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With 750K Paid Users, Evernote Brings In $18 Million A Year

43 points by cwan 15y ago

freejack 15y ago
I'm a huge fan. The headcount projection caused me to pause a bit. Tripling staffing to almost 400 people seems like a huge jump. I wonder what else they've got going on - it feels like a big number for it all just to be allocated solely against Evernote proper.
- Djehngo 15y ago
  This Article: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company-of-the-year.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company-of-... Has slightly more depth and seems to suggest that they are launching small semi-independent "studios" to work on other memory-related problems.
- bobds 15y ago
  I'd say if you need 400 people to work on just Evernote, you must be doing something wrong.
AznHisoka 15y ago
That's pretty huge. But how can they keep up the growth? I can't see the growth happening if they just target consumers. What can they do on the enterprise side?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- billybob 15y ago
  What makes you think they've exhausted growth potential with consumers? What makes you think this isn't suitable for companies? I don't really see your point.
  - AznHisoka 15y ago
    I don't think this isn't suitable at all. I'm sorry if my questions seemed condescending but they were just questions. I'm interested in Evernote's plans for the future. That's all. Geez
carldall 15y ago
I've been using Evernote since 2007 or 2008, whenever it appeared (granted, with a non usage delay in between), and it is a great idea well executed. 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.
miles_matthias 15y ago
I used to be a paid user but then quit after their iPhone app crashed each time I wrote a note. They took forever to update to iOS5 and that seemed to cause their issues. In that period of time I found Orchestra and haven't seen a need for Evernote for me personally.
- barranger 15y ago
  Note that this isn't directed at you personally, but rather towards the instant gratification culture at large: I'm sorry, but "They took forever to update to iOS5"???? A quick google search shows that iOS5 was released on October 11th 2011. That makes it less than two months ago. In what world/dimension is 58 days "forever"? Don't get me wrong, if you paying for a service, it should work, full stop, but complaining and saying that two months is forever trivializes your (valid) complaints.
  - miles_matthias 15y ago
    Well not only was I a paying customer, but when Apple releases a developer beta and documentation ahead of the public release for companies that have paying customers to please, and Evernote doesn't do it, that's a disappointment. You're right, we expect too much from people in general, but I don't think this was the case. I think this was just a bad decision by their management.
  - matwood 15y ago
    It's very valid complaint that it should have at least been working under iOS5 even if it didn't take advantage of all the features. Lone developers had access to the iOS5 betas for months. Evernote is one of the flagship programs for OSX and iOS. They should have had access to the beta at least that long and possibly more. In addition to the likely access to Apple resources.
  - smackfu 15y ago
    The expectation in the iOS world is that developers work on updating their apps during the developer beta, and submit their updated apps shortly before release when Apple says to (October 5th in this case), and then Apple releases them to the store on Day 1. In that context, 58 days is 57 days more than a lot of the competition. Given THAT, it sure does look like Evernote released iOS 5 updates on Oct 4th, so this whole point is moot: http://blog.evernote.com/2011/10/04/evernote-for-ios-update-improved-text-handling-checkboxes-ios-5-support-and-more/ http://blog.evernote.com/2011/10/04/evernote-for-ios-update-...
pdx 15y ago
They appear to be talking revenue, not profit, so I'm confused. Trying to do the math... 750K x $60 = $45M, not $18M 750K x $45 = $33M, not $18M 750K x $5 = $3.7M, not $18M So, they're not using monthly income data and they're not using annual either, apparently. I guess we can assume that their average account life is 18/45 = 4.8 months?
- milesskorpen 15y ago
  It is possible that they are making $18M this year and just hit 750k users. In which case, growth is skewing things. So if they had 500k users a year ago, many of the new users might still be on monthly plans, without bring the account life down that low.
goodweeds 15y ago
I'm kind of blown away that they needed $95m in VC to create a $18m/year company. They probably would have done better by investing in high-growth mutual funds.
- meterplech 15y ago
  Or they pulled in 18 million over the past year but their monthly revenue is now higher, and thus on a growth trajectory to pull in much more than 18 million next year. This also doesn't include advertising revenue to their 20 million user base. And it's a startup... so you know, the whole idea is that it might make more in the future. I know it is a lot of money, but they are supporting 20 million users & 8 million active.
- dextorious 15y ago
  Yeah, because every company blows up exponentially in profits, right? It took hundrends of millions of funds and way more years before Amazon even turned any profit. Twitter too (do they even make a profit yet?). And the same goes for every regular business all around you. Do you think many restaurants break even in a year, for example?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ggwicz 15y ago
Anybody else confused as to why "tripling his employee count" is a goal of Libin's? Not being snarky, just don't get why you'd want more chefs in the kitchen (unless they're building a few new apps or something)
- freejack 15y ago
  Well, yeah - that's kind of what I was trying to point out earlier - I just was just afraid of coming across as snarky :) I chalked it up to literary license on behalf of the writer - it doesn't seem like a rational business goal on its face.

43 points by cwan 15y ago

I'm a huge fan. The headcount projection caused me to pause a bit. Tripling staffing to almost 400 people seems like a huge jump. I wonder what else they've got going on - it feels like a big number for it all just to be allocated solely against Evernote proper.

Djehngo 15y ago
This Article: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company-of-the-year.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company-of-... Has slightly more depth and seems to suggest that they are launching small semi-independent "studios" to work on other memory-related problems.
bobds 15y ago
I'd say if you need 400 people to work on just Evernote, you must be doing something wrong.

AznHisoka 15y ago

That's pretty huge. But how can they keep up the growth? I can't see the growth happening if they just target consumers. What can they do on the enterprise side?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
billybob 15y ago
What makes you think they've exhausted growth potential with consumers? What makes you think this isn't suitable for companies? I don't really see your point.
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  I don't think this isn't suitable at all. I'm sorry if my questions seemed condescending but they were just questions. I'm interested in Evernote's plans for the future. That's all. Geez

carldall 15y ago

I've been using Evernote since 2007 or 2008, whenever it appeared (granted, with a non usage delay in between), and it is a great idea well executed. 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.

miles_matthias 15y ago

I used to be a paid user but then quit after their iPhone app crashed each time I wrote a note. They took forever to update to iOS5 and that seemed to cause their issues. In that period of time I found Orchestra and haven't seen a need for Evernote for me personally.

barranger 15y ago
Note that this isn't directed at you personally, but rather towards the instant gratification culture at large: I'm sorry, but "They took forever to update to iOS5"???? A quick google search shows that iOS5 was released on October 11th 2011. That makes it less than two months ago. In what world/dimension is 58 days "forever"? Don't get me wrong, if you paying for a service, it should work, full stop, but complaining and saying that two months is forever trivializes your (valid) complaints.
- miles_matthias 15y ago
  Well not only was I a paying customer, but when Apple releases a developer beta and documentation ahead of the public release for companies that have paying customers to please, and Evernote doesn't do it, that's a disappointment. You're right, we expect too much from people in general, but I don't think this was the case. I think this was just a bad decision by their management.
- matwood 15y ago
  It's very valid complaint that it should have at least been working under iOS5 even if it didn't take advantage of all the features. Lone developers had access to the iOS5 betas for months. Evernote is one of the flagship programs for OSX and iOS. They should have had access to the beta at least that long and possibly more. In addition to the likely access to Apple resources.
- smackfu 15y ago
  The expectation in the iOS world is that developers work on updating their apps during the developer beta, and submit their updated apps shortly before release when Apple says to (October 5th in this case), and then Apple releases them to the store on Day 1. In that context, 58 days is 57 days more than a lot of the competition. Given THAT, it sure does look like Evernote released iOS 5 updates on Oct 4th, so this whole point is moot: http://blog.evernote.com/2011/10/04/evernote-for-ios-update-improved-text-handling-checkboxes-ios-5-support-and-more/ http://blog.evernote.com/2011/10/04/evernote-for-ios-update-...

pdx 15y ago

They appear to be talking revenue, not profit, so I'm confused. Trying to do the math... 750K x $60 = $45M, not $18M 750K x $45 = $33M, not $18M 750K x $5 = $3.7M, not $18M So, they're not using monthly income data and they're not using annual either, apparently. I guess we can assume that their average account life is 18/45 = 4.8 months?

milesskorpen 15y ago
It is possible that they are making $18M this year and just hit 750k users. In which case, growth is skewing things. So if they had 500k users a year ago, many of the new users might still be on monthly plans, without bring the account life down that low.

goodweeds 15y ago

I'm kind of blown away that they needed $95m in VC to create a $18m/year company. They probably would have done better by investing in high-growth mutual funds.

meterplech 15y ago
Or they pulled in 18 million over the past year but their monthly revenue is now higher, and thus on a growth trajectory to pull in much more than 18 million next year. This also doesn't include advertising revenue to their 20 million user base. And it's a startup... so you know, the whole idea is that it might make more in the future. I know it is a lot of money, but they are supporting 20 million users & 8 million active.
dextorious 15y ago
Yeah, because every company blows up exponentially in profits, right? It took hundrends of millions of funds and way more years before Amazon even turned any profit. Twitter too (do they even make a profit yet?). And the same goes for every regular business all around you. Do you think many restaurants break even in a year, for example?

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ggwicz 15y ago

Anybody else confused as to why "tripling his employee count" is a goal of Libin's? Not being snarky, just don't get why you'd want more chefs in the kitchen (unless they're building a few new apps or something)

freejack 15y ago
Well, yeah - that's kind of what I was trying to point out earlier - I just was just afraid of coming across as snarky :) I chalked it up to literary license on behalf of the writer - it doesn't seem like a rational business goal on its face.