Silicon Valley video interview. Interview with the CEO of a company worth> $ 1,000,000,000. Phil Libin - CEO of Evernote

With you is a new issue of informative interviews and reports from Silicon Valley. This time, an interview with Rock Star, CEO of the company, which at the end of last year was estimated at $ 2 billion . More recently, a small startup founded by a native of the USSR (Stepan Pachikov, Phil joined the company later), now costs more than a billion and launches its startup accelerator this year. In a short interview, Phil Libin says a lot of very interesting things about trends, self-education, Evernote plans and how to maximize the chances of creating a successful startup (see the decryption in Russian under the cut). The interview was made at the SVOD Summer 2013 conference(Silicon Valley Open Doors, held 2 times a year), a prestigious conference traditionally uniting large investors from the USA and Russia, and also an excellent springboard for Russian startups in the USA (I will post a full report from the conference later when we mount more videos). It was through the conference that SVOD Evernote received its first major investment, which Phil also talks about in an interview.

What gives investors and entrepreneurs participation in conferences such as SVOD?

This is where you go and find out everything you need to know about the foundation of the company, meet with investors, my education mainly took place at such conferences. Moreover, participating in the SVOD conference was an important part of the fact that Evernote "took off the ground" - I am sure that this conference can be just as useful to many other people.

Let's talk about trends. What are the most favorable areas for startups now?

The best companies have always started outside current trends. It’s probably too late to start something that is already a trend. A startup should start in the sphere of your life, something that you constantly do, but that is not pleasant. Take a look around for a few days, watch everything that you do, find what you or someone you know well does things that you don’t like, and find a way to do it a little better. This would be a better idea for a startup. And if you specifically look for what's in the trend, it will be you and another 10 thousand others - it's too late.

What are your plans for Evernote?

We have many plans. Everything moves very fast. The main idea is that we want to make Evernote “smarter” - when we started, it was just an application for taking notes, searching and fixing. Now it's autonomous intelligence - when you use Evernote, you feel that it complements your thoughts. Many more features will be added soon to make you feel that Evernote is an extension of your brain. We have an excellent API, with which about 25,000 independent developers are currently working, the number of which is increasing.

What about your startup accelerator?

This is really a very interesting thing. We are doing this for the first time this year. We are going to collect 6 teams from around the world in Silicon Valley for a month to “live with us”, we pay for housing and other expenses. There is a specific program for them, but they will also be able to work with any of Evernote - any type of advice or help for their business. We do not know yet what to expect, because we are doing it for the first time - there are only 6 teams so far, we hope that everything will work out, and next year we will do it much larger.

Your personal advice to entrepreneurs

I think that the most important thing is to do (build) something for yourself. To do something that you love, not to worry about catering to the market and other people. To do something that you understand that you yourself will use, because the world is becoming very demanding, where the most important thing is to have a good product. Therefore, especially if this is your first experience, your best chance is to make a good product for yourself. If you do not make it for yourself, then you will not understand how good it is. But if you make a good product for yourself, there is a good chance that one billion people will like what you like.

Thank you for your attention and for the positive feedback. Subscribe to the channelto keep track of video updates (reports and interviews). We need help with editing (we shot more than 40 videos during the last trip - we can’t cope with editing), if someone wants to cooperate, write me on Twitter .

Previous Issues:
Video Interview from Silicon Valley. Ilya Semin: “I do not need investors” - how to build a business in IT without attracting investments
Video interview from Silicon Valley. Alex Debelov is a graduate of YCombinator, the head and co-founder of Virool, a service for promoting online video
Video interview from Silicon Valley. Sergey Burkov - serial entrepreneur, mentor 500 Startups, the first head of the Google development center in Russia
Silicon Valley video interview. Members of SovDir AmBAR, the largest US business association of Russian-speaking high-tech professionals
Report from Silicon Valley. Blackbox - American startup accelerator focused on non-American startups
Report from Silicon Valley. Hacker Dojo Tour - Free Coworking Center
Video Interview from Silicon Valley. Max Skibinsky - Serial Entrepreneur, Business Angel, and Incubator Mentor 500 Startups