User:Evernotebrian/Evernote History Draft

History

edit

Foundation and early history

edit

Evernote was founded in 2000 by Russian-American computer engineer and entrepreneur Stepan Pachikov.[1][2] Pachikov sought to develop a note-taking application that featured an infinite scroll, as seen in the note-taking feature on the Apple Newton handheld computer, which he had developed software for in the early 1990s.[1] The first versions of the Evernote app, then styled as EverNote, were developed for Windows XP, Pocket PC, and Microsoft Smartphone-based devices.[3] This early Windows-based version of the EverNote app, at its peak, had about 80,000 users.[1]

Growth and expansion

edit

In 2007, Pachikov decided that he needed to replace himself as Evernote CEO and brought in Phil Libin to lead the company.[1][4] Under Libin's leadership, a revamped Evernote app launched into open beta in June 2008.[5] Later that year, it joined Apple's App Store.[1][6] The app had nearly two million users by November 2009.[7]

In October 2010, Evernote raised a $20 million funding round led by Docomo Capital with participation from Morgenthaler Ventures and Sequoia Capital.[8][9] The company achieved a billion-dollar valuation in 2012.[4] That same year, its app had over 30 million registered users.[10] From 2010 to 2013, Evernote grew its staff from 30 to 250 employees, and opened offices in Austin, Tokyo, Zurich, Moscow, and Beijing.[11] During this period, Evernote entered into promotional partnerships with companies including Samsung, Moleskine, and Deutsche Telekom.[12][13][14] It acquired Skitch, Readable, and Penultimate in order to broaden the app's feature base.[15][16][17] The company also expanded into ventures including a standalone food recipe and photo-sharing app and a retail marketplace for branded merchandise.[10][18][19]

Streamlining

edit

In 2015, Libin stepped down as CEO and Chris O'Neill, previously an executive at Google, took over as chief executive.[20] Over the following nine months, Evernote laid off approximately 18 percent of its workforce, and in October 2015 announced it would close three of its 10 global offices.[10][1] It also shuttered its food, flashcard, and contract management apps, stopped selling merchandise, and canceled its annual developers' conference.[18][19][10]

In 2017, O'Neill directed his team to move Evernote's data to Google Cloud Platform and work began on unifying the app's codebase, which had previously been distinct for each client platform.[21][22] In June 2018, Evernote spun off its China-based service, Yinxiang Biji (印象笔记), into its own company, retaining a minority stake.[23] At the time, Yinxiang Biji had about 20 million users.[23] In September 2018, Evernote's chief technical officer, chief financial officer, chief people officer, and its head of human resources left the company, and it laid off 54 additional employees.[24][25]

Application redesign

edit

In October 2018, former TokBox CEO Ian Small took over as CEO.[26][21] Small furthered O'Neill's initiative to unify Evernote's codebase, ordering a stop on the development of all new app features until that project was completed.[27][28] As part of his effort to fix Evernote's most basic problems, Small organized employees into teams that featured people from disparate parts of the company, such as engineering and customer service, to collaborate on the identification of and solution to various issues with the app and business.[18] Small also led the decision to use Javascript as the implementation language for the unified version of Evernote, due to its performance across many platforms.[18] Evernote completed the codebase unification and app redevelopment in 18 months.[21]

In September 2020, the company released Evernote version 10 on iOS.[18][29] The following month, the new version of the app was released on Windows, MacOS, and Android, with more uniform features and a consistent user interface across all platforms.[18][29]

References

edit
  1. ^ a b c d e f McCracken, Harry (August 14, 2018). "Inside Evernote's brain". Fast Company. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  2. ^ Kumar, Anshul (July 27, 2021). "Evernote Was Losing Its Market Share But…". Data Driven Investor. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  3. ^ McCracken, Harry (September 10, 2004). "Take a Note--Or Lots of Them". PCWorld. Archived from the original on August 31, 2018. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  4. ^ a b Winkler, Rolfe (September 15, 2015). "Evernote Founder Phil Libin Moves Into Venture Capital". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  5. ^ Libin, Phil (June 24, 2008). "Evernote Public Launch!". Evernote. Archived from the original on September 4, 2012. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  6. ^ Hamburger, Ellis (May 17, 2011). "These Were The 10 Best iPhone Apps When The App Store Launched In 2008". Business Insider. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  7. ^ Sande, Steve (November 19, 2009). "Phil Libin on the past, present, and future of Evernote". Engadget. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  8. ^ Reisinger, Don (October 19, 2010). "Evernote secures $20 million in investment round". CNet. Archived from the original on October 26, 2012. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  9. ^ Cutler, Kim-Mai (October 19, 2013). "Phil Libin on Evernote's Close Call". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  10. ^ a b c d Kim, Eugene (October 3, 2015). "Evernote Is In Deep Trouble". Business Insider. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  11. ^ Green, Laura (February 1, 2013). "How Phil Libin is building a 100-year start-up at Evernote Corp". Smart Business. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  12. ^ Volpe, Joseph (September 4, 2013). "Samsung Galaxy Note 3 makes official debut". Engadget. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  13. ^ McCarthy, Brad (October 20, 2012). "Evernote Moleskine notebook review: When digital and analog elegantly collide". The Next Web. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  14. ^ Ferguson, Tim (March 25, 2013). "DT signs up Evernote to provide Premium app". Mobile World Live. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  15. ^ Tsotsis, Alex (January 24, 2012). "Evernote Bought Four Companies Last Year And (Almost) Nobody Knew About It". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  16. ^ Caldwell, Serenity (August 18, 2011). "Evernote acquires Skitch, drops price". MacWorld. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  17. ^ Mitroff, Sarah (May 7, 2012). "Evernote acquires Penultimate, works on its handwriting skills". VentureBeat. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  18. ^ a b c d e f Summers, Nick (October 19, 2020). "Can Evernote make a comeback?". Engadget. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  19. ^ a b Griffith, Erin (June 28, 2019). "TA Unicorn Lost in the Valley, Evernote Blows Up the 'Fail Fast' Gospel". New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  20. ^ Hesseldahl, Arik (July 20, 2015). "Evernote Taps Former Google Glass Executive Chris O'Neill as New CEO". ReCode. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  21. ^ a b c Pierce, David (September 16, 2020). "Evernote's CEO on the company's long, tricky journey to fix itself". Protocol. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  22. ^ Vincent, James (September 17, 2020). "Evernote makes another bid for noteworthiness, starting with iOS redesign". The Verge. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  23. ^ a b Russell, Jon (June 7, 2018). "Evernote is spinning out its Chinese business and it plans to take it public". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  24. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (September 4, 2018). "Evernote lost its CTO, CFO, CPO and HR head in the last month as it eyes another fundraise". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  25. ^ Loizos, Connie (September 18, 2018). "Evernote just slashed 54 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  26. ^ Shu, Catherine (October 29, 2018). "Ian Small, former head of TokBox, takes over as Evernote CEO from Chris O'Neill". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  27. ^ Aten, Jason (July 21, 2021). "Evernote Wants Another Chance at Being Your Everything Productivity Tool. Why It Just Might Work". Inc. Magazine. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  28. ^ Pierce, David (June 23, 2021). "How Evernote built its to-do list feature". Protocol. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
  29. ^ a b Peers, Nick (October 8, 2020). "Evernote 10 unveils a major redesign with improvements to note creation, formatting, and search". BetaNews. Retrieved February 4, 2022.