Evernote's leadership

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Posted by WSP
Oct 30, 2018 at 06:11 PM

I see that Evernote has a new CEO:

https://evernote.com/blog/ian-small-new-ceo/

I wonder if that will make any difference? My impression is that Evernote has a huge user base (and some undeniable strengths) but continues to flounder.

Posted by satis
Oct 30, 2018 at 10:12 PM

I think that the company is indeed floundering, and symptoms are the dramatic changes at the top - the CEO pushed out just weeks after the exit of Evernote’s chief technology officer, chief financial officer, chief product officer and senior vice president of human resources - and the layoffs of 15% of the workforce.

Evernote has topped out at 25 million or so users, less than 5% of whom are paying for the service.

A decade ago the company had trouble getting financing as was orchestrating a possible shutdown of the company because it had less than a month’s cash reserves. The only thing that saved the company from bankruptcy and eventual shutdown was a user from Sweden who was a fan and emailed the Evernote CEO Phil Libin offering to invest in the company, and did so to the tune of a half million dollars. Soon after that reprieve the company’s cashflow situation improved and then they plowed deep into venture capital fundraising, close to $200 million if I remember correctly.

But the venture capitalist chickens have come home to roost, and they want the company to deliver on their investment, not remain stagnating in subscription conversions.

All that VC money is forcing changes to be made - even if it means making the company smaller, with less R&D investment - in order to either (a) make a successful IPO, or (b) make an attractive takeover target.

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