Hugely disappointed, he abandoned the project and sold the mine and its machinery to a scrap metal dealer. But this scrap dealer was clever. He called a geologist to study the mine and see if there was any gold worth mining. The results were amazing — the gold seam continued only three feet from where the miner had stopped digging!
I don’t know if you have heard of a company called Evernote, but I only got to know about it as it appeared in this month’s INC magazine as the Company of the Year for 2012. Now this Internet start-up has gone through some interesting episodes.
Four years ago, the founder, Phil Libin, was having sleepless nights. At 3am, out of cash and having waited in vain for a venture capitalist or angel investor or anyone at all to return his increasingly desperate calls, Libin knew he had to abandon the project. He was going to lay-off all workers in the morning.
Exhausted and demoralised, Libin was about to switch off the light and get some sleep when his email beeped. A momentary blast of hope for Libin, but no, just a message from one of his many fans, this one from Sweden, saying how much the software had changed their lives. Libin almost missed the last line: “If you ever need any money let me know.”
Suddenly feeling awake, Libin typed back: “It just so happens we could use some cash. How much did you have in mind?”The answer came back right away: “Would half a million dollars be enough?”
Today the company is swimming in tens of millions of dollars in cash. It is drawing 40 000 new users a day and has reached cult status in America and Japan.
But who is Libin?Libin’s parents moved to the US from the Soviet Union in 1979 when he was eight. He failed to finish his bachelor’s degree, but he had been a computer whiz kid at high school. Teaming up with other young computer geniuses, Libin created two software companies that were sold for over US$20 million each. Now his vision is to build a company that will impact a billion people.
What is the secret to Evernote’s success?
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Evernote provides a solution to a problem that afflicts many people — forgetting. Evernote stores audio memos, photos, web pages, emails and documents. It can be used to keep a log of meetings, company metrics and online articles. Evernote has applications for all sorts of devices: PC, Mac, iPad and nearly all types of smart phones.
With the elderly and middle-aged forming the majority of the population in developed countries, Evernote truly has billions of potential customers. I was speaking to Samuel Mudavanhu (the current ZNCC Entrepreneur of the Year) recently and he told me about his wish to start an entrepreneurship curriculum at his Maranatha School.
I share his vision of instilling the entrepreneurial spirit among young people and I was already planning to launch Young Entrepreneurs Clubs as part of the SME BusinessLink network.
Now that there is a school head interested in this concept, I hope we can launch the clubs, starting in January at schools and colleges with students who are interested in entrepreneurship and business.
The programme will not be limited to schools only; groups of young people can participate by organising themselves into clubs in their communities. We hope to mobilise support for the Clubs in the form of material resources such as books, DVDs and CDs on business and sourcing funds that will be used as seed capital for promising and viable projects.
We will also provide lectures, speeches and workshops to train the young people on all aspects of business. Business leaders, motivational speakers and various experts will be invited to speak, motivate and give advice to the young people.
To make this project succeed, I will appreciate if you email me your ideas and advice or post them at http://smebusinesslink.com.
lPhillip Chichoni is a strategic business planning and financial management consultant who works with SMEs and entrepreneurs. You may contact him by email at [email protected]
