Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel • Hacker News Board

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#211

Post by codesushi42 » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

danjac wrote: post #182

codesushi42 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failure is that start up founders and investors fail to recognize that revenue is your KPI to optimize for in the long run, with a goal of making a profit in the not so distant future. Business is not a social network, and success isn't measured by how many friends/users/downloads you have. Money is the bottom line. Of course if you give something away for free or sell it cheap enough at a loss, you'll get a lot…

What if your business model were to get a huge investment from some rich friends, give away free tacos, put all the other taco stands in your town out of business, become a taco stand monopoly, and then charge for tacos at any price you want?

I see what you're getting at, and that's the logic some VCs seem to be using. But rarely does it ever work, because you'll need to start charging sooner than later, even at a loss. And once you do, competition will show up.

See Uber vs Lyft.

You'd be better off investing in a real business with a real revenue plan. Still, yes, your model works in an environment where collusion can take place. Which is why collusion and the VC aristocracy is so damaging.

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#212

Post by joelrunyon » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

Notion.so

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#213

Post by lloydde » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #165

The main problem with Evernote seems to be that their total-available-market is way too small to justify their valuation and expenses. It's core success is as a note-taking app - how big is the market for that really? They are competing against free alternatives like Emacs-org-mode, Apple Notes, and Google Keep. Sure, they can carve out a niche for themselves as a premium multi-device cloud-based no-ads app. But a $1…

I suspect free Microsoft OneNote continuing to improve and it becoming available on macOS and mobile took some of EverNotes marketshare. https://www.onenote.com/

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#214

Post by dirtyaura » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #165

The main problem with Evernote seems to be that their total-available-market is way too small to justify their valuation and expenses. It's core success is as a note-taking app - how big is the market for that really? They are competing against free alternatives like Emacs-org-mode, Apple Notes, and Google Keep. Sure, they can carve out a niche for themselves as a premium multi-device cloud-based no-ads app. But a $1…

Why wouldn’t ”note taking on steroids” be worth $1B? It is useful for any information work, and most of the higher income jobs are essentially or at least partly information work.

And if they are currently making close to $100M in annual revenues, then $1B valuation doesn’t seem far off.

Lock-in effect is quite substantial after you have a couple of years of tagged information.

As a user, I just wish they would have a smoother implementation of their current product-offering.

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#215

Post by williamchia » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #207

woofie11 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they idea was to pick up the pieces when Slack implodes. Most of these businesses, looking for 10x growth, do so at some point. gitlab and bitbucket ain't github, but as github started burning, they started picking up steam. github sold for $7.5 billion. If they can get 1% of that value, that's still $75 million. If they can do so on the cheap, maintaining control, that's not a bad return. I doubt something l…

I'm not sure if you're trying to say that GitLab could be five-person company, but it's much larger. I don't think they list the number of employees, but say 56 countries so I'd wager at least two or three times that.

GitLab has 736 team members - https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#216

Post by raverbashing » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

muro wrote: post #124

achillesheels wrote: post #91

SaaS subscriptions are magical when they work; they provide much needed regularity to cash flow forecasting which assuages investor timidity. However, creating a subscription model doesn’t necessarily mean there is a service that warrants it.

Subscription is great for the company "selling", might be fine for other companies paying it, but I absolutely despise it as an end-user/private customer and will do everything I can to find an alternative (e.g. with a single-purchase license).

I'm torn on this.

I think single-purchase licenses work for some things, but they're a hard sell for others. For example, I really, really can't justify paying for a password manager for example.

At the same time, monthly subscriptions make sense for some things but don't make sense for others.

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#217

Post by dash2 » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

I'm an Evernote user and have been worried recently about the direction things were going. Features moving from free to paid and such. I take many notes on the app and have years of jottings - I would hate to get trapped in a corner.

This new CEO sounds reassuring (https://evernote.com/blog/looking-ahead-evernotes-priorities...). Like he's got his head screwed on, and wants to build a great productivity app and a profitable, sustainable company - not be "the Nike of your mind" (sheesh).

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#218

Post by bsder » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

etairaz wrote: post #78

Most people don't know this, but evernote was created maybe 15 years ago, as a desktop app ( https://lifehacker.com/download-of-the-day-evernote-2-0-wind... ). I used evernote before their version 3, which is the one everyone knows today. Evernote 2 was a brilliant note taking app, the first and best of its kind, and it cost a few dozen bucks, which I gladly paid... Then they shifted to the online version called Ever…

Firms that are 5 guys beavering away and making $10 million a year just don't get press.

And, if you take VC money, you don't even get that option.

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#219

Post by jaden » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

charlesdaniels wrote: post #144

Lots of people here mentioned they are looking for Evernote replacements. Here is my experience with this: Joplin[1] seems to be the best in my view. It's cross-platform, has decent sync capabilities, plus a web clipper. I've been using this for a while and have liked it a lot so far. I used Quiver[2] for a while when I used to run macOS, but moved away from it because it was macOS specific. It also had some features…

A few more options are Notion[0], Dynalist[1], Nuclino[2] and Nimbus Note[3].

I've been using Dynalist, but Nimbus Note looks promising.

[0] https://www.notion.so/

[1] https://dynalist.io/

[2] https://www.nuclino.com/

[3] https://nimbusweb.me/note.php

Re: Evernote Blows Up the ‘Fail Fast’ Gospel

#220

Post by shakkhar » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #206

whack wrote: post #165

The main problem with Evernote seems to be that their total-available-market is way too small to justify their valuation and expenses. It's core success is as a note-taking app - how big is the market for that really? They are competing against free alternatives like Emacs-org-mode, Apple Notes, and Google Keep. Sure, they can carve out a niche for themselves as a premium multi-device cloud-based no-ads app. But a $1…

I use Google Keep because I had sync issues with Remember The Milk on Android and wasn't about to continue paying them, but Keep is trash. It's a typical side project from a Googler. It's exactly what it was like when they rolled it out. Maybe a tiny feature here or there was added (I haven't noticed any), but it's a static service that is barely usable.

I use Google Keep every day. These are my requirements from my note taking app:

- simple plain text note-taking; - available on android, iOS and web; - available offline and syncs (more or less) reliably; - full text search.

I do not want more features on my note-taking app. I do not want it to go on steroid. Google Keep is not trash. It is perfect for the intended audience. You are just not part of that audience.