It’s a common trap for the most recent generation of start-ups, which has been marked by the proliferation of “unicorns” worth $1 billion or more. “They’re willing to let it ride a little longer to see whether it explodes.” “They’re not in it for a break-even or a slight loss or a slight gain,” said Jeffrey Cohen, a bankruptcy lawyer at Lowenstein Sandler. Once venture capital investors have sunk in considerable sums, they’re willing to let struggling companies flounder for years on the off chance they hit on something big. But in and around San Francisco, no one likes to talk about getting stuck in start-up purgatory.
More often, after early momentum wanes, the missteps and bad press accumulate until a company enters a slow, difficult rehabilitation that stretches on for years. Last September, when four top executives left at once, tech blogs declared that the company was in a “death spiral.” Instead, the company cycled through four chief executives, several rounds of layoffs, three office closings and the shuttering of numerous side projects, including Japanese-made smart covers for your feet. Founded in 2004, it was among the first companies to ride the wave of smartphone adoption, and many expected it would achieve a triumphant initial public offering. “We treasure our history,” he said.įor a start-up, Evernote has a lot of it. There was a wall full of aging trophies, and in the back, an old mural describing the shop’s lofty vision was still faintly visible beneath a layer of Evernote-green paint. Small in May, the shelves laden with branded goods were gone. The company even opened a physical storefront in its lobby called “Noteworthy by Evernote.” It gave the Evernote groupies - groupies! - who kept showing up at the office something to peruse.īut that was a century ago, in start-up years.
At the peak of Evernote’s success, as part of an ambitious plan to expand from software factory to lifestyle brand, the company sold the socks and other “exceptional products that satisfy our desires for greater ease and efficiency,” like high-end scanners and backpacks made by Côte&Ciel, a French boutique. Small had retrieved the socks from a small cabinet at Evernote’s headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., where coders work on its popular note-taking app. Marketing language described them, insanely, as “smart covers for your feet” that shared design principles with productivity software. The knit was Japanese, dense and springy, and contained 1 percent polyurethane. Nice ones: black in the calf, striped in the foot, with matching pops of sky blue at the toe, heel and welt. Smiling cryptically, Ian Small, the chief executive of Evernote, handed me some socks.
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