Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote on “Vision and Values”

Entrepreneurship in general:

– So you want to be an entrepreneur? Don’t!

– Wrong Reasons: 

  > Money! Get a real job instead …

  > Power! You are a actually at the bottom … (employees, customer, … are all your bosses)

  > You’re bored! Keep collecting your paycheck until you figure out what you want to do …

  > Flex time! Don’t make me laugh …

– Right Reason: change the world / save humanity (from boredom) -> create a meaningful and enduring technology business … and you are slightly abnormal (prerequisite for a startup ;-))

Priorities:

– 1. Customer, 2. Employees, 3. Shareholders

– Always remember: the best product does not always win … is wrong today!

Master Plan:

– 1. Make an amazingly great product

– 2. Charge money for it

Scarcity:

– SCARCITY used to be a concept underpinned in all economies of this world

– other prime mover is LOVE (pay for what you love – people love evernote not a typical feature)

– Consumer internet, cloud etc. lives in the “love based” economy space

– for many products: combination of scarcity + love (scarcity: e.g. shortage of screens & other comps, etc.)

Three types of business:

– find out about your business model and the type of business

– perceived value vs. time

– #1: 90% of the world is in this category: perceived value decreases over time (get money when you deliver) -> model: purchase

– #2: perceived value stays constant (newspaper situation, value every week) -> model: subscription or advertising

– #3: perceived value increases over time (core of evernote bus model) -> model: freemium

– love: people fall in love with products whose perceived value increases with time: the longer you use it, the more you love it

Four characteristics:

#1 Deep personalization (evernote)

#2 connectedness (twitter, facebook)

#3 Prestige (status, respect, honour -> foursquare) 

#4 Mastery (the more you use it, you more you feel like a master -> accomplishment, e.g. Photoshop)

Samples: Game Center (Connect. Compete. Compare) -> Connectedness, Prestige

Mobile Application Areas:

– Entertainment (Apple, Sony)

– Information (Evernote)

– Social (Facebook, Twitter)

=> Evernote’s goal ist to be the moste important service for information-centric consumers

Values:

1. No assholes

User growth:

– spend market on product, not marketing -> 95% of users acquired organically (word-of-mouth, social media, blog, etc.)

Goal:

– Customer retention: People who use Evernote for a couple of months, almost never leave afterwards

– Growing revenue: every month, a larger percentage of remaining users converts to Evernote premium, the longer someone has been using Evernote, the more valuabe they are => finally had 20% conversion

Most common question:

Q: What % of your users are premium … but actually care more about the total number!

Final note:

– Choose your business wisely