Dialogue Impression notes CEO: A mature transformation of note-taking niche

Wen Ching/Sohu It in Silicon Valley reporter lead: about Evernote today and tomorrow-a note app of the chaotic survival. According to the Wall Street Journal, there are only 61 startups in the world that are valued at more than 1 billion dollars a year, and the impression notes (Evernote), founded in 2007, joined the ranks as early as two years ago. It is one of Silicon Valley's most famous efficiency apps and a model for free value-added, and its Russian-American CEO has been a slow business: not advertising, not selling data; After entering China in 2012, they even declared that they were ready to make no money in China for ten years. Today, the number of global users of Evernote software has exceeded 100 million (last year or 60 million), although not profitable, but very strong. In the past year, Evernote even started selling physical items online, 85-dollar socks, 499-dollar scanners and so on, putting a lot of people's jaws out of their eyes ... From the beginning of that record drip notebook app, to last year to try to sell the lifestyle company, and then to flaunt their own work space for you, this is a rich scheming elephant, is groping to undergo a metamorphosis. At the EC4 conference held in the past two days, Evernote announced two blockbuster features designed to improve productivity-the content of the recommendation (context) and the group chat (Work Chat). The former according to the user in the Evernote work, uses the AI algorithm to display the related content dynamically, facilitates everybody convenient reference; The content comes from media and services that collaborate with Evernote, including the Wall Street Journal, Techcrunch,factiva, and so on. The latter when the user does not leave the Evernote application, may let everybody through the IM or the e-mail way, with other users to carry on the convenient sharing, the communication and the collaboration. is also the real-time group chat, is also the AI algorithm, exactly evernote in change what kind of trick? Xiao Bian was fortunate enough to attend a live conversation with CEO Phil Libin at the EC Conference, listening to his shared notebook of troubled times. Note: Right is Evernote CEO Phil libin. Q: You've stressed several times in your keynote speech: As a company, you don't want Evernote to make any decision based on fear. Why are you so upset about the psychology behind the decision-making process? Phil: Because we want Evernote to help you achieve your best results, you've been wondering: what is stopping people from working most efficiently and with quality? And to find the answer to this question, I think it is necessary to understand the psychology behind it: people because of what, make good decisions, bad decisions ... Then we began to reflect on the bad decisions we had made, and then found that it was OK to make short-term decisions based on fear, but if your long-term decisions were based on fear,Then you're in trouble (laughter). Q: There seems to be times when entrepreneurs have to do some philosophical thinking, hehe. Speaking of earning money, do you still have the same business model as it used to be? Will it make a difference in China? Phil: The same as it was, the world is the same, only direct income, in other words, only Evernote users pay us directly, such as the free account upgrade to pay, or open an enterprise account, or in our online shopping mall, this time we make money. We will never take users to make money, our users are not products, our products are products. Q: What is your current income situation in China? Phil: As a company, we're not making a profit. What we've observed is that, no matter which country, as the Evernote enters the area for a longer period of time, per-user income in the area is getting higher, we are very confident about this healthy trend-the longer users use Evernote, the higher the willingness to pay. At present, China has become the second largest market after the United States, the user growth rate of more than the United States; Although per-user income is temporarily less than the United States or Switzerland, but this is related to our access to the Chinese market later. Q: From the record point drop to your workspace, is Evernote moving towards a more commercial role? Phil: Business is not very accurate, we actually want to put the core of Evernote, people's work scene. Every year we receive very consistent feedback; for 70% of users, the main purpose of Evernote is to work, which is not necessarily related to business. For musicians, it may mean music, for painters, it may refer to painting-related things, in short, is the most important work for everyone. In the past we always said to record everything with Evernote, and from now on, we want to focus on our work. Q: What is the difference between today's Evernote compared to a year ago? Phil: Today's Evernote is really a very different company. In terms of size, we have just ushered in the No. 400, Evernote is no longer a small company, of course, we are still trying to maintain a start-up atmosphere, this is indeed a challenge. How do you say that? This scale is very awkward, say big not small not small (laugh). Evernote products are also very different. A year ago, we said that we are lifestyle company, now, we want to return to work, that is the most important thing to the user. Evernote has changed from a simple notebook app to a full workspace; we've only wanted to serve a single user, and today we're building an efficient environment for collaboration-where you can work with anyone to do anything. The context and work chat announced today embody the transformation of Evernote. Q: Cliché, how far is the IPO? 2Years？ 3 years? Phil: More than 2 years. We are not enough to be a great public company for the time being. Before the IPO, Evernote's team pattern needs to be adjusted, some important vacancies to fill up, such as the CFO, I hope a good CFO in the company for at least 1 years after we go to the operation of the listing thing. In addition, we need to be more precise in predicting critical data. Q: What do you think of the tech bubble that has been hotly debated in Silicon Valley? Will it affect Evernote? Phil: First of all I think the metaphor for bubbles is inappropriate because it assumes there are only two states: The bubble is still there and the bubble is broken. I think the current technology circle is still creating a lot of value, but we need to focus more consciously on long-term benefits. I agree with some Silicon Valley people that many startups now have a high rate of burning money. Yes, it's easy to change money over the years, but it's certainly not going to be that easy; We are very clear from the outset, Evernote to do is a can make money, can maintain the thing, not the public good; from the first day of the line, Evernote has today's business model, free and paid version of the same day online. I believe that for startups without this string, the next financing environment should be more difficult; you know, just tell the investors: Let's do this first and then figure out how to make money. Q: You mentioned Evernote harsh (online mall) gave the company some design practices, your products have been very flavor. I wonder what kind of relationship Evernote will have with wearable devices? Can you give me some examples? Phil: We will create the products for all major wearable devices, Evernote's footprint covers Google glass,pebble watches, Apple Watches, and so on. Especially now that the Apple Watches are coming out, wearable equipment is a big step forward for the mainstream. In the past, we build an Android watch on the Evernote, in fact, just serve as I like a taste of the geek, this is a very small group of people. Now, we are doing our best to design a new Evernote for Apple Watches, knowing that its target audience may be 100 million of the world's consumers. As for wearable equipment on the Evernote will be rendered in what form? I think the main is to optimize the collaboration between multiple devices. For example, I might see a notice of an invitation to a meeting on my watch, when I took out my phone and Evernote already knew I had just seen the watch and would automatically show the meeting outline in the app. For example, a phone came in and I wanted to find information about this contact in Evernote. At this point, if Evernote can detect that I'm wearing a headset and I've answered the phone, it will automatically display the contact's conte on my phone screen.XT, etcetera.