7 ms·

It used to be fantastic. The killer app for me was that it was actually impressively good at searching text in images which at the time felt like magic. Like yo

by CPLX 7y ago

It used to be fantastic. The killer app for me was that it was actually impressively good at searching text in images which at the time felt like magic. Like you could take a picture of a whiteboard or your handwritten notes from a meeting or slide on a screen at a conference and then do a free text search of the keywords in it a few months later and find it. It was also really good at clipping web pages and helping you find them later. I really really liked it for free form research, like when you spend a couple weeks looking into a business idea to write up a detailed report later and want to find the reference to that concept or statistic you remember. Ten years ago that kind of thing was really hard to do reliably and they were good at it. But then instead of building on that success the product got worse. Oh well.

colechristensen 7y ago
They transitioned that to a paid feature because they had to keep the lights on. Small groups of engineers can do amazing things but in most companies amazing things worth doing run out and staff keeps growing. Salaries need to be paid and diminishing returns start. I have been thinking about the economics of being done with a piece of commercial software. Shut down feature additions, lower the price in regular increments, and open source after a high bar of total revenue is reached. Alternatively work out a company sale that doesn't include the name or the product. Sell the team, the office space, the experience, and a copy of the product which must be rebranded or reengineered into something else but leave the original product and name on the market with a maintenance staff and original copyright.
- thaeli 7y ago
  That's a much more customer-friendly version of a common late stage strategy in enterprise software: shut down feature additions, keep the price high, milk support contracts and if all that's not enough, sue your customers! I like your sunset strategy better as a customer, but it sounds like something you could only really do if you don't have investors.
  - mkr-hn 7y ago
    It's not just enterprise. You described Adobe. Their patent on tabs just expired.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  The real problem is that everything is focused on becoming a thousands-strong workforce and a valuation of billions. IMO lot of software could be small or medium sized businesses making a small but steady profit. But the whole VC/startup culture has made this fundamentally unsexy.
  - briandear 7y ago
    Engineers are expensive. If you want to even launch, you need money to pay people (if even just yourself.) Boostrapping does work (see Basecamp,) but that business evolved out of a consulting business and wasn’t started from scratch, so they had advantages of paying clients subsidizing Basecamp development. A new kind of “micro-VC” where 10x returns weren’t the goal might be a start, but then it would be tough to raise money without substantial validation first. So there is a chicken-egg problem.
    - dasil003 7y ago
      They also came out of the golden era of blogging where you could develop a significant audience subscribed directly through RSS without requiring some middleman distribution or aggregator taking your eyeballs. I guess it can still be done today with social media, but there’s just so much content out there it’s much harder to develop a loyal user base like 37signals did back in the day.
  - ljm 7y ago
    It’s the issue of hypergrowth or ‘blitzscaling’. Plenty of companies will deliver just as much, if not more, with a 30 person strong team, as they would with 600, or 10,000. But a thirty person strong team isn’t going to get a multi-million cash injection unless they plug it all into a swanky office and an ever-growing wage bill. I greatly admire Basecamp and it’s founders, DHH and Jason Fried, for completely bucking this trend. And they’re as successful as ever.
    - avip 7y ago
      Whatsapp, possibly the exception that makes the rule, had $1.5B valuation and $50M vc influx with a tiny team.
magashna 7y ago
I'd love that picture text search to come back, sounds like a fantastic feature
- lemonj 7y ago
  An app I’m working on adds this text-in-image search to iOS devices: https://memos.org https://memos.org
- newsoul2019 7y ago
  I am pretty sure Google Drive does this as well.
stcredzero 7y ago
But then instead of building on that success the product got worse. Oh well. Evernote seems to have some sort of "reality distortion field" which is somewhat like Apple's, but somewhat mis-calibrated. (Apple's own "reality distortion field" originated with Steve Jobs, and has been losing its calibration ever since he departed this world.) They have a tendency to start with things which feel "magic" then have them fade into "meh." I've tried Evernote a few times, but it just never stuck. It's in that category of, "It seems like it could be really cool, but for some reason, it isn't."
- SkyPuncher 7y ago
  I've felt the exact same way. I might be missing something, but it feels like it's trying to solve a problem I don't have. In fact, it feels like a problem that doesn't even exist.
  - tempestn 7y ago
    It can definitely solve problems that exist. I've been using it near religiously for the past 6-7 years as the home of my GTD system, as well as a general store for archived reference information, and the design of their product fits my needs perfectly. That said, the flexibility in use that's one of its main strengths is also one of its greatest challenges, since it can be very difficult to pick it up and get the most out of it. If you're interested, this blog post gets into how I use it: https://www.tempestblog.com/2017/08/16/how-i-stay-organized-and-remember-everything-with-no-stress/ https://www.tempestblog.com/2017/08/16/how-i-stay-organized-...
    - chongli 7y ago
      home of my GTD system That may be why. Lots of people don't have a GTD system. I, personally, can't see myself ever using one. Maybe I'm just way too low in conscientiousness but I find systems like that so oppressive that I get very unhappy and abandon them.
      - tempestn 7y ago
matchagaucho 7y ago
I stopped using Evernote about 5 years ago when routine searches started timing out. The ability to instantly recall past notes with Elephant-like memory will always be needed, so their core product principle is spot on. But at $8/10GB per month, I can't help but wonder if Evernote is making some data storage vs retrieval performance trade-offs that impact adoption.
ryanfox 7y ago
I'm building something that does this. It lets you search text in images, video, local files, anything that comes across your screen. You can manually add e.g. web pages too. It's at https://apse.io https://apse.io. It has been working really well for me. I'm happy to answer questions if that sounds interesting.

by CPLX 7y ago

colechristensen 7y ago

They transitioned that to a paid feature because they had to keep the lights on. Small groups of engineers can do amazing things but in most companies amazing things worth doing run out and staff keeps growing. Salaries need to be paid and diminishing returns start. I have been thinking about the economics of being done with a piece of commercial software. Shut down feature additions, lower the price in regular increments, and open source after a high bar of total revenue is reached. Alternatively work out a company sale that doesn't include the name or the product. Sell the team, the office space, the experience, and a copy of the product which must be rebranded or reengineered into something else but leave the original product and name on the market with a maintenance staff and original copyright.

thaeli 7y ago
That's a much more customer-friendly version of a common late stage strategy in enterprise software: shut down feature additions, keep the price high, milk support contracts and if all that's not enough, sue your customers! I like your sunset strategy better as a customer, but it sounds like something you could only really do if you don't have investors.
- mkr-hn 7y ago
  It's not just enterprise. You described Adobe. Their patent on tabs just expired.
bobthepanda 7y ago
The real problem is that everything is focused on becoming a thousands-strong workforce and a valuation of billions. IMO lot of software could be small or medium sized businesses making a small but steady profit. But the whole VC/startup culture has made this fundamentally unsexy.
- briandear 7y ago
  Engineers are expensive. If you want to even launch, you need money to pay people (if even just yourself.) Boostrapping does work (see Basecamp,) but that business evolved out of a consulting business and wasn’t started from scratch, so they had advantages of paying clients subsidizing Basecamp development. A new kind of “micro-VC” where 10x returns weren’t the goal might be a start, but then it would be tough to raise money without substantial validation first. So there is a chicken-egg problem.
  - dasil003 7y ago
    They also came out of the golden era of blogging where you could develop a significant audience subscribed directly through RSS without requiring some middleman distribution or aggregator taking your eyeballs. I guess it can still be done today with social media, but there’s just so much content out there it’s much harder to develop a loyal user base like 37signals did back in the day.
- ljm 7y ago
  It’s the issue of hypergrowth or ‘blitzscaling’. Plenty of companies will deliver just as much, if not more, with a 30 person strong team, as they would with 600, or 10,000. But a thirty person strong team isn’t going to get a multi-million cash injection unless they plug it all into a swanky office and an ever-growing wage bill. I greatly admire Basecamp and it’s founders, DHH and Jason Fried, for completely bucking this trend. And they’re as successful as ever.
  - avip 7y ago
    Whatsapp, possibly the exception that makes the rule, had $1.5B valuation and $50M vc influx with a tiny team.

magashna 7y ago

I'd love that picture text search to come back, sounds like a fantastic feature

lemonj 7y ago
An app I’m working on adds this text-in-image search to iOS devices: https://memos.org https://memos.org
newsoul2019 7y ago
I am pretty sure Google Drive does this as well.

stcredzero 7y ago

But then instead of building on that success the product got worse. Oh well. Evernote seems to have some sort of "reality distortion field" which is somewhat like Apple's, but somewhat mis-calibrated. (Apple's own "reality distortion field" originated with Steve Jobs, and has been losing its calibration ever since he departed this world.) They have a tendency to start with things which feel "magic" then have them fade into "meh." I've tried Evernote a few times, but it just never stuck. It's in that category of, "It seems like it could be really cool, but for some reason, it isn't."

SkyPuncher 7y ago
I've felt the exact same way. I might be missing something, but it feels like it's trying to solve a problem I don't have. In fact, it feels like a problem that doesn't even exist.
- tempestn 7y ago
  It can definitely solve problems that exist. I've been using it near religiously for the past 6-7 years as the home of my GTD system, as well as a general store for archived reference information, and the design of their product fits my needs perfectly. That said, the flexibility in use that's one of its main strengths is also one of its greatest challenges, since it can be very difficult to pick it up and get the most out of it. If you're interested, this blog post gets into how I use it: https://www.tempestblog.com/2017/08/16/how-i-stay-organized-and-remember-everything-with-no-stress/ https://www.tempestblog.com/2017/08/16/how-i-stay-organized-...
  - chongli 7y ago
    home of my GTD system That may be why. Lots of people don't have a GTD system. I, personally, can't see myself ever using one. Maybe I'm just way too low in conscientiousness but I find systems like that so oppressive that I get very unhappy and abandon them.
    - tempestn 7y ago

matchagaucho 7y ago

I stopped using Evernote about 5 years ago when routine searches started timing out. The ability to instantly recall past notes with Elephant-like memory will always be needed, so their core product principle is spot on. But at $8/10GB per month, I can't help but wonder if Evernote is making some data storage vs retrieval performance trade-offs that impact adoption.

ryanfox 7y ago

I'm building something that does this. It lets you search text in images, video, local files, anything that comes across your screen. You can manually add e.g. web pages too. It's at https://apse.io https://apse.io. It has been working really well for me. I'm happy to answer questions if that sounds interesting.