Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal

live.euronext.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 121 posts

Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal

#51

Post by v5v3 »

ramon156 wrote: post #42

Bending Spoons strategy can be summarized in the following plan: - Make offers so low that - if anyone were to accept the deal, they're desperate/greedy enough to take it - hike price and limit features - people who do not have the capacity to switch will bear the cost - bleed out remaining customers If it works, it works. They're basically betting against the amount of business depth that exists in the world

>Make offers so low...

Yes, all the company execs at Airtable and the VCs and their lawyers and finance guys and advisors are stupid and were incapable of fielding rival offers...

Businesses tend to sell for their market value at that point in time.

Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal

#52

Post by dbbk »

muragekibicho wrote: post #44

Super silly of me to ask but how does Bending Spoons make money in all of this? Is it the "fire all American devs and save costs with cheaper Italians" schtick or is there something else? I don't see how Airtable makes money on its own.

That goes a long way yes. Most of these products have built up to hundreds or maybe thousands of engineers over the years, and if you can keep it going with just a handful in Italy, that is a serious cost optimisation.

Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal

#53

Post by leejoramo »

alaminopu wrote: post #25

What is the best open source alternatives of Airtable?

Look at Grist.

You maybe justly concerned for it being an open source project that is backed by one small company that sells hosted plans.

The difference is that Grist is a core part of the French Government’s open source web applications La Suite

https://www.getgrist.com/

https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/produits/grist

Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal

#54

Post by listenallyall »

katspaugh wrote: post #17

After they acquired Meetup.com, subscription prices skyrocketed while nothing useful was added to the product. 29€ a month just to host a meetup page with RSVPs.

And yet, with all the promise of vibecoding and AI, nobody has created a clone that undercuts it in price.

Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal

#56

Post by elias_t »

v5v3 wrote: post #37
elias_t wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably they are getting eaten by new AI integrations and the numbers don’t look good. It’s strange, I thought they were in pole position to integrate into vibe coded apps with bolt and co. Maybe be a strategy issue?

It's used by non technical people so not sure AI is the competition. Perhaps Notion and all the project planning apps like Linear, ClickUp, Asana?

> It's used by non technical people so not sure AI is the competition.

I mean yes but most of them are vibe coding apps now

> Perhaps Notion and all the project planning apps like Linear, ClickUp, Asana?

Most probably, but their market share must have free fall for such valuation

Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal

#60

Post by ldayley »

jasode wrote: post #36
colesantiago wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes for almost all software. 'entshittification' in software is pretty much almost a standard. Software and businesses that goes through these stages: Venture Capital, Private Equity, Acquisitions, Ads / Sponsors, Raising Prices due to competition, etc. Always get enshittified.

>This goes for almost all software. 'entshittification' in software It's really every category of commercial activity. Restaurants food quality, cable tv channels, movie sequels, home appliances, airline travel, theme parks, etc. For years, I had a particular local HVAC company do my twice-a-year maintenance on my air conditioner and furnace. I liked the owner and he had a crew of older experienced guys that knew wha…

Private equity firms are buying profitable local businesses all over the US, including HVAC, plumbing, auto techs, storage, etc. So it’s possible that this case of enshittification actually WAS caused private equity in your example.
Post reply on HN