In the wake of the last week’s release of Inc Magazine’s company of the year, Evernote, I took time this weekend to learn more about the startup that allows its users to capture, organize and find information across multiple platforms. (Left, photo by Kasey Hickey via YFrog.)
Like previous Sunday Videos, I discovered one the best videos related to Evernote on Standford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner website. In an hour-long talk titled, “No Exit Strategy for Your Life’s Work,” Evernote co-founder and CEO Phil Libin shared his thoughts and lessons learned on startups, acquisitions and company exits.
For the purpose of this post, however, I want to call your attention to a part titled “Making Bets and Getting Lucky.”
Libin begins: “At a high level our goal with Evernote is to be a hundred percent buzzword compliant. So, whenever the important new buzzwords come around, whether it’s social or tablet or at some point it’ll be olfactory, that’s going to be a big thing, we’ll be like, yes, we’re there.”
BECOME A SPONSOR
Join us in championing the narrative of success, resilience, and ingenuity that defines Nebraska’s startup community. Learn more »
He shared a very insightful and somewhat humorous story of how the Evernote team prepared for its iPad app before the first generation was released. “We cut out cardboard into the perfect physical dimensions of an iPad and we like, we carried around these like cardboard iPads and that’s how we built the whole interaction design, like we put them in and out of our bags, we carried them.”
Check out the video below for Libin’s full cardboard iPad story, and to view his entire talk, visit ecorner.standford.edu. To read Inc. Magazine’s Evernote article, you’ll need to pick up a copy of Inc. at a newsstand or wait for the article to hit the web.
