4 ms·

Nobody is arguing those facts, and I don't think anyone at 37 Signals is naive enough to claim that you can't grow faster by spending more money (and going into

by boucher 17y ago

Nobody is arguing those facts, and I don't think anyone at 37 Signals is naive enough to claim that you can't grow faster by spending more money (and going into debt, in whatever form). From where I'm sitting, the point is that such a company shouldn't be called a success. Projections may be good, it may be very likely they will pan out, but until they actually do, the business is not a success, it's still theoretical. If it turns out, because of unknown factor X you completely deplete the market before you become profitable, your business model is no longer a success. There are too many unknowns to guarantee that any company which looks likely to be profitable actually will be.

webwright 17y ago
I dunno. This is deserves a celebration. It's a fucking triumph! These guys made a product that no one really competes with and are making real money largely giving it away. It seems pretty clear that it scales pretty beautifully and that they could turn the screws a bit, experiment a bit, and make a huge pile of profit off of this. I'm all for thumbing your nose at some/most free apps, but EverNote has really proven something and deserves praise. There seems to be real (reinvested profit) buried under the growth/r&d spending.
- ekiru 17y ago
  The whole point of the article is that Evernote is not making money and aren't even expected to break even until 2011.
  - boucher 17y ago
    They are very clearly making money. They are just spending more than they make. Revenue is still an important metric. Many companies which are supposedly successes still have $0 in revenues. Saying such a company is already successful is much worse than saying the same about a company with significant revenues but still no net profit.
  - webwright 17y ago
    Yeah. Same with Amazon when they were a few years in. Were they worth writing about back then? I think so.
    - ekiru 17y ago
      Yes, but is Evernote currently worth using as an example of how to make a profit? I don't think so.

by boucher 17y ago

webwright 17y ago

I dunno. This is deserves a celebration. It's a fucking triumph! These guys made a product that no one really competes with and are making real money largely giving it away. It seems pretty clear that it scales pretty beautifully and that they could turn the screws a bit, experiment a bit, and make a huge pile of profit off of this. I'm all for thumbing your nose at some/most free apps, but EverNote has really proven something and deserves praise. There seems to be real (reinvested profit) buried under the growth/r&d spending.

ekiru 17y ago
The whole point of the article is that Evernote is not making money and aren't even expected to break even until 2011.
- boucher 17y ago
  They are very clearly making money. They are just spending more than they make. Revenue is still an important metric. Many companies which are supposedly successes still have $0 in revenues. Saying such a company is already successful is much worse than saying the same about a company with significant revenues but still no net profit.
- webwright 17y ago
  Yeah. Same with Amazon when they were a few years in. Were they worth writing about back then? I think so.
  - ekiru 17y ago
    Yes, but is Evernote currently worth using as an example of how to make a profit? I don't think so.