<story><title>Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons</title><url>https://evernote.com/blog/evernote-next-move-joining-bending-spoons/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>offtotheraces</author><text>This is going to be a disaster - Bending Spoons is not a good actor:&lt;p&gt;“let’s talk about Bending Spoons’ business model. The basic concept is very simple:&lt;p&gt;- Find a solid app that someone else built and buy it from them (see Splice (acquired from GoPro) and 30 Day Fitness)&lt;p&gt;- Optimize the monetization of said app (by implementing from scratch or fine-tuning existing subscriptions), thereby driving higher lifetime value (LTV)&lt;p&gt;- Take that higher LTV and use it to bid on expensive ad inventory (on Google, Facebook, Apple Search) where you can acquire more users (aka drive more downloads) - i.e. leverage performance marketing for growth&lt;p&gt;- Convert those new downloads to paying users&lt;p&gt;- Massively ramp revenues and cash flow by combining the new users + the better monetization&lt;p&gt;- Use the new cash flow - plus the debt from those lovely Italian banks - to fund the next acquisition&lt;p&gt;- Lather, rinse, repeat&lt;p&gt;There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business model. What differentiates Bending Spoons, though, is how they do it.&lt;p&gt;Remini - Bending Spoons’ new app that the press is gushing over - is $10 a WEEK. And Splice, the app that started it all? That’ll set you back a cool $5&amp;#x2F;week.&lt;p&gt;Does anyone really think it’s appropriate to pay $10 a week for a photo editing app?”&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;open.substack.com&amp;#x2F;pub&amp;#x2F;impassionedmoderate&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;ryan-reynolds-didnt-pay-close-enough?utm_source=direct&amp;amp;r=1ix542&amp;amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;amp;utm_medium=web&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;open.substack.com&amp;#x2F;pub&amp;#x2F;impassionedmoderate&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;ryan-rey...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>paxys</author><text>None of what you wrote makes them sound like a &amp;quot;bad actor&amp;quot;. All of these are &lt;i&gt;good things&lt;/i&gt; for a failing business. Why shouldn&amp;#x27;t a photo editing app be $10&amp;#x2F;week? If you don&amp;#x27;t think you are getting that much value out of it then don&amp;#x27;t subscribe. Yet there is probably a group of power users who will gladly pay that amount. Evernote needs to be catering to them, not the millions of users who will endlessly complain but never spend an actual dollar on their services.</text></comment>
<story><title>Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons</title><url>https://evernote.com/blog/evernote-next-move-joining-bending-spoons/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>offtotheraces</author><text>This is going to be a disaster - Bending Spoons is not a good actor:&lt;p&gt;“let’s talk about Bending Spoons’ business model. The basic concept is very simple:&lt;p&gt;- Find a solid app that someone else built and buy it from them (see Splice (acquired from GoPro) and 30 Day Fitness)&lt;p&gt;- Optimize the monetization of said app (by implementing from scratch or fine-tuning existing subscriptions), thereby driving higher lifetime value (LTV)&lt;p&gt;- Take that higher LTV and use it to bid on expensive ad inventory (on Google, Facebook, Apple Search) where you can acquire more users (aka drive more downloads) - i.e. leverage performance marketing for growth&lt;p&gt;- Convert those new downloads to paying users&lt;p&gt;- Massively ramp revenues and cash flow by combining the new users + the better monetization&lt;p&gt;- Use the new cash flow - plus the debt from those lovely Italian banks - to fund the next acquisition&lt;p&gt;- Lather, rinse, repeat&lt;p&gt;There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business model. What differentiates Bending Spoons, though, is how they do it.&lt;p&gt;Remini - Bending Spoons’ new app that the press is gushing over - is $10 a WEEK. And Splice, the app that started it all? That’ll set you back a cool $5&amp;#x2F;week.&lt;p&gt;Does anyone really think it’s appropriate to pay $10 a week for a photo editing app?”&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;open.substack.com&amp;#x2F;pub&amp;#x2F;impassionedmoderate&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;ryan-reynolds-didnt-pay-close-enough?utm_source=direct&amp;amp;r=1ix542&amp;amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;amp;utm_medium=web&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;open.substack.com&amp;#x2F;pub&amp;#x2F;impassionedmoderate&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;ryan-rey...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nneonneo</author><text>The really key bit is right afterwards:&lt;p&gt;“There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business model… What differentiates Bending Spoons, though, is how they do it.&lt;p&gt;Remini - Bending Spoons’ new app that the press is gushing over - is $10 a WEEK. And Splice, the app that started it all? That’ll set you back a cool $5&amp;#x2F;week.”&lt;p&gt;In short, they buy apps, add aggressive and practically exploitative monetization, and ride the revenue stream until it dries up.</text></comment>