:01:13] S2: I think at the end of the day, what you want to do is to have the preview on the right and the chat on the left or vice versa. But but but I think the code will become irrelevant. But I'm biased. I'm a PM, so I I care about the the prompt and and the result. But I think that, ultimately, what you want to do is to deliver a great UX by giving the right commands. So I think that the clot code is the way to go, but I think that cursor is a better UX today when manually looking at code and knowing the code still matters a lot. [01:01:46] S1: Seven and a half years at Bending Spoons. [01:01:48] S2: Mhmm.