If you tune your Twitter client to the hashtag #xcevernote this Friday at 11:00 am Pacific time / 2:00 pm Eastern time, you’ll be able to join me and Gary Little, a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures in Menlo Park, for a public conversation about what it takes to build startups that will survive and thrive over the long haul.
It’s all part of the run-up to our big February 7 forum, “The 100-Year Company: An Evening with Evernote, Morgenthaler, and Sequoia,” where Little will be onstage with Evernote CEO Phil Libin and Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha for a live interview focusing on Evernote’s audacious goal to stay in business into the 22nd century. (You can register for that event here.)
Most venture-funded companies have trouble looking beyond the next decade, since the perception that is the “exit”—the day when they’ll be acquired or go public—needs to come within the 10-year lifespan of a venture fund. But Libin says he wants Evernote to be around at least as long as the digital memories it’s storing for more than 16 million users, and he envisions using serial fundraising rounds to make sure early investors see some return. That, in theory, will lessen the pressure for an IPO or an acquisition and free Evernote to focus on improving its growing collection of cloud-based memory-keeping tools.
Morgenthaler led a $10 million Series B funding round for Evernote in 2009 and also contributed to a $20 million Series C round in 2010 and an even bigger $50 million round in 2011. On Friday, you’ll have a chance to quiz Little about why Morgenthaler believes in Evernote’s technology—and also find out what he thinks about Libin’s serial fundraising philosophy. As a veteran of Apple, Sun, IBM, and TRW, Little also has more than a bit of experience working for organizations with big visions for the future. So he’ll likely offer perspectives on the tensions between short-term profitability and long-term thinking in technology companies.
So, join us on Twitter this Friday at 11:00 am Pacific. Remember, the hashtag for following the chat is #xcevernote—and we hope to see you again at Microsoft Silicon Valley, which is hosting the February 7 event.
