Evernote's 5% problem!

Evernote is a platform for note taking, collaborating and archiving. It had shown amazing growth and had joined the list of unicorns with a billion dollar valuation. It seemed to be loved by users and the user engagement levels were really good. The team kept on adding new features to attract newer users and also in a bid to increase engagement further of its existing users.

This is where the problem started arising. Over time on surveying various users, the team at Evernote realised that most users were using only 5% of the total features the app had to offer. And the dilemma was that this 5% varied from user to user. No significant majority of users was using the app in a particular way and hence the core offering of the app was getting diluted. Now the team is working on reinventing the startup and building a core and clear offering which can make the business sustainable and lasting.

The problem arises when a lot of startups begin to scale and in a bid to attract new users, a lot of them begin adding features and enhancements which might not enhance value and might be vaguely correlated to the core product/service. This tends to affect the momentum of the business and has a tendency to destroy value in the longer term.