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evernotes 5% problem

] by Chris O'Brien @ venturebeat.com - On the surface, Evernote was on a roll. It had just moved into a new headquarters. It was growing quickly and was valued at $1 billion. And it seemed to be loved by its users. I used it (and still do). But while I have friends who were obsessive about it, Evernote never quite became a critical part of my work routine.

] “What winds up happening at Evernote conferences is that people go and they say, ‘Oh, I love Evernote and I’ve been using it for years and now I realize I’ve only been using it for 5 percent of what it can do,’ ” Libin said. “And the problem is that it’s a different 5 percent for everyone.
] But the 5 percent problem offers a good lesson about how important it is to maintain a core identity as you build new features and products.
] The Silicon Valley mentality fosters a desire to continue building and iterating because if you don’t, you could get lapped by some new competitor who comes along and outflanks you. And sometimes engineers and product developers just get overly enamored with themselves and their ideas and lose sight of the bigger picture.
] But adding new features requires discipline. Snapchat, to name just one example, has done a good job of judiciously adding new features that feed back into their core experience
] Google (er, Alphabet) has at times run the risk of falling into the 5 percent trap. Of course, its search engine is, and probably always will be, its cash machine. But the rest of the company has moved in so many different directions simultaneously that the company’s core mission seems to grow a bit murkier with each passing year.

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NAME: evernotes-5-percent-problem

DESCRIPTION: ] by Chris O'Brien @ venturebeat.com - a high level look at the problem facing note taking software maker, evernote today

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