Some of this story was pulled from my previous story about Bending Spoons.
Corrections: I updated it post-publish with more info on how to leave Airtable. Added info about Filmic layoffs and comments from Airtable pro Ashley from Systems Over Stress (August 4)
Airtable was overdue for an exit. They were founded in 2012. Fourteen years is a long time in the venture world. Most exits happen in ten years or less. Anytime you use a venture or private-equity backed application, the clock is ticking on that borrowed time and, for Airtable, that time is up today. The death brigade known as Bending Spoons has acquired them for $1.3B.
Why is this the end of Airtable? Because of what Bending Spoons does to companies. Price hikes. Mass layoffs. Degraded products. Reduced service. Their portfolio is a graveyard of apps you used to use.
Bending Spoons is often mislabeled as "tech" or as "SaaS" because their founders are four hip, young Italian dudes who did, at one point, make software. They launched as an acquisitions company after their own VC-backed startup failed thirteen years ago. A classic pattern. Can't hack it as a tech founder? Become an investor! What they mostly do now is buy companies and hack them to bits. In the last few years, they've acquired Evernote, Harvest, Vimeo, StreamYard, WeTransfer, Meetup, Brightcove and EventBrite. Post-acquisition, Bending Spoons enacts big layoffs and cuts down the feature set particularly on free plans—very similar to the private equity playbook. The only difference is that they tend to hold the companies instead of selling them off (but they're also only a decade old so we'll see if that stays true).
They went public a few weeks ago and have more cash then ever to buy up more tech from founders and VCs ready to walk away. Must eat more software nom nom nom.
Bending Spoons' MO is widely known in the tech industry. The comments on their LinkedIn post announcing their Airtable deal are pretty much all like this:
If your business runs on Airtable or worse, if your business IS Airtable, you need to make your own exit plan. You have about two to three months to do that because the BS boys make changes fast. As Elia Alberti wrote on LinkedIn, they laid off 75% of WeTransfer within two months of acquiring them. It was about seven months for Evernote. Bending Spoons laid off "almost everyone at Vimeo" at the beginning of this year after buying them in November. And they canned the ENTIRE TEAM from Filmic a year later, including the founder and CEO.
To export your data, go to any database, select the main view of that data and hit "download CSV." You can also automate export if you have a lot of databases using a tool like Make or Zapier. I would be careful with your personal and customer data via these AI tools because the security vulnerabilities are mounting. If you have less than 30 databases, just download 'em manually. It only takes a few minutes.
I would also take this as a warning that any apps you are fully dependent on could go belly up at any moment. It blows my mind when entrepreneurs hinge their entire business off someone else's application being a "HoneyBook expert" or a "Webflow designer." Don't do that anymore. Stay tech agnostic.
Many people repeatedly point out that my takes are cynical and pessimistic about tech. Yes, I worked in tech for a long time. I know a lot about how venture capitalists and tech founders operate. And I've known a lot of these players for decades. That said, some small business owners who operate on Airtable have more optimistic views than I do. Ashley who runs Systems Over Stress wrote on Threads, "To my clients who use Airtable: don’t freak out. There’s no need to jump ship because of a VC investment. Go on about your day. If they announce actual, imminent feature changes that affect your business or price hikes that make it a no longer financially viable option for the value it provides your business, we’ll assess."
This really is one of the worst possible exits for Airtable when it comes to what small business owners need. Not all exits are bad but they are often bad and this one is a death sentence. I will reiterate that I do think you need an exit plan. That doesn't mean you have to exit immediately but Bending Spoons is bad news. This isn't a normal acquisition, nor is it a VC investment. It's a private equity buyout from a firm with a track record of gutting companies.
Goodbye to Airtable. We believed in you, but you sold us out to the startup serial killers. Enjoy your penthouses while they last.
