Bending Spoons could run with 20 people, for $100m+ profit per year. Yet Apollo has 800 employees and is likely break-even at best. WHY!??! Because Apollo - like so many other SaaS companies - is stuck in the “Zombie Trap”. What’s the Zombie Trap? - A company raised $ XXX million during COVID/ZIRP - The last round was a unicorn valuation at over 10x rev - Growth slowed, whacked people, got to breakeven - Valuations collapsed - ZoomInfo w/ 10x their rev now has lower market cap than Apollo’s last round SO WHAT THE HELL IS APOLLO SUPPOSED TO DO??? Tim Zheng was so confused by what to do that he stepped down as CEO. I don’t blame him. The pickle Apollo is in is that they literally CAN’T do what they SHOULD do … Which is what Bending Spoons WILL do when they buy this company (and many others like them). BENDING SPOONS PLAYBOOK FOR APOLLO: 1/ Reduce staff from 800 to 20 (yet ship features customers actually want FASTER) 2/ Go entirely PLG, focus on contact data, stop trying to be Clay 3/ Increase pricing sophistication to offset ENT rev collapse 4/ Crank 100+m profit/yr out of a great brand that’s lost its way Once Bending Spoon CEO Luca Ferrari gets on a podcast and explains that he can actually run companies this way, it becomes obvious to the listener that the company should have done this on their own. But they can’t. Why? BECAUSE VC’S WON’T LET THEM. Founders sign up for a system where making $100m of profit per year is so far out of the range of acceptable outcomes that it’s not even a consideration. Instead, Apollo, and other Zombies like them: - Hire new leadership, many from companies than have actually been Spoon’d - Myopically focus on the one company in their space with increasing valuation (in this case, Clay) - Ferociously build to try to create a copycat value proposition (which dilutes their brand and confuses the shit out of customers and prospects) - Aggressively market their “platform”, publicly making claims that they are not what 99.9% of their customers think they are (in this case, a contact data company) - Pray that they will be as lucky as the few and far between who Salesforce acquires (like Qualified or Braze etc etc) Meanwhile, I’m licking my chops. Apollo is the undisputed leader in contact data for the segment we’re going after with and they have completely forgotten they sell contact data. Just look at their site. It’s giving me the opportunity to hit THEIR market with a value prop VERY SIMILAR to the value prop that got them where they are today. Which doesn’t resemble what they’re currently selling. DATA IN '22: ZoomInfo - $20k Apollo - $99/m unlimited per seat DATA IN '27: ZoomInfo - $20k Apollo - $99/m for 4000 credits per seat (shrinking by the month) MoltSets - $27/m unlimited, unlimited seats (Try MoltSets here for free: YOU: Ok Adam, you have cheap data. I’m sure it’s shit! ME: We’ve been rapidly improving our dataset as we hear customer feedback. The biggest complaint were “stale profiles”, or verified/deliverable emails that were the last role... That problem will be mostly solved 11/1, and by Jan 1 we will be refreshing profiles every 3days. The insane thing? Starting Dec 1, we’re going to re-validate all email addresses of 150m global contacts EVERY 7 DAYS. MoltSets will be the highest quality B2B contact database in the world. At $27/mo unlimited. Where does that leave Apollo? You tell me.

In my 20’s, I used to work on Wall Street. People my age now (45) said they were working 70, 80, 90 hours a week for their families…but all their families actually wanted was their presence. They didn’t understand why their families resented how much they worked when they lived in a nice house, and their kids went to private schools. It was just the world we all lived in. We knew nothing else. I decided early in my startup journey that wasn’t going to be me. My co-founders and I have always had a policy of quitting at 5 or 5:30. By that, I mean: > Shut off my laptop > No more work talk > Go home to my family Frequently I’m out even earlier - 3-5, depending on whether I want to do something with the kids. I rarely travel for work and don’t entertain for work. My family life gives me energy for my work. My work gives me energy for my family life. I'm trying to stay not burnt out and excited about this for several decades. Can every founder choose this? Maybe not everybody, but more people have the choice than realize they do. There is great reward that comes from designing a business around the life you want.