Interview with Stepan Pachikov (Evernote)

A few days ago, I was fortunate enough to meet and talk informally with one of the most famous and, most importantly, experienced IT businessmen of the last decades - Stepan Pachikov. It was he who once led the company ParaGraph, which he later sold to the famous Silicon Graphics. I'm not talking about the fact that it was Stepan and his colleagues who were directly involved in the Apple Newton project, which, as you know, was a kind of beginning of the "iPhone era."

Now Stepan is engaged exclusively in his new project - the Evernote service, which, by the way, is quite a lot and interestingly told on Habré. We talked about him, about start-ups, about business and, of course, about the Evernote service with the author and chief ideologist of Evernote Stepan Pachikov and vice-president for international development and the head of the Russian representative office Dmitry Stavisky.

Stepan, let's start with the main question: what is Evernote for?
We all want our memory to be better. It’s almost impossible to find a person saying, “I am satisfied with my memory, I don’t want better!” But what is good memory? Good memory consists of three components: the ability to quickly and easily remember various kinds of information, the accessibility of the information that has once remained in the memory everywhere and always, and the ability to quickly remember something from some indirect information. Evernote has all of this. It allows you to remember not only what you need at the moment, but everything that you might need. Information stored in Evernote is available everywhere, even if there is no connection. And most importantly: he can find what you are looking for by indirect information: date, availability of a photo or drawing, place, time, some words - anything.

An important difference between Evernote and human memory is that, unfortunately, human memory does not improve over time, and Evernote only gets better and smarter over time. The notes you made today will be searched better in a year than in a few months. Say you took our shared photo. Today you can find it by asking Evernote to give out all the notes with photos, tomorrow you will find it by the presence of a certain number of people in the photo, and the day after tomorrow Evernote will find it upon request about a specific person. In other words: the stored data will not disappear anywhere, and there will be much more ways to search for this data.

How did you get to the concept of the Evernote service? The idea itself is not new. What is the secret to the growing success of Evernote?
Well, telling the truth is easy and enjoyable :) As you know, I was related to Apple Newton. It was an advanced device in many respects, but, unfortunately, it, as they say, was ahead of the time, and the marketing component of this project was unimportant. So at Newton I really liked the concept of “endless tape” and for many years I was looking for some suitable database to conveniently record all sorts of memos, jokes, notes, tasks, whatever. This quest has become one of the prerequisites for the birth of the Evernote concept. Another such premise was some nostalgia for Newton, from which, by the way, the current iPhone essentially grew. So the current Evernote is a kind of revenge :)

When I wrote the first unpretentious prototype of Evernote at one time and showed it to my wife and acquaintances, they really liked the concept of searching on the principle of “looking for something, I don’t know what”, when the search is performed through scrolling through the records. After all, it often happens that you don’t remember what exactly you need to find and look visually. You remember that, say, it was a small note, with some kind of pattern, probably colored, perhaps even with a photograph ... That is, you have some general idea of ​​what you are looking for, and if the desired object flickers, you will you will find out right away. The only thing you need to do is narrow down your search to a foreseeable number of entries. So the idea came to filter objects by type and all kinds of indirect data.

Another impetus was dissatisfaction with how the todo-list was made in Microsoft Outlook. I have always believed that this, and many other task managers, are not made right: they require you to clearly schedule tasks in time and date. It seems to me that you need to start “from the end”: first, a person needs to be allowed to simply write down what he wants and how he wants, and only then give him the opportunity to sort it all out, paint it in more detail, decide on the other nuances. So I decided that in Evernote I will first write down what I want, and then take the rest of the steps.

In addition, Philip (Phil Libin, current CEO of Evernote, the author’s note) contributed greatly to the development of Evernote as a product .), since he himself at one time nurtured a similar idea. It was he who focused Evernote on the web and often likes to repeat that all notes are “in the clouds”.

Do you remember the very moment when this whole idea came to your mind? Did the apple fall on your head? :)
Of course I remember this moment, but there are a lot of different opinions on this, and they all agree on what I remember incorrectly :) It has been ripening for quite some time. But I can definitely say that the first time I started discussing it with Zhenya Veselov ( programmer, text editor developer Lexicon, a former employee of ParaGraph, now works at Microsoft, author's note ) around 2002.

And how did this idea evolve to the final product?
Somewhere by the end of 2002, I got the name of the project, after which the idea gradually receded into the background and slowly ripened, as I was doing other things at that time. Later, having secured the support of several familiar programmers, I took up prototyping, eventually getting what is called proof of the concept. I was looking for tools, technologies that could provide what I wanted to implement.

And somewhere in 2004, I finally realized what the failure of Newton in terms of text recognition was. Unfortunately, people did not understand and do not understand the complexity of such technologies and do not forgive mistakes. For example, the word “paragraph”, defined as the word “pornographer,” could only cause laughter, and such reactions to failed recognition only worsened the impression of the device. Based on this experience, I realized that Evernote should not have a handwritten note turned into text, but only an effective search for this note. In this case, the task is greatly simplified, because even a possible recognition error will not become an obstacle. For example, if a query for the word “beer” gives the result in the form of not only a note with a beer label, but also some record about a bear or peering, no one will be upset, since the desired note will still be found and identified by the user. Therefore, the task is solved.

In 2006, we managed to find the funds we needed, in 2007 Phil came to the company, who brought in a strong team of managers, designers, and programmers. They began to build the right system and, as a result, in February 2008 launched Evernote in the form in which it is now.

That is, it turns out that about 7 years have passed from the moment the idea appeared to the final result, right?
No, I would not take it that way. This, it seems to me, is not entirely true. I think it’s more correct to consider not from the moment an idea appears, but from the moment when a real team of people begins to build a real project. Thus, it took us two and a half years at Evernote.

Good. Let's move away from the Evernote theme for a moment and talk about startups (I mean not only web projects, but also young innovative companies - approx. author ). Now there are dozens of them. They appear like mushrooms after rain, and there are only a few really good projects. Do you like this situation?
Of course I like it! The more they appear, the better! I’ll say even more than that: in my opinion, there are still few of them, there should be even more.

But what about the quality?
You know, in biology there are two approaches to the evolutionary process: extrovert and introvert. You can, like a fish, spawn millions of eggs, of which only thousands are fry. And they, in turn, by no means all survive in the end. And you can, like some mammal, raise a single cub. Nature, as we see, has not yet decided which method is more correct. But as an extrovert and capitalist, I think that in the case of startups, the first approach is good.

Take video hosting for example. Imagine that someone decided to establish such a video project: he raised money, formed a team, established the rules for censoring videos, hoping to collect only select content on the project. And another person took and created YouTube, giving power to users: let them publish what they want. As a result, of the total number of video clips, 90% will be frankly bullshit, but just let's not set in advance what exactly we will consider bullshit. The same is with startups: let there be a lot of them, because even 1% of a million of such projects is still worse than 1% of a billion. So I'm sure a lot of startups are very good. Such is the capitalist approach.

Can you highlight some successful startups in your opinion? Maybe you yourself use some new services, projects?
Now I use the service vselisdelal.ru, with which we recently began to work closely, and several similar services in the USA.

In general, I like all the projects that are made beautifully. I’ve been a Makovsky man for a year and a half, therefore I appreciate the beautiful Russian services and programs for this platform.

Yes, I see your MacBook and two communicators on Windows Mobile, but you don’t have an iPhone?
There is, and not one, but even two ( with these words, Stepan really took out two “iPhones” from the portfolio, - author's comment)! It would be strange to suspect me of his absence :) In general, since I constantly test Evernote on all possible platforms, I have to carry at least five different devices with me. Not out of foppishness, of course, but out of working necessity. However, my favorite phone is the iPhone, on which, by the way, quite a lot of Russian applications are installed. In addition, the iPhone is not only with me, but also with my wife, my son, and both daughters.

By the way, I even had some clearly formulated thoughts about how a Russian person who does not have experience can quickly and painlessly switch to Mac. Perhaps in the future I will issue them as a separate article.

Let’s go back to startups. Rather, to the conditions of their occurrence and development. You, as a person living in two countries - the United States and Russia, should know about the difference in startup markets here and on the other side of the Atlantic. What does it consist of?
In the USA, creating a startup is not worth anything: if in the morning you woke up and wanted to make a startup, then by lunch you will most likely have it. One of the significant differences in creating a startup in the United States is that there is no problem getting a legal address: you can make a startup at home, at least in the garage, anywhere. In Russia, this is a problem: here I want, for example, to do a startup at home, but not! At least that was until recently. This greatly inhibits the process of creating a company. The second problem is opening accounts: I do not know how it is now, but some time ago it was a huge difficulty. For some reason, we believe that if you want to make a startup, then you definitely want to deceive someone, and first of all - the state.

In addition, Russia has a slightly different attitude towards failures: by default, it is believed that any startup should be successful, and if it did not become one, this is another reason to suspect the company of fraud. Like, how can it be - two years have passed, money has been spent, albeit your own, and the result is a failure.

Speaking of money: where is it better to look for investments in your project?
Today’s business has become international, so you should look for money everywhere and take it wherever you can take it. For example, I know a Russian company in California, which took money in Russia, there is a startup in France, who took money in Boston - money is taken from everywhere. The main thing is to take clean money from good hands.

Back to Evernote. Russia became the first country for which a localized version of the service was released. Why Russia, and not, say, Europe?
Well, firstly, we all have Russian roots: I am Russian, and Dima (Dmitry Stavisky, Vice President for International Development and the head of the Russian representative office, author's note), and Philip, the current CEO, was born in Russia. As the author of the product and one of its developers, it would still be more difficult for me to test Evernote in any Swahili than in Russian :) This is the first reason.

The second reason is the size of the market: Russia is a fairly large market, which also has “windows” to Europe and Asia. It will be more convenient for us to expand to other countries if we achieve significant success in Russia.

In addition to all this, it was quite simple for us to realize recognition of the Russian text. There were problems, but they are absolutely not of the order that you can get when working, say, with Japanese or Chinese.

What are your plans for the near future?
First of all, we will try to ensure the functioning of Evernote on as many phones as possible. Secondly, we will enter the markets of other countries. Well and, of course, we will make Evernote more and more intelligent, so that with it you can easily search and find even those things that the user remembers poorly. There are many plans in fact.

I must also say that we greatly value our open API and have high hopes for it and third-party developers. After all, as often happens: you made some kind of plug-in for yourself and for your wife, and he suddenly became popular among everyone else.

How big is the development community using the Evernote API?
At the moment there are about 350.

And what are the results?
There are many results. In the United States, there are already at least a dozen major integrations with popular services and products. In Russia, there is only one so far - with the Vselisdelal.ru service. There is still a very successful integration with Twitter.

By the way, you are using Twitter. How do you like this service?
Yes, I’m using it. I have more than a hundred friends there, about which I feel a certain complex of guilt: they apparently believe that I will write a lot, and as a person of another generation, I think that if you say nothing, it’s better not to say. In general, the service is very good. I am always surprised at the ability of people to create things, the concept of which at first glance seems either obviously simple or absurd, but in the end it turns out that everyone needs it. When the YouTube idea first appeared, I only heard criticism, they say, who needs it, if there are texts, photos. However, the end result is phenomenal success.

Is there something you absolutely dislike about the current Evernote?
Well, since I am at the origins of the company, I have some influence on the development process and can minimize everything that I don’t like, even at the initial stage :) Of course I would like many things to be done faster. I also want Evernote to be more consistent across platforms. The main thing is that it is fast and convenient. We have more than a million users and I look forward to the day when there will be more than one hundred million.

As I understand it, Mac is the main platform for you right now.
Not certainly in that way. On Windows, we are no less than on the Mac :) Of course, on the Mac we are proportionally larger. On the other hand, Evernote is called the so-called switch application, that is, a strong motivator for the transition to the Mac platform, but we did not set such a goal, it just happened.

Now a few questions for Dmitry. Tell me, which platform is the hardest to develop for? Probably Symbian?
Yes, Symbian is a heavy platform. This is one of the reasons why we still do not have a ready-made application for it. Under the "poppies" to do everything, of course, easier. Speaking about mobile platforms, it’s harder to develop for them than for desktops. There are more variations. Let's say the same situation happened with Blackberry: a lot of different models, which depending on the firmware and operator sometimes work in completely different ways. Even on the same firmware, but with different operators, the same device behaves differently.


^{Dmitry Stavisky, Vice President for International Development and Head of the Russian Representative Office of Evernote}

How many employees work at Evernote?
About thirty. Of these, the vast majority are developers. We do not have a sales department, by the way. We are a very engineering company.

Is it difficult for you to get to work? Do you have open jobs?
While there are no vacancies open, but when they appear, it will be easy to get to us :) But we always talk with talented people with pleasure.

Stepan, what is Evernote's relationship with Google?
Our goal is to have a good relationship with everyone, not just Google. Our business strategy is based on becoming an organic part of everything reasonable :) Google is a special company, and we do everything in our power to make our service perceived positively by them. By the way, they already have a positive attitude towards us: quietly closed Google Notes :) And they will be even better when we launch on Android.

In general, we have a good relationship with everyone: with Microsoft, and with Apple, and with Google.

Which competitors do you want?
Oh. To answer such a question right away is very difficult. We already have many competitors. And we were very proud that Microsoft OneNote was considered our main competitor, so we want such a competitor. Such competitors are needed and enjoyable, as this means that we play in the big leagues. So God forbid, if Microsoft closes its project after Google :)

Stepan, what can you expect from Evernote?
I have many plans, but first I need to make Evernote a successful company. Like any parent, I want my offspring to stand firmly on his feet, to become self-sufficient. That's when the number of our users will be in the tens and hundreds of millions, then I can breathe quietly and do something else.

Your main goal.
My goal now is to make Evernote a huge firm, at least the size of Google.

At least? :)
Well, good: half as much :)