


As a scientist living and working under Communist rule in Soviet Russia, Pachikov was no stranger to the forgotten.

Trained in economic mathematics, Pachikov earned his doctorate in fuzzy logic from the Academy of Sciences of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in Moscow. A pioneer of virtual reality, computerized handwriting analysis, and optical character recognition, Pachikov has spent much of his life working to solve some of computing’s most challenging problems. Pachikov is one of Silicon Valley’s most visionary technologists. Stepan Pachikov wanted to remember everything. He aimed to solve a giant problem: overcoming the limitations of human memory. The idea for Evernote began with the personal quest of its founder, Stepan Pachikov. How Evernote lost sight of its original vision and how this almost doomed the company.How the company resisted investor pressure and remained true to their convictions about the value of Evernote as a freemium product.Why timing was so crucial to Evernote’s success, and how co-founder and former CEO Phil Libin’s vision for the product created vital tailwind for Evernote’s growth.Here are some of the things I’ll be exploring in this article: Despite this, Evernote has been plagued by a series of managerial missteps and failed product launches, and the company’s future is far from certain. Evernote was and remains one of the best examples of what a freemium product can be. It was an extension of the human mind itself that would let users remember everything.Įvernote has come a long way since Pachikov began working on the app seventeen years ago. To Pachikov, Evernote wasn’t just another app or a way to capitalize on Silicon Valley’s burgeoning obsession with personal productivity. Legendary investor, programmer, and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham once wrote that one of the best ways to come up with ideas for your next startup is to ask what product you wish someone else would make for you.įor Stepan Pachikov, founder of Evernote, that product was a way to help him remember things.Īlthough Pachikov first began working on what ultimately became Evernote back in 2002, his fascination with human memory stems from his experiences growing up in the former Soviet Union.
