So Evernote is doing $18M a year on 750K paid users with 20 million free users. It has just turned profitable - company of the year?
Let's not forget they've taken nearly $100M of investment at a nearly billion dollar valuation. Perhaps this is my east coast conservatism, but in the average case I just can't see how this works out well for the investors.
To get a respectable exit of perhaps $4B in a few years they would have to get their revenue up to something closer to $200M/year assuming you gave them a generous valuation on 20x revenue and completely neglect profitability. Given that Evernote primarily makes money from paid users they will need to dramatically improve conversion, or somehow figure how to get 10x more users. 200 million users strikes me as unlikely, and doubling conversion while also getting 100 million users does too. It's not to say it can't happen, but I just don't see it for a paid consumer service.
Not only are they currently growing quickly, their rate of growth is increasing.
They grew from ~2M at the start of 2010 to ~6M at the start of 2011 to ~20M at the end of 2011[1]. Growth in paid customer looks to be similar.
In September they stated they are getting 40,000 new users a day[2].
200 million users strikes me as unlikely, and doubling conversion while also getting 100 million users does too. It's not to say it can't happen, but I just don't see it for a paid consumer service.
Why do you think this? The market of "everyone who has a smartphone and needs to remember things" seems pretty large to me.
I think a big part of the "company of the year" bit is because they've done something most people thought wasn't possible-- build a big business charging consumers. It's refreshing!
I don't know much about their business, but I'm guessing they are sacrificing a lot of revenue/profit for growth.
They could probably double their conversion by slowly dialing down the awesomeness of the free version in favor of the paid version. Could they do advertising/leadgen to their massive free audience? I'm skeptical, but it's a big/untapped asset. Is the data asset interesting? You never know.
They are clearly onto something-- I saw a comment here was someone said, "it's as important to me as email."
Ha, I sent Phil an email last week congratulating him on making one of my favorite products of all time. Turns out that might not be such a special email to him, but as I said, I'm thinking of going premium, not because I need to, but because it's just such an obscenely good product.
The fact that they've got the database open for nevernote[1] is also freakin' incredible, as it means I'm synced across android/windows/Linux seamlessly.
I looked at Evernote a couple of times and it just seemed like overkill for my needs. But a couple of months ago I got one of those tiny portable Fujitsu Scansnap duplex scanners and started scanning and shredding every scrap of paper that passes my way. Now I get it.
I have no idea what options there are for a non-iOS user, but ...
There's an excellent iOS app called TurboScan. It's fantastic. Take a picture of your receipts and it'll convert the image to low file size, but high-quality, PDFs. You can then send those PDFs to your Evernote email and have them stored neatly in a notebook.
It's a fantastic solution for portable document scanning. And with the iPhone 4s camera being so improved over its predecessors, it makes great PDFs of receipts.
I wish I could do that, but unfortunately I just can't bring myself to trust their security. I use Evernote for my classes because I use a Asus EeeNote tablet that syncs things to Evernote exclusively, but there are so many things I can't trust in the cloud. If Evernote offered a "host it yourself" option that worked with existing Evernote clients, I'd be all over it.
Yep, great concept. You can do this without evernote, and you can do this with apps that do a much better job of allowing you to get stuff out. Evernote did not create the ability to do this. You are very confused.
A good example of solving a real problem people have, definitely a good approach. I'm an evernote user, I like it, but I see many possibilities for improving UI and features, it's worth trying IMHO.
I'd be very curious to hear more about how exactly people are using Evernote in their day-to-day lives. I installed it on my laptop and phone a year or two ago but I could never really figure out a use for it.
Congrats to Evernote. Evernote is my most used piece of software on every device I own (desktop/laptop/tablet/IPhone). With a Scansnap scanner it really shines. I have been a paying user for 2 years and just paid for my third year. I have also bought accounts for most of my family as gifts and got them hooked too. My parents did not really get it until I got them a Scansnap scanner. It is a indispensable piece of software that makes me much more productive at work. I have quick access to any medical paper I have read in the past two years wherever I have my phone or access to a computer. I have tried competing products like Springpad but they did not work as well across every platform I use. The Clip to Evernote app for Chrome is awesome for Internet based research. Keep up the good work Evernote team.
Congratulations to the Evernote team! A great product that I use all the time. Glad to see them being recognized. I don't even use any of the premium features/expanded limits but I still pay for it because it's just that good.
I would gladly pay four times the amount I pay now for their service. It's one of those things that has integrated itself so much into my life that I don't know what I'd replace it with if I ever had to.
I have to ask, I suppose I could just go try it again, but I'll ask. Has Evernote changed significantly over the last year+ or so? I signed up for Evernote some time ago, and while I enjoyed the concept it was clunky and kind of ugly and I was overall just indifferent to the product.
I tried Springpad some time after quitting Evernote and found it to be more fluid and easier to use. So, has there been significant changes to Evernote? Or, is it largely the same and likely just a preference issue for me?
The phone apps are pretty good (I use the iOS app on an iPhone 4, and the Android app on a Galaxy and Transformer), but the desktop apps still needs improvement (on Windows anyway).
What's interesting is that many people forget that Evernote is also a powerful cloud plattform with a solid API. The ability to save all your notes in a standardized way in the Cloud and then install individual apps for filtering, processing, or managing them has huge potential.
I think we've only seen the beginning of where they'll go. In comparison to Dropbox mostly because Evernote as a whole is a bit more difficult to grasp.
I was impressed by their decision to drop .NET and go C++ on MS. I use the product daily and have for the last 13 months. It's as important to me as email.
Congratulations Evernote! I remember being nervous about the leap from release 2 to a cloud integrated offering a few years ago, but that was what made Evernote something that dramatically changed the way I work. It also brought together my Mac, office PC, work BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPad together like I have never seen. I'm a paying customer and I recommend it to everyone.
[+] [-] hemancuso|14 years ago|reply
Let's not forget they've taken nearly $100M of investment at a nearly billion dollar valuation. Perhaps this is my east coast conservatism, but in the average case I just can't see how this works out well for the investors.
To get a respectable exit of perhaps $4B in a few years they would have to get their revenue up to something closer to $200M/year assuming you gave them a generous valuation on 20x revenue and completely neglect profitability. Given that Evernote primarily makes money from paid users they will need to dramatically improve conversion, or somehow figure how to get 10x more users. 200 million users strikes me as unlikely, and doubling conversion while also getting 100 million users does too. It's not to say it can't happen, but I just don't see it for a paid consumer service.
[+] [-] nl|14 years ago|reply
Not only are they currently growing quickly, their rate of growth is increasing.
They grew from ~2M at the start of 2010 to ~6M at the start of 2011 to ~20M at the end of 2011[1]. Growth in paid customer looks to be similar.
In September they stated they are getting 40,000 new users a day[2].
200 million users strikes me as unlikely, and doubling conversion while also getting 100 million users does too. It's not to say it can't happen, but I just don't see it for a paid consumer service.
Why do you think this? The market of "everyone who has a smartphone and needs to remember things" seems pretty large to me.
[1] http://blog.evernote.com/2011/01/04/evernote-2010-a-year-in-...
[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/09/us-evernote-idUSTR...
[+] [-] webwright|14 years ago|reply
I don't know much about their business, but I'm guessing they are sacrificing a lot of revenue/profit for growth.
They could probably double their conversion by slowly dialing down the awesomeness of the free version in favor of the paid version. Could they do advertising/leadgen to their massive free audience? I'm skeptical, but it's a big/untapped asset. Is the data asset interesting? You never know.
They are clearly onto something-- I saw a comment here was someone said, "it's as important to me as email."
[+] [-] jpdoctor|14 years ago|reply
The fact that this is a fashionable valuation tells me everything I need to know about the market.
[+] [-] lupatus|14 years ago|reply
How exactly is this business model profitable for them?
[+] [-] alexholehouse|14 years ago|reply
The fact that they've got the database open for nevernote[1] is also freakin' incredible, as it means I'm synced across android/windows/Linux seamlessly.
http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/ (now called nixnotes maybe?)
[+] [-] GiraffeNecktie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rumblestrut|14 years ago|reply
There's an excellent iOS app called TurboScan. It's fantastic. Take a picture of your receipts and it'll convert the image to low file size, but high-quality, PDFs. You can then send those PDFs to your Evernote email and have them stored neatly in a notebook.
It's a fantastic solution for portable document scanning. And with the iPhone 4s camera being so improved over its predecessors, it makes great PDFs of receipts.
[+] [-] freehunter|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damptrousers|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antirez|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmichnikov|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uslic001|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tdfx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmassie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] libraryatnight|14 years ago|reply
I tried Springpad some time after quitting Evernote and found it to be more fluid and easier to use. So, has there been significant changes to Evernote? Or, is it largely the same and likely just a preference issue for me?
[+] [-] nl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] damptrousers|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carldall|14 years ago|reply
What's interesting is that many people forget that Evernote is also a powerful cloud plattform with a solid API. The ability to save all your notes in a standardized way in the Cloud and then install individual apps for filtering, processing, or managing them has huge potential.
I think we've only seen the beginning of where they'll go. In comparison to Dropbox mostly because Evernote as a whole is a bit more difficult to grasp.
[+] [-] Joss451|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dade_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hopeless|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Djehngo|14 years ago|reply
"Evernote didn't need it because the company became profitable early in 2011"
[+] [-] rudiger|14 years ago|reply