Impression Notes CEO: Changing the world is the original intention of all entrepreneurial innovation

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Newspaper reporter Huang Shanghai Report

Phil Libin, chief executive of Evernote, one of the most innovative companies in the world, Evernote not only to be a century-old company, but to be a pioneering company for a century – ready to innovate and make quick decisions.

The world's largest cloud-notes company, founded in 2007, is the world's most popular notebook software aimed at "knowledge-based workers" worldwide. At present, the total number of users of Evernote company's applications has exceeded 100 million, and financing 250 million U.S. dollars.

The company is also the third venture of Phil Libin, a representative of the new Silicon Valley business leader. "For the third time, we thought we were going to set up a company that we wanted to keep running, to do something really classic enough." "Phil Libin told me in an interview with this newspaper:" If you want something to be your life's work, then it's a road that goes black. ”

Despite three of startups, Phil Libin is still full of energy and enthusiasm. He tried to convince employees that what they were doing was a world-changing thing. Creating the products It loves is likely to be echoed by 100 million of people around the world. "Only in this way, employees will feel that each day's work is meaningful, the company can always maintain the entrepreneurial atmosphere." ”

In today's tech companies, no one seems to be more meritocratic than Phil Libin. He advocates that internal managers recruit better subordinates than themselves, and then fully authorize them to do what they are interested in. And Phil Libin himself, more like a resource integrator, the staff of outstanding ideas in tandem together to form new products or technologies.

The creator of the cloud Notes Empire is woven a new world on the cloud.

Reference and Promotion

"21st century": At present, the main business model of Evernote is free for ordinary users, premium users charge. Do you think this is a sustainable business model? Do you think about developing a new business model in the future?

Phil Libin: At present, our company's revenue from the three categories, one is the premium version of the account of the paid income, the second is the corporate version of the account revenue, the third category is the hardware product sales. I hope that these three items will eventually make up one-third of the income.

I like this pattern very much, because it is very direct. Many companies adopt indirect business models that do not derive revenue from users, but rather generate income through advertising and federated partners. Doing so will increase the difficulty of making money because it means we have to serve two kinds of clients-software users and advertisers-and their interests are completely different. This gives us no idea where to focus, and thus increases the complexity of the pattern.

Thus, Evernote's business model is simpler than other businesses. We reject any other business model, reject AD push and large data, reject data mining and data analysis. We want to bring users their favorite product experience and not do anything that the user doesn't want us to do. So Evernote will only charge users and not commercialize user information. In fact, it's not easy to focus on the user experience.

"21st century": Evernote has always been interested in hardware or solid products, so why would the company want to enter the hardware category? In this field, how does the company position the product?

Phil Libin: The original purpose of our hardware is to hope that all the products that the company launches, whether it be software products or others, can make users work and learn more efficiently. The user of impression note is "knowledge worker", these mental workers pursue joyful, efficient, convenient work way. Our main task is to serve them. To achieve the integration of digital products and physical products, integration of software and hardware, will further improve user efficiency.

At present, these intelligent products can be divided into digital hardware and life hardware two major categories of 6 category, nearly 30 single products. The Chinese market includes a JOT T Bluetooth stylus that can be written on the ipad and a ScanSnap wireless scanner that scans and archives paper files, as well as storage cups, backpacks, wallets, notebooks, etc.

At present, our hardware product designers all over the world, we will work with partners to design these products. We design, manufacture and sell these products in many parts of the world, including the United States, China, Japan and Europe.

We have only recently been online hardware products in China, because we can not do faster. Because we have to set up local warehousing, logistics and customer service. Previously, hardware products from Japan and other fields were mailed directly from the United States.

"21st century": Are you worried about Evernote's business model being plagiarized by other companies?

Phil Libin: I don't think plagiarism or reference is a big problem. We are happy to see others copy good ideas from us, and we will also learn from other people's experiences. We will not think of our lessons or learning as a competition, but more as a kind of mutual promotion.

I have also been inspired by a lot of Chinese companies, such as Millet, which has been able to turn from zero to the size of a company in four years, and I'm impressed. So we learn more from other companies than we do with others.

Trial and error and innovation

"21st century": what is the innovation mechanism within the company or the innovation methodology?

Phil Libin: In Evernote, new ideas actually arise every moment. These new ideas are important to us and will come out at any time, but the real challenge is how we can identify these ideas, determine what needs to be achieved, and which should be shelved on a temporary basis. This part of the work is really very difficult.

Once we are sure that we are going to implement a new project, we will do our best to achieve new ideas. We will have a product update every Friday, so users will see that the version is constantly improving. The company's rule is to devote 80% of its energy and resources to improving the original product, and another 20% of the effort to achieve new product or category expansion.

"21st century": How do you identify and implement those priorities in many new ideas?

Phil Libin: When we make this part of the decision, it's more about how the new idea will affect the world. We want to be able to influence people around us, change the world, change people's lives, and not just think about how much revenue the new product will bring to us, but how many more users. This is a very important factor when we are sifting through innovative ideas.

For example, now a lot of companies are starting to look at smart hardware and wearable devices, which gives me a great feeling that technology companies should be able to make real products. These physical products have their color, material, but also a human-rich design. In the past, many internet companies have overlooked this and they are just studying how software should be used. But I hope that despite our ability to design hardware products, we can provide users with tangible products in the real world. We may also be able to enter wearable equipment in the future, provided we have the ability to design and manufacture good physical products.

21st Century: What are the challenges and opportunities for you and your company to thrive in the mobile internet?

Phil Libin: I think there is a very big difference between the PC end and the mobile end of the product design. Many people have made a mistake, and they think the difference between PC and mobile end is the size of the screen. But actually I think the size of the screen is not the main problem, but more importantly, the time people spend on different devices. On the PC side, for example, people use Microsoft and Office software for about two hours, but on the phone, people tend to spend only two or three minutes at a time. So we designed the PC software for two hours of usage time, while the app was designed for two minutes of usage time.

For wearable devices, such as glasses and watches, people use only two seconds each time. Therefore, in the design of intelligent hardware, the key is whether we can develop a two seconds per use, the use of several times a day of related applications. This can be said to be a very big revolution in the field of design. I hope we have the ability in the future.

Resource Integrator

"21st century": in the fast-changing Internet industry, what is your own management style?

Phil Libin: One of our partners is 3M, which has a history of more than 100 years, but is still a very innovative company. 3M CEO of a company over 50 years, he has three words of the management motto, I think very reasonable-first, please the best people; second, let them do what they want to do, and third, do not punish them.

For me, I'm not the one who can bring the most ideas, the company has a lot of people smarter than me, they can bring more and better ideas. But what I am best at is to sum up and integrate many ideas so as to burst into new ideas. For example, one person just mentioned an idea that I could combine with an idea two years ago to become a better idea. Most of the time, I am like a magazine editor, good at integrating different content.

21st century: Does that mean that most of the time you are willing to authorize subordinates to do what they are interested in?

Phil Libin: I try to do this, but it's not easy. We have 11 offices around the world, some of which require more "self-control" and administrative authority. In the face of these, my principle is that you need to use your performance to prove that you are doing the best or independently, rather than from my perspective to actively authorize you. Once I have enough confidence in the ability of the team, I will give my employees more authority and let them deal with more things.

On this basis, we have a guideline for recruiting, and that is to recruit better people than you. When supervisors or leaders feel that subordinates are better than themselves and are more professional in a particular field, they will trust subordinates more and give this part of the task to their subordinates to complete. Therefore, we need to let candidates receive this information in the recruitment, so that the best talent to join our company.

"21st century": you have always mentioned that Evernote to be a century-old start-up company. So as the company grows larger and more mature, how can you ensure that there is a continuous entrepreneurial atmosphere within?

Phil Libin: First of all, we have to ask the best people, because working with the best people can create this culture. Second, we need to make these people feel that their daily work is meaningful and can change the world. Although they may be only a small part of the change, but they are really changing the world.

Some companies lose their entrepreneurial culture, their employees feel that every day does not know what to do for the world, they are only mechanical to complete the task assigned by the boss. And we need to convince employees that they can help the world and that they can change in the right direction every day.