是不是倒下的独角兽？这个问题对 Evernote 来说已经不重要了两个月前，Evernote 换帅，创始人 Phil 辞去 CEO 的职位，说要专注于产品。
昨天 Phil 宣布去风投 catalyst 担任合伙人，同时继续保留 Evernote 董事会主席的职位。WSJ 的报道里并没有说他会如何分配花在两家公司上的时间精力，但按常理推断，Phil 已经基本淡出一手创立的 Evernote 了。
创始人离开对一家创业公司来说可能是最致命的伤害之一了。我觉得争论 “Evernote 是不是第一只倒下的独角兽” 已经不那么重要了，因为 Evernote 面临的问题比这个更严重：它已经没法成为当初想成为的那家公司了——人类的外部大脑，一家 “百年公司”。公司和人一样，成为你自己（be who you are）是最高使命。
Evernote 是谁？
最初的 Evernote 是靠笔记起家的，移动设备兴起，跨设备记录和同步笔记的需求猛涨，早期市场上又没什么太强的对手，Evernote 靠着优秀的产品赢得了很多用户。本来设想的未来之路是一方面在个人笔记市场继续优化产品拿下更多份额，强化品牌，另一方面杀到企业级市场，从笔记切入协同，赚真金白银。结果两条路都走的不顺，原因很复杂，之前做过一些分析。最终的结果是，老业务增长乏力，新业务难以突破，Evernote 陷入到进退两难的境地。
国外有这么一篇博客中列出了 evernote 和一些应用的数据对比图，从中可以看出一些现象。
从下载量看，Evernote（上图 1） 自 11、12年 到达巅峰之后，在美国 iOS 的 App Store 的排名是稳步下跌的，虽然跌的不是那么厉害，排名依然比较靠前，但是态势在那儿。相比之下，竞争对手 OneNote（上图 2）自 13年 开始则是稳步上升。
另一个指标是产品的评分，代表了用户对产品的喜爱程度。和下载量吻合，同样是 12年 到达巅峰，之后一路猛跌。
同时期广受欢迎的产品则是另一幅模样：上图 1 为 OneNote，上图 2 为 Snapchat。
业务进退两难，增长乏力，IPO 受阻，其他渠道的融资也受限，多方受阻之后，Evernote 还会面临无法留住一流人才的问题。顶尖人才和团队才能做出真正好的产品，但是身处困境的 Evernote，靠什么来吸引顶尖人才呢？
Glassdoor 上有一些对 Evernote 的评论，剔除那些过于感情化的言论，留下的是这些。
“If you want to grow in your field and become great at what you do, avoid this place like it's the plague.”
“如果你希望好好发挥自己的擅长，别在这地方待着。”
“Our focus was to improve quality in 2014, I thought, but there was no real improvement but adding stupid new features like Work Chat. With all good chat products like Slack, who [would] use a poor messag [ing] platform? I think they forgot their core competence and start [ed] trying to build an empire. [Total] opposite from collaboration.”
“2014年 我们的核心是提高产品质量，但是除了增加傻逼新功能（比如 Work Chat) 之外，没有任何真正的优化。已经有了 slack 这样的产品，谁还会用这么糟糕的交流平台呢？我觉得管理层已经忘了自己的核心竞争优势，只想建立一个庞大帝国。”
“I have worked for many companies but I have never seen a company who is going downhill this fast. Feel so bad for the smart people who still work there.”
“我在许多家公司工作过，但从没见过下滑这么厉害的。真为那些在这里工作的聪明人感到伤心。”
“Please figure out a way to keep the top talent in our buildings.”
“请想想办法留住我们这里的优秀人才。”
Evernote 依然有机会。新 CEO 在接受采访时说，Evernote 是符合 “牙刷测试” 的产品，使用频度足够高，同时他会大力推进企业市场的销售业务，争取更多盈利。这头绿色大象应该还能在用户的设备中跳一段舞。
但是，在真正爱着 Evernote 的人心中，这些已经不重要了。
来源36氪，作者：黑太一
国内职场社交屡遭冷场，“职圈”能否“招”出新高度？
来源：猎云网（微信：ilieyun） 文/马凤仪
无论是专注于职场社交的“脉脉”，还是专注于企业招聘的平台“拉勾网”，都想要在招聘的沃土上“招”出新高度，但较于国外市值过百亿美金的社交巨头Linkedin来说，国内除了微信算是社交圈里的“独角兽”以外，还有谁敢与其比肩？今天向读者介绍与Linkedin类似的职场招聘社交平台——职圈。
职圈是集简历投递、社交于一体的移动端职业社交平台，致力于帮助求职者找到能帮用户找工作的人，打造从实习和首份工作到后续职业发展的全职业生涯社交圈。其核心是利用大数据技术改造在线招聘，对企业和职位进行多维度深度数据刻画，精准匹配求职者和目标职位。
目前，职圈关注的是在校生实习和第一份工作，以校园为切入点。其优势在于校园O2O的布点，围绕大学生求职的刚需，提供针对性解决方案，如免费打印简历、简历和面试指导、以及求职相关的物品优惠信息等
职圈有以下几个功能特点：
1、利用大数据连接求职者和职位信息：根据求职者对职业信息的需求、职业兴趣、或求职者自身的专业背景、职业生涯规划、职业性格测评结果、学历能力素质等方面因素，向求职者推送个性化的职位推荐信息。同时，在用户允许的情况下，用户的使用数据将会自动上传至后台服务器，用于更深层次的数据分析，从而帮助系统更好的了解用户的使用习惯和兴趣点，做到更精确的人职匹配。
2、社交求职：职圈基于用户的手机通讯录或教育背景，利用后台算法深度挖掘人际关系，通过大数据匹配二度人脉、校友、老乡等与用户可能产生强关系的人，描绘出用户的真实社会图谱，快速构建用户的人脉网络，帮用户找到能够帮助找工作的人。
3、身边的服务：目前职圈已在北京地区80%以上高校开通了身边的打印店功能，职圈用户通过职圈入口找到身边的打印店，可享受简历的免费打印服务。
在未来，职圈会面向个人用户进一步推出如身边的职业规划师、身边的培训机会，面向企业推出一站式校招解决方案等更多服务，切入求职产业链的上下游，打造完整的求职生态。
同类竞品众多（天际、若邻、猎聘、优士、大街、经纬等）竞争压力相对较大，例如，已经建立初步的品牌知名度的脉脉，其优势在于起步早，积累了一定的用户数量。但脉脉主打的是已经在职场上有一定基础的人，在脉脉上，大多是用来找寻职场熟人和牛人的，导致脉脉上的活跃用户以HR和猎头为主，实际运营上与职场社交的定位产生偏差。同时脉脉上入驻很多职场金字塔顶端的高端人士，明星效应十足，但在用户求职需求上并没有多大价值。
Linkedin作为全球职场社交的先行者和领导者，拥有着强大的品牌背书，但对于任何外企来说，进驻中国市场，在中国特殊文化的背景下难免会“水土不服”。所以Linkedin后续推出了“赤兔”，较于Linkedin来说社交场景更为轻松，可用Linkedin账号登陆账号，并导入人脉关系，赤兔的目标人群同职圈基本相同，都是定位于步入职场和处于职场上升期的年轻人。虽然赤兔后台如此强大，但遭遇中国市场，并没有预期的火热，原因可能在于中国的职场社交强调酒桌文化，本质上更偏向于熟人社交。东方文化的含蓄、内敛又往往倾向于线下面对面沟通。
职圈8月8日正式上线，重点在北京各大高校，已经有了近万个用户了。目前在北京高校内有100多家签约打印店。但笔者认为，打印简历的费用并不高，用此来吸附用户，力道尚浅。
团队方面，职圈创始人兼CEO吕云，美国佛罗里达州立大学FIU 计算机学院博士后、北航铭品大数据创新实验室首席科学家、FIU高性能数据库研究中(HPDRC)资深研究专家。领衔研发和部署了在线GIS大数据研究系统TerraFly和智能掌上地图ITPA。曾在大数据国际权威期刊《ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systemsand Technology(TIST)》、《JournalOf Big Data 》等发表核心文章。
据悉，近期职圈已拿到千万元天使轮融资，A轮融资计划正在筹备中。
独角兽
2015年09月11日
独角兽
独角兽俱乐部新添一员，身份管理平台Okta融资7500万美元据国外媒报道，旧金山科技初创公司Okta宣布了新一轮7500万美元的融资，本轮融资的领头者包括安德森·霍洛维茨基金、Greylock Partnersh和红杉资本等。Okta联合创始人及首席执行官托德麦金农（Todd McKinnon）表示本轮融资对该公司的估值接近12亿美元。Okta已累计筹集资金2.3亿美元。
Okta是一款基于云端的 app，可以帮助其他基于 Web 和云端的 app 管理员工的账户和登陆信息。企业使用Okta可以让员工和登陆并使用各种网络服务、远程访问企业信息，而不会导致企业的敏感信息外泄。并且可以在员工离开公司的时候关闭其登陆权限。
该公司称其共有600余名员工以及2500余名客户，其中包括职业社交网站LinkedIn、赌场运营商米高梅集团（MGM Resorts International）和汇款公司西联（Western Union Co.）等。
Okta的竞争对手包括onelogin, Ping Identity,Centrify等初创公司，另外甲骨文，微软、saleforce.com也是其强劲的对手。
除了身份管理，Okta还希望进入安全、移动设备管理、双因素认证等领域。
Okta, the cloud identity management company, announced a $75 million round
Okta, the cloud identity management company, announced a $75 million round. Okta was valued at $1.2 billion in this deal, meaning it has entered the hallowed halls of the Unicorn club, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the deal.
CEO Todd McKinnon told TechCrunch that actual price is a tad below that reported figure at $1.175 billion.
While being a Unicorn isn’t what it once was, it still is meaningful and a big step for Okta, which has been trying to move beyond pure identity management into areas like security, mobile device management and two-factor identification.
Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital led the round. Khosla Ventures, Altimeter, Glynn Capital and other unnamed investors also participated. Today’s investment brings the total raised since the company launched in 2009 to $230 million.
Okta scored an identical $75 million round last June. At the time McKinnon told TechCrunch he was looking at IPOing in the “next couple of years.” Today, he was more specific saying it would likely be in the next 12-18 months, depending on market conditions.
In spite of the current public market conditions, McKinnon said one of the chief reasons his company went back to the well so soon, was that the conditions for this money were so favorable.
“We had offers, but the [existing investors] were so excited about what we are doing and gave us the best deal in terms of valuation and more importantly tons of flexibility to go public with no provisions of blocking the IPO or penalizing us for having our valuation drop [if conditions changed],” he said.
More importantly, this money gives the company the flexibility to control its own destiny moving forward. “We don’t have to go public to raise capital. We don’t have any provisions to block us from going at a certain price or timeline,” he said.
The company has been growing 100 percent year over year and as such they were burning through cash. This puts money in the bank and allows them to buy small strategic companies if they become available, he explained.
Okta reports it has over 600 employees and 2500 customers and just last week it opened a new datacenter in the EU to comply with EU data privacy laws.
Source：TC
独角兽
2015年09月09日
独角兽
成功的SaaS企业具备哪些要素，看看数据怎么说创立一个上十亿美元的SaaS企业软件公司需要多少本钱？这个问题很复杂，但也相当吸引人，在最近一个叫 “SaaS大冒险”（The SaaS Adventure）的贴子里，我们给出了回答。
概括来说：我们观察到，在大多数SaaS公司的成功营销过程当中，都有七个关键阶段。大部分的阶段都围绕着一个咒语：“三倍、三倍、两倍、两倍、两倍”，简称T2D3，指的是公司的年营收增长。
我们将这个历程称为“SaaS大冒险”，这个词很直白地揭示了我们眼中，风险投资人的作用：在SaaS公司攀登10亿美元巅峰的旅途当中，充当旅游向导，提供经验，使之达到甚至超越10亿美元目标。
我们“SaaS大冒险”的贴子，以及T2D3的概念，一经发布就引起了强烈反响。同时，我们也吸引了发明“独角兽”这个概念的风投家Aileen Lee的注意，上个月她刚更新了一批新的课程。所有这一切都促使我们对SaaS公司进行更加深入的分析。
我们的最新分析，在某种程度上还是比较有特色的，给大家提供了一份豪华便当，为大家描绘了SaaS成功攀岩路径图，我们所做的一切，就是希望能够帮助新企业找出自己的成功路径图。
我们可以把这个路径图看成一幅探险地图，登山者们更喜欢叫它“β图”。它能给那些尝试向上攀爬的新公司一些宝贵建议。并且，我们计划通过定期分析数据来更新数据组。
所以我们在这里推荐下SaaS成就数据库（SaaS Success Database ），这是66家SaaS界领军公司的集合，上市非上市的都有。它们无不是在6月30日之前，或通过公开市场，或通过私人并购，以5亿美元以上的身价潇洒退场。其中也不乏估值上达甚至超过10亿美元的私人公司。正是这些公司，定义了SaaS这个行业。
SaaS成就数据库对SaaS的发展史进行了追溯，一直追溯到早期，那个时候SaaS还不叫SaaS，而是叫做应用服务提供商，简称ASP。当时其中有8家公司幸运地得到了Battery的投资。
我们列表当中的SaaS公司，有20%成立于1997年之前，但是大多数还是成立于那之后到2008年金融危机爆发之前的这段时间。当中有36.3%成立于1998-2002年，30.3%成立于2003-2007年。
那些在2008年或之后成立的SaaS公司，比如说App性能管理提供商AppDynamics、移动医疗公司Castlight Health、SaaS服务提供商Domo、社交媒体工具Hootsuite、 App性能管理服务商New Relic、企业内部沟通协作平台Slack、社交媒体管理平台Sprinklr以及企业社交网站Yammer，尽管遭遇了经济困难时期，却能在众多同类公司当中遥遥领先。
这也强调了一点，市场环境有时候并不是成败与否的决定性因素，团队和产品对市场的匹配适应度，才是成功的关键所在。
未来我们还会继续发帖，帮大家解决成功之路上每个关键阶段会遇到的各种难题，我们还会和数据库里的公司CEO对话，这些CEO早已规划出了自己的成功路线图。我们目前已经和其中两位高管进行了视频对话，他们分别是Marketo的Phil Fernandez，以及AppDynamics的Jyoti Bansal。
在谁能够成功创立公司这点上，我们分析发现，成功公司通常由团队创立。
在我们的数据库当中，两位创始人的搭档是最普遍的，占到总数的34.9%，有33.3%的公司由三个或更多的人创立，甚至有的公司创始人人数达到7人之多。
令人惊奇的是，这些创始团队通常是陌生人，有60%的创始人在创立公司之前，压根没有合作过。整个名单当中只有31.8%的SaaS公司，是一人独挑大梁创立的。
除了创始人数，我们还调查了这些CEO的背景，比如说我们问了这样一个问题，有多少人是第一次当CEO？答案是超过67%。尽管SaaS公司CEO都是成年人，但大多数还真的是第一次当上CEO。
有大约60%的创始CEO是30多岁创立的公司，13.8%是在40多岁，还有6.2%是在50多岁才创立的公司。
接下来，我们还调查了公司的起源，选址问题，比如说地形，还有商业模式以及销售策略。
成功的SaaS公司分布在硅谷附近，对硅谷的依赖性远远超过任何其他科技公司，大约41%的SaaS公司总部都设在硅谷。
另外有20%在美国东北地区，9.1%在美国中西部，还有少量公司零星散布在德克萨斯州、大西洋沿岸中部地区、落基山脉还有西北地区。只有5家公司坐落于加拿大或其他美国之外的地方。
我们的顶级SaaS公司销售渠道往往相当广泛，涉及各个行业。而产品的购买决策者要么是首席营销官（CMO，占27.2%），要么就是首席信息官（CIO，占27.3%）。
剩下的18%，目标市场就比较专一了，比如说Medidata、Phase Forward以及Veeva都专注于医药市场，Athenahealth专注于医疗保健，RealPage则专注于房地产。有些公司目标市场更为具体，比如说Dealertrack，就专门负责汽车经销商管理，Fleetmatics就负责车队管理，OpenTable专注于餐厅，Q2 Holdings一门心思盯紧了区域和社区银行。
这些SaaS公司中有36.5%，上市也好，被收购也罢，从创始到变现可能需要超过10年的时间。我们想知道，如果给他们足够长的时间，他们能不能努力攀爬，达成其他成功指标？
我们列表当中最新上市的那些公司，其发展前景怎样？早期分析显示，这些公司发展势头相当强劲，仅6.7%的公司IPO之后显示收入增长比去年同期涨幅低于25%，而其中占42.2%的公司IPO当天收入增长达到100%以上，发展势头相当迅猛。
SaaS公司成长之路相当艰辛，且充满未知数。没有任何一张地图可以帮你准备好一路上必要的临时措施，给你足够的勇气。但是我们希望SaaS成就数据库可以提供一些有价值的见解，帮你考虑到所有方方面面的因素，助你建立一个成功的SaaS的企业软件公司。
What Elements Do Successful SaaS Companies have?
What does it take to build a billion-dollar SaaS enterprise-software company? We gave a 30,000-foot answer to this complex — and fascinating — question in a recent TechCrunch post, The SaaS Adventure.
To recap: We’ve observed seven key phases in most SaaS companies’ go-to-market success. Most of the phases center around a mantra we call “triple, triple, double, double, double” (T2D3 for short), referring to a company’s annualized revenue growth.
We dubbed this journey the “SaaS Adventure,” which is broadly how we view the job of a VC: to serve as a more experienced travel guide to SaaS companies in their climb to the billion-dollar summit and, hopefully, beyond.
We got a very strong response to the SaaS Adventure post and the T2D3 concept. We were also, at the same time, impressed with fellow VC Aileen Lee’s original unicorn-company analysis, which she just updated with some new lessons last month. All this spurred us to conduct a more in-depth analysis of SaaS companies.
Our new analysis, which is featured in part here, provides high-level takeaways, as well as a more nuanced picture of the climb to SaaS success — all of which we hope will help new entrepreneurs fashion their own successful climbs.
Think of this as an expedition map; what mountaineers like to call “beta”: valuable advice to newcomers attempting a particular climb. We plan on refreshing this data set periodically with accompanying analysis.
So here we introduce the SaaS Success Database: a round-up of 66 leading SaaS companies, public and private, that have defined the industry. The database encompasses companies with a realized exit of more than $500 million (either in the public markets or via an M&A transaction, as of June 30) and private companies valued at $1 billion or higher.
The SaaS Success Database traces SaaS companies’ evolution back to their early days, when they were known as Application Service Providers (ASPs). It includes eight companies in which Battery was lucky enough to invest.
Twenty percent of the companies on our list were founded prior to 1997, but most were established after that and before the 2008 crash; 36.3 percent started up between 1998 and 2002 and 30.3 percent between 2003 and 2007.
Those founded on or after 2008 — AppDynamics*, Castlight Health, Domo, Hootsuite, New Relic, Slack, Sprinklr* and Yammer — fired ahead on all cylinders despite the tough economy, reinforcing that it’s not usually the market conditions, but instead the team and the product-market fit that can lead to success.
In future posts, we’ll tackle crucial issues surrounding each phase of the adventure, and talk to CEOs of some of the companies in this database who’ve made the climb themselves. (We’ve already spoken to two of these successful executives on video: Phil Fernandez of Marketo* and Jyoti Bansal of AppDynamics*.)
In terms of who is starting these successful companies, our analysis suggests they are mostly founded by teams: Two founders (comprising 34.9 percent of the total) was the most common configuration for companies in our database, with 33.3 percent of companies founded by three or more people (up to seven in our database). Surprisingly, these founding teams were often strangers: 60.0 percent had no prior history of working together. Only 31.8 percent of SaaS companies on the list had a solo founder.
In addition to demographics, we’ve examined these founding CEOs’ backgrounds and asked questions like: How many were first-time CEOs? (Just over 67 percent — although SaaS CEOs are typically grown-ups: 60 percent of founding CEOs started their companies in their 30s, 13.8 percent in their 40s and 6.2 percent when they were over 50.)
What kind of education and work experience did they bring to the job? Did these founding CEOs stick around for the IPO or other exits? If not, what characteristics differentiated the new CEO at each of those exit stages? These are all points we’ll dive into.
Next, we’ll examine the companies’ origins, addressing questions like geography, business model and selling strategy.
SaaS success turns out to be less Silicon Valley-centric than other areas of tech: nearly 41 percent of our companies were Valley-based, followed by close to 20 percent in the Northeast, 9.1 percent in the Midwest, and a pretty even sprinkling between Texas, the Mid-Atlantic region, the Rocky Mountains and the Northwest. (Only five companies hailed from Canada or other points outside the U.S.)
Our top SaaS players tend to sell broadly across many industries (82 percent), with the buying decision-maker for the product being either the CMO (27.2 percent) or CIO (27.3 percent).
The remaining 18 percent of the companies we studied target a specific vertical, like pharma (Medidata, Phase Forward, Veeva), healthcare (athenahealth), real estate (RealPage) or even super-specific verticals (Dealertrack for auto-dealership management, Fleetmatics for fleet management, OpenTable for restaurants, or Q2 Holdings* for regional and community banks).
In future posts we’ll address other questions from this phase, such as: Did these companies switch to SaaS delivery or start off that way, and how does such a shift typically impact a company’s future success?
Among public SaaS companies, is there a “sweet spot” for revenue per customer? Should your SaaS company aim to land a few whales or many smaller fish — and how does each approach impact subsequent growth?
At base camp leading to the ascent or exit, we wondered: Given a relatively long time to liquidity — 36.5 percent of our companies that have either gone public or been acquired took more than 10 years from founding to liquidity — does a longer (or shorter) climb correlate to other success metrics? What’s the typical financial profile of a successful SaaS company on the verge of a public exit? How does IPO day usually go for top SaaS companies? All are topics we’ll address soon.
And what are the growth prospects for the newly public companies on our list? Early analysis shows it’s very strong, with only 6.7 percent of companies displaying year-over-year revenue growth under 25 percent at the time of IPO; 42.2 percent, the biggest group, were companies roaring ahead with more than 100 percent revenue growth on IPO day.
The SaaS climb is arduous and full of the unexpected. No map can fully prepare you for the improvisations necessary along the way, or give you the guts for the climb itself. But we hope the SaaS Success Database provides valuable insights into building a successful SaaS enterprise-software company — including all the elements of that trek.
Souce:TC
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