| ▲ | Bending Spoons acquires Vimeo for $1.38B(investors.vimeo.com) |
| 66 points by nixy 3 days ago | 25 comments |
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| ▲ | e98cuenc 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Everybody loves to hate BendingSpoon, but there is a lesson here. They consistently rewrite the code of their acquisitions with a tiny team, fire everybody and are able to maintain and improve the product. They basically skip everything but engineers, and they are kept at a minimum. Feedback from users is the products they take over 1) become more expensive, 2) they ship features waaaay faster. It looks like next generation private equity, and my guess is more houses will start copying them. |
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| ▲ | gbalduzzi 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Also, their core development team is in Italy and they are considered by many the best company in the IT space in Italy. What it means is that they have the top Italian talent, they pay them a very good italian salary that is still way lower than an american one. So basically they have very capable people working on their engineering, at a fraction of the cost of the original staff. | | |
| ▲ | albybisy 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Also, their core development team is in Italy and they are considered by many the best company in the IT space in Italy. That’s just PR to get students to apply and pay them peanuts.
History shows that they acquire businesses, make them worst and destroy them. |
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| ▲ | FinnLobsien 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think that’s always the thing with any of these things. The companies private equity or Bending Spoons acquire are frequently inefficient, bloated and not the best-run businesses. But its basically an admission that the business is in its extraction phase and will no longer innovate. Relevant quote: Private Equity is engaged in buying artisanal semi-businesses, turning them into businesses, propping up the numbers while destroying them —then, hopefully, destroying itself. | |
| ▲ | izacus 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you provide proof that products ship features faster after they lay off their teams? | |
| ▲ | N19PEDL2 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It looks like next generation private equity, and my guess is more houses will start copying them. Isn't this the same that Broadcom does on a larger scale? | |
| ▲ | magarnicle 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As a Vimeo OTT customer, this is producing mixed emotions. | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >They consistently rewrite the code of their acquisitions with a tiny team, fire everybody and are able to maintain and improve the product. "improve" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Evernote and meetup are in worse states post BS. Shipping features and shipping value is very different in this landscape. >It looks like next generation private equity, and my guess is more houses will start copying them. Yes, that's why I hate it. | |
| ▲ | stevenhubertron 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Citation needed for “improve the product” |
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| ▲ | nhubbard 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Oh no, this is undoubtedly going to be terrible for the companies that built their OTT platforms on Vimeo. E.g. Dropout.tv. |
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| ▲ | j45 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Could you help me understand what Vimeo helps with that's specifically helpful with OTT? | | |
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| ▲ | FinnLobsien 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Bending Spoons has recently been buying aging SaaS companies that have established PMF and customers and decent brands (Evernote, Komoot, WeTransfer, Meetup). I guess it's mostly a private equity play—usually after being acquired by BS, prices go up, paywalls go everywhere, companies get "more efficient" (aka layoffs) and the product stops evolving. I wish there was a better outcome for beloved brands with good products that won't experience any more hypergrowth. |
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| ▲ | dude250711 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I will transfer my remaining domains from Gandi this month. In case anyone else needed a reminder. | | | |
| ▲ | GoToRO 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | For Meetup at least the product did evolved after it got aquired. | | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac a day ago | parent [-] | | From my perspective, it "evolved" to force you to have an account, to aggressively kick off organizers who can't pay for the rising prices of posting, and the search algorithm got worse. I could barely find meetups I knew existed with a direct query. |
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| ▲ | tracerbulletx 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "In September 2022, Bending Spoons acquired FiLMiC[13] and converted its video-recording app FiLMiC Pro to a subscription revenue model.[14] In December 2023, the original FiLMiC team were laid off, and development of FiLMiC Pro was continued in-house by Bending Spoons.[15] In November 2022, Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Evernote.[16] The acquisition was concluded in January 2023.[17] In July 2023, Evernote laid off all of its existing staff." Oh great. |
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| ▲ | BoredPositron 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That's a way higher evaluation than I thought after their pivot. I remember in 2012 when I had hope they would succeed as a YouTube competitor. Their staff videos were insanely funny. Sad to see I end like this. |
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| ▲ | johnnyanmac a day ago | parent [-] | | Funny that I see this while searching for this story here: https://ymcinema.com/2022/03/17/vimeo-we-are-a-b2b-solution-... It makes sense. Without ad revenue or premium subscriptions, there's no viable way to pay for creators in the say way a proper "indie youtube". In addition, many creators who post on Vimeo very much did not want their content to be publicly viewable. That was a feature. |
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| ▲ | alwahi 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| oh the monsters that killed evernote |
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| ▲ | ThrowawayTestr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Oh sweet, does this mean my worthless VEMO is worth something now? |
