Instead of paying for leads, buy established, profitable media outlets at low multiples (3-5x EBITDA). These brands, like Flying Magazine, generate profit while also serving as a powerful, trusted top-of-funnel engine for your other data or product businesses.

Despite owning multiple related businesses (e.g., in video), Bending Spoons deliberately avoids forcing synergies like cross-selling or bundling. They believe the value lost in organizational agility, ownership, and speed far outweighs the small potential revenue gains. This 'Procter & Gamble for tech' model allows each brand to operate with startup-like autonomy, preserving its unique value.

The firm's playbook involves an immediate, one-time cost reduction at closing to establish a baseline of profitability. This allows them to shift the company's valuation from a revenue multiple to a more stable EBITDA multiple, creating value without disrupting long-term growth initiatives and shocking employees later.

Bending Spoons' M&A strategy came from realizing that creating a startup from scratch (zero-to-one) is heavily luck-dependent. In contrast, scaling an existing business (one-to-N) relies on functional skills like engineering and marketing that can be systematically mastered and applied across acquisitions.

Bending Spoons operates as a tech-focused version of Berkshire Hathaway, acquiring digital businesses like Evernote and AOL with the intent to hold and operate them forever. They use a large, in-house team of technical and product experts to radically transform these assets, funding new acquisitions from their balance sheet rather than operating as a traditional private equity fund that buys to flip.

Warren Buffett's philosophy is "don't build it if you can buy it." More entrepreneurs should adopt this M&A mindset. Acquiring an established but struggling brand like Pier 1 grants you instant, widespread brand recognition that would otherwise take decades and billions to build.

Unlike PE firms that flip companies, Bending Spoons acquires digital businesses to own permanently. Their model focuses on deep operational overhauls—rebuilding software, redesigning UI, and restructuring organizations—rather than making shallow management changes, creating long-term value through operational excellence.

After early failures, Orlando Bravo pioneered software buyouts. This was a contrarian move, as the prevailing view was that these companies were either too old or too risky. This niche focus on making unprofitable software businesses viable became the foundation of his firm's success.

Recent acquisitions of slow-growth public SaaS companies are not just value grabs but turnaround plays. Acquirers believe these companies' distribution can be revitalized by injecting AI-native products, creating a path back to high growth and higher multiples.