18 months after being called the first dead unicorn, Evernote saw its 7 billionth note taken, double paying users, and passed 200M registered users. Learn how.

1. turning an elephant
andrew malcolm
svp marketing
@EverMalc or LinkedIN:malcolmandrew

2. svp marketing, Evernote
vp product marketing mobility, HP
head of marketing, Skype
investor, Silver Lake Partners
angel/advisor: Atheer, Vave, Clinithink
Stanford MBA
Harvard BA
who am i?
none of these is a particularly good reason to listen to me

3. instead, listen for three things
frameworks to
structure problems
pattern recognition
that saves time
network of others to
ask for help

4. how much does monetization matter?
0%
100%
200%
300%
400%
500%
600%
700%
800%
Sep-04 Sep-05 Sep-06 Sep-07 Sep-08 Sep-09 Sep-10 Sep-11 Sep-12 Sep-13
10-year stock price indexed
Nintendo
Wii sells 11m units and
passes Xbox

5. how much does monetization matter?
0%
100%
200%
300%
400%
500%
600%
700%
800%
Sep-04 Sep-05 Sep-06 Sep-07 Sep-08 Sep-09 Sep-10 Sep-11 Sep-12 Sep-13
10-year stock price indexed
Nintendo
Comcast

6. what’s the product?

7. what’s the product?
Connectivity?
Phone?
App?
Operating
System?

8. 0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
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2012
was Skype a good product? good business?
minute growth: Skype vs. telcos
• what happens
when more
and more
people are on
Skype?
• 2B min per
day; more than
30% of
international
calling
Source: Telegeography
+
Telcos
Telcos
Only

9. we forgot phase 2

10. great companies think about a system
value proposition differentiation
innovation agenda monetization model
target customer
how do we solve it
better than
anyone else?
what problem do
we solve?
where must we
continue to invent
new experiences?
who has that problem?
are they a good
customer?
why will they pay
us?

11. how have we done this at Evernote?

12. we were called the first dead unicorn
• Burning $5M per month
• No major product
releases in 2 years
• Hard goods marketplace

13. 18 months later, we’ve …
seen our 200Mth registered user
passed 7B notes taken
doubled the number of paying users
achieved cash flow positive operations
launched redesigns of iOS and WIN apps
won an AOTP Mobility award at CES
moved 3 petabytes of data to the Google Cloud

14. how? we thought about our system
Source: Splunk RFP, Simon-Kucher evaluation
Determine fit & appeal of usage-based metrics for freemium / paid fencing
Utilize customer research to optimize tier levels & price levels for new lineup
Develop and execute pilot (geographic or promotional) to de-risk transition
Forecast impact on total users, free-to-paid conversion, and financials

15. what’s next?
Personal,
20%
Professional
, 15%
Both, 65%
Sales

16. great products vs. great businesses
great products … great businesses
… that their users pay forsolve a problem1
target a user … who can decide to buy2
have a way to pay … give a reason to pay3
are unique … are sticky4
stay ahead of the competition … get farther ahead5

17. thank you
@EverMalc or LinkedIN:malcolmandrew