
The first dead Unicorn will be Evernote - webmasterraj
https://syrah.co/joshdickson40/55e1beac15970d6c01395d9d
======
lynchdt
We tried Evernote for business in our office for around 6 months. The sharing
and communication feature-set was really bad. In a shared notebook we ended up
with 'conflicted copies' of lots of important notes that really needed to be
an authority on things. The 'Work Chat' feature is spectacularly bad and
unusable - to the point of comedy. Most of us flipped way to using Google Apps
and Keep Notes, which just really nails collaboration and keeps everything
nice and simple.

In my opinion Google doesn't get enough credit for it's Apps offering. I see
lots of articles on here and elsewhere that deride it as a 'search company'
that 'can't build product' \- but I really think they're quietly building an
excellent product suite.

~~~
kalleboo
I'm amazed they still haven't fixed the syncing/conflicted copy issues. We
switched to OneNote pretty much right after they Mac/iOS versions came out and
the "just works" live collaboration was a breath of fresh air.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Wait, Mac?

...Holy shit. OneNote has Mac and Android versions now? I only stuck with
Evernote this long because it was the only thing that would sync across all my
devices.

I don't need collaboration, just an external memory store. How is OneNote for
taking structured/organized, rich-text notes for a single user? I'll check it
out tomorrow, and I might switch immediately.

~~~
keerthiko
...I just use Dropbox and .txt or .rtf files for this? And Dropbox has had
syncing across every platform ever, is good for collaboration as well but
stellar for single-user usage. I manage all my personal drafts and notes and
paperwork using my Dropbox personal folder, especially since it supports
offline availability on my mobile devices too for files I use regularly.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I basically want three things: (1) easily searchable/browsable organization,
preferably in a tree format; (2) decent rich text features; (3) clean syncing
between Windows, OSX, and Android.

rtf+Dropbox would fulfill 2 and 3 (with the right Android app choices,
anyway), but 1 is somewhat dubious. Previously I've tried Treepad/Jreepad,
which is absolutely perfect for 1 but fails the other two; TiddlyWiki, which
mostly manages 1 and 2 but requires a lot of manual markup, and (since it's
all in a single file) would have problems with 3 if one copy got out of sync;
and Evernote, which mostly manages 2 with a few hiccups, does 3 in theory if
you don't mind frequent inexplicable conflict warnings and occasional outright
data loss, and seems to be trying to break 1 more with each new version.

I'm hoping to have time to look into OneNote today and see how it measures up.

------
sharkweek
Fab is already a "dead unicorn" in most people's eyes. During their Series D
in 2013, they had a post-val of 1.17B, only to be acquired earlier this year
for 15M.

I think the biggest problem these current VC-backed unicorns will face is when
"venture tourism" comes to an end sometime in the future and all this
available cash becomes harder and harder to raise as mutual/hedge funds back
slowly away from the private markets:

[http://blog.pitchbook.com/if-winter-is-coming-how-well-
are-u...](http://blog.pitchbook.com/if-winter-is-coming-how-well-are-unicorns-
prepared/)

I hear a lot of chatter about how IPO is the new down round in tech, and it
seems to make sense to me. I don't foresee the high quantity of venture-backed
companies worth over 1BN being able to keep up with such valuations ESPECIALLY
if they try and hit the public market anytime soon. I also don't see how
they're going to be able to maintain increases in valuations thus making it
pretty safe to assume an impending "down round" period for those unable to
find sustainable revenue. And lastly, there isn't a huge M&A market for
companies with a price tag north of 1BN.

~~~
joshdickson
Hey, author here. You're right, there's some question about Fab, and I could
have added that to the post.

I tend to believe the later story, which was that they didn't get there, but
didn't mind all the press thinking they did and it was just never corrected
(i.e. this story(1) in Fortune cites a valuation that happens to be under
$900M).

Either way, there's definitely no way to know for sure, and I've seen it left
off of plenty of 'unicorn' lists.

(1) [http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/fab-billion-dollar-
valuation/](http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/fab-billion-dollar-valuation/)

------
xseparator
As a paying customer, I see Evernote as awesome and terrible at the same time.
I've enjoyed using Alternote on OSX as an Evernote client to get what I really
want out of Evernote...a place to store, umm, notes. No chats. No web
clippings and highlights. It's just notes I write, and associated attached
media like document scans or images, in a clean interface. One of my favorite
Evernote features is automatic OCR of images within notes. They do an
excellent job at it.

I only use Evernote for my personal note-taking, and as much as I shake my
fist at the massive clutter that has always existed in their first party apps,
I can't live without it. (Notebooks AND Tags AND Search AND a map? Why?) It
has never once occurred to me to use it as a collaboration tool. It boggles my
mind why they would think this is something their customers want from them.

I've been using Evernote for so long the thought of having to move dozens of
notebooks and hundreds of notes to another platform does not sound appealing!

~~~
cheshire137
I switched from Evernote to OneNote earlier this year using
[http://stefanstools.sourceforge.net/Evernote2Onenote.html](http://stefanstools.sourceforge.net/Evernote2Onenote.html)
to do it. I had to manually organize the tabs that were created based on my
Evernote labels, but it only took about an hour after the tool had copied all
my notes for me. I'm glad I made the switch.

------
ryanmarsh
Evernote lost some of my data, which is like a money market fund breaking the
buck. You just can't allow that to happen. If you do you'll get carried out.
Twitter could lose a few of my tweets and it wouldn't matter, you lose my
valuable notes? GTFO

I should add that I was a paying customer.

I was already struggling with the crappy UI and looking for an alternative
when the data loss happened. For a while I tried different apps, then
Microsoft released OneNote for iOS. OneNote works great for me but now I'm
snake-bitten and worried about Microsoft losing my data.

~~~
Jipha
You can set up automatic backups on OneNote.

------
jpatokal
What on earth is this trying to say?

 _Evernote, located in Redwood City, CA, and directly on the 101, is a bit
north of the tech companies that dot Silicon Valley and far south of those
that have headquarters in San Francisco. In other words, Evernote isn 't
exactly on its own in terms of tech-oriented neighbors that it competes with
for talent._

~~~
joshdickson
Hey, author here. You're right, this could be more clear. The takeaway is
supposed to be that it's not as though HQ is in Cleveland or Cincinnati where
there's a lot less competition for tech jobs - but I can see how the wording
is weird!

~~~
commentzorro
Stop with the gray text on the white background. On the device I'm on I can't
make out the text well enough to read comfortably, so I bailed. And
realistically I won't come back to the article on another device later on.

~~~
kristianp
Agreed, see [http://contrastrebellion.com/](http://contrastrebellion.com/) .
We can't all be on the highest contrast screens and have perfect eyesight. The
font should be black.

~~~
Nadya
See also:
[http://www.ironicsans.com/owmyeyes/](http://www.ironicsans.com/owmyeyes/)

Although with proper line spacing and font size and a _lowered_ contrast the
effect is diminished. People tend to lower the contrast too much or don't set
a comfortable line spacing.

The problem?

Most people don't read their own site often enough.

~~~
joshdickson
I wrote the entire code base; I look at it, use it, and read posts every day.

------
cft
I ported all my writings from Evernote to Google Docs the day when I read that
their CEO said that he was building a "corporation for the next 100 years" a
couple of years ago. There's nothing wrong with such desire, but I thought
that the lack of realism/humility of this CEO would run this company into the
ground.

------
inopinatus
If the original author reads this; I found the combination of webkit anti-
aliasing with a thin body weight to be instantly eye-strain-inducing, and the
deliberate hiding of scroll bars even on non-mobile viewports made for a
persistent sense of unease.

~~~
muglug
It's not the author's fault, directly – it's a problem with the platform
(syrah.co). I upped the font-weight from 300 to 400 in Chrome dev tools, and
everything was instantly better.

~~~
inopinatus
I'd say the author is pretty directly responsible; he is the CEO and founder
of the platform :-)

Personally I just switched to reader mode, but that's not actionable feedback.

~~~
joshdickson
I know, I'm the worst :( Thanks for the feedback :)

------
mintplant
So what's the alternative to Evernote?

The article lists Google Docs, which doesn't really seem equivalent, and
OneNote. I'm using OneNote right now to organize planning for a media/writing
project, and the experience leaves a lot to be desired. The writing interface
in particular is clunky, in the web client and on Android -- on my phone, I
have to pop open a menu and then a drawer just to switch bold text on or off.
And the Office365/OneDrive setup just isn't well integrated overall --
navigating OneDrive is confusing, and you can't, for example, insert a picture
stored in OneDrive into a note.

Google Keep doesn't fit my needs, as it's missing support for any sort of real
organization. It seems more geared toward quick digital post-its and todo
lists.

Is Dropbox's Notes product any good? That seems to be in closed beta still...

~~~
georgiecasey
you aware of Google Keep?

~~~
mintplant
I just tried it, actually. It looks kind of nice, but doesn't seem to support
any real organization, beyond maybe color-coding notes. The lack of support
for text formatting isn't great, either.

Seems like it would work well for day-to-day tasks or reminders, but it's
lacking the power that Evernote or OneNote have for structured projects.

------
hkmurakami
Well technically, Fab had a $1B valuation and has died, so that's the first
dead Unicorn right? ;)

------
Animats
Evernote: _" Bring your life's work together in one digital workspace.
Evernote is the place to collect inspirational ideas, write meaningful words,
and move your important ..."_

And they're going down. Not good.

How to export your data from Evernote.[1]

[1] [http://jasonfrasca.com/deconstructing-everyday-
blog/evernote...](http://jasonfrasca.com/deconstructing-everyday-
blog/evernote-how-to-backup-notes-import/)

------
coolandsmartrr
I find Evernote quite useful for specific domains, namely interviews. When
preparing to give interviews, I gather all the info online using clipper. I
can then categorise information based on the interviewee. After publishing
interviews, I probably won’t access that information again until relevant
information appears when researching about my next interviewee, e.g. a
statement or an allusion to the previous person.

The latest significant development I saw from Evernote is its tie-up with the
Nikkei newspaper, which was still a meager addition of the “Clip” button to
the online version. (It’s well-known that Phil is a fan of Japan; Evernote
even tied up with the Nagatanien bottled tea.)

Perhaps, Evernote can expand its offerings into paperback books, in which
annotations are not yet effectively digitised. I’d also appreciate if they
could release a suite for members of the press, who need to research,
organise, and release information.

------
chandika
I was a heavy evernote user a few years ago and then migrated to OneNote. I
think one of the challenges that is causing evernote users to drain off is as
its organization model for notes is broken unless you are highly disciplined
in using tags.

As your usage grows the product becomes worse for you for non-search
navigation and discovery.

MS OneNote on the other hand feels like an upgrade from evernote in terms of
its ability to provide a simple hierarchy for organising and navigating
between notes and notebooks.

A key thing for any productivity tool is to balance between it being easy to
adopt for new users and continue to improve its utility as usage grows over
time. Very few companies have managed to do this effectively.

~~~
favadi
Last time I tried OneNote, its text editor allows click and type anywhere. I
found this behavior is weird and there is no option to turn it off. I know it
makes sense if we use touch pen, but not for typing with keyboard.

~~~
insulanian
This! I use OneNote, but I hate that "click and type anywhere" feature. I'd
like to have something like Markdown, but with easy tables and embedded
images.

------
carrja99
I use evernote every day, multiple times a day. I don't care... I find it damn
handy.

~~~
junkilo
tags + notebooks + cross platform + rich text + search + clipping + images +
shortcuts. I don't know of a offering that rivals it. Google keep is for kids,
not for real work.

good reminder to back things up.

------
friednslip
I was afraid of this, I've spent years optimizing my workflow to store stuff
in Evernote, because I love it's search feature. (IFTTT recipes to save
everything from twitter/reddit/etc into it). I'm extremely ADD, and even have
audio recordings from years ago that I'm hesitant to jettison. anyone know the
quickest way to push everything (audio+pdf's) to an alternative?

Also, do One Note/ any other alternative do search within PDF?

------
BinaryIdiot
I was a heavy user of Evernote until I tried using it across multiple
platforms. I'm not sure if things have changed since then but a while back my
notes on my laptop and iOS and Android would all render differently, I
couldn't control or edit as easily on any of my mobile phones and the syncing
was never consistent. I constantly found myself reopening the app and forcing
a sync to make sure I could access a note on another device.

While I do like OneNote better in some ways its organization style is very old
fashioned (at least with Evernote it was easier to stuff tons of things into
it, tag it properly and get it back easily). Once you get past 10 or so notes
in a single section (depending on screen size) you have to scroll in OneNote
and it just makes things a pain.

Google docs is awesome for documents but for notes? No thanks, it's too much
of a pain in the ass to navigate. At least with Evernote or OneNote I can
quickly access a note within the same interface.

Honestly I feel like there is room for a killer note taking app here that can
go cross platform. But it would quire so much effort to build something even
to parity that I don't know when or if that would happen.

------
dylanjermiah
Used to use Evernote 10+ times per day. Now it's a few times a week at most.
Seems the product has stayed stagnant for a while now.

~~~
arghbleargh
Interesting that engagement seems to be waning from a lot of Evernote users
(based on this anecdatum and the article). Is it because the product has
gotten actively worse, or do you find less need to use it these days (e.g. you
realized it was more hassle than it was worth)?

~~~
dylanjermiah
Not worse, just not any better. The use case was, for me, fragmented into many
other services. Evernote was sort of my second brain before, not any more.

~~~
fsloth
What services do use instead of Evernote?

------
Ayaz
The only thing I use, and pay, Evernote for is digitising printed receipts and
similar documents, managing which otherwise I find troublesome. The document
photo taking features which make taking pictures of receipts easier is pretty
nice, as well as the ability to search for text through saved images.

------
xerophyte12932
I like Evernote. I like how its available across devices. The Web UI is really
nice, though the Desktop Native app needs a facelift. I use it to write
"private blogs" on my tablet. I used to use Svtble for this as I love the
simplicity and the UI but they dont seem to have a native android app, so
Evernote is how I do things now and would be sad to see them go.

Does anyone know of any better apps for my usecase (writing loads of text on
tablet and have them easily available across devices. Preferably native
Desktop app as well)?

Ps: I love OneNote but... it does't feel like its meant for dumping loads of
text into it and the Android app has horrible reviews so i haven't risked
downloading it yet

------
harrygold
I used to use Evernote back in 2012. I found the ui confusing and not very
useful for my needs. I then adopted Workflowy for simple to do lists,
organizing info, and that works great for my style; have not gone back to
Evernote ever since.

------
raspasov
With the risk of sounding bitter, I am truly not, I always wondered why does
it take close to 300M and 400 employees according to Crunchbase to build a
note taking app, even at scale.

~~~
joshdickson
The money was not raised to build a note taking app, they had already done
that (in the US at least). Much of it was for international expansion (which
they've done, particularly in China) and new things. Some of those new things
(like Work Chat) were built and haven't seem to have gone anywhere. But just
because a product seems DOA doesn't mean it was dumb to try. Slack raised
$250mm and locked it away for a rainy day, I'm sure Evernote did much of the
same.

------
msellout
Sad, if so. I'm a paying user of Evernote. I have noticed that it hasn't
really gained new features lately.

------
amolsarva
We make a better more collaborative app that centers on really simple notes as
the core thing. You can jot some Knotes but you can also share them natively
like slack and put lots of content from other services into them. Knotable.com

Feedback welcome. Still beta

But the Chrome extension is 1.0 and doing really well!

Knotable.com/chrome/note

------
welly
I use Evernote purely as a tool to store bookmarks. I could probably use
anything else but Evernote generally suits my needs for that. Rarely, if ever,
use it for taking notes or anything that isn't a bookmark. Best export my
bookmarks if the story is correct.

------
mark_l_watson
Doesn't it seem nasty to claim that a large established company may go out of
business? Just the claim can hurt their business.

Evernote is fairly useful. I pay the minimum amount above the free tier. I
enjoy the product but I only use it perhaps 10 minutes a day, on average.

~~~
joshdickson
The post is not about them going out of business; in fact, numerous times I
suggest that that is not likely to happen. The post concerns the $1B
valuation's validity. It's possible to have a very nice, profitable company
making a note taking application and also not be a unicorn.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Thanks for the clarification Josh! I just went back to re-read the article.

It is an interesting scenario of a company receiving a lot of funding, having
a huge paper valuation, but in the end just being a mildly profitable company
with little return on investment.

------
dafrankenstein2
i'm using evernote with the web-browser extension Clearly, this way its useful
to me..(as for example, if i want to clip an article for later reading etc..)

