Yep, I got an Evernote tattoo. That’s it, right up there. Naturally, many of you will think I’m batshit insane for doing this, but I’m going to try to explain. This will delve a bit into my philosophy about tattoos in general and will be rather expository regarding the business side of this little blog, but I think that’s a big chunk of what’s interesting about the whole thing.
I’ve been an extremely heavy Evernote user since I first caught wind of it back when it was in private beta in 2008. Once I learned what it did and how it worked, I knew that it was going to become an integral part of my technological existence. After spending a little over 18 months abusing the shit out of Evernote, figuring out everything it could do and everything I could make it do beyond that, I decided that it was time to step things up a bit. I wrote a book.
As you may or not know, I wrote and sell an ebook about Evernote. The ebook was a product of my being a very heavy Evernote user coupled with, speaking honestly, a desire to change my family’s financial situation. I wrote it over the first three months of 2010 and hung out my shingle in July — six months ago, almost to the day as I write this. To say that it changed my family’s life would be an understatement, I think. Without getting into specific numbers, I’ll say that the ebook has sold *very* well. But, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the other big change brought about by the ebook.
In May of 2010, I started working at Evernote. I love it because I get to do my two favorite things: writing code and writing English. My job there can be attributed directly to the ebook (about which I consulted with Evernote during the production process). And I work from my house, eat lunch with my family every day and have a 10 second commute. There’s another huge bulging benefit of being a big Evernote dork.
Lots of people think tattoos should only be things that are “always” — they want anything indelibly marked on their bodies to be things that describe them as people and definitely not transitive stuff. I disagree. While most of my tattoos deal with things that will always be true about me (family, religion, etc.), I’m a big believer in tattoos as memories, things that meant a great deal to me at a given point in my life — but not necessarily forever.
So, that’s why I got the elephant (courtesy of my insanely talented brother). Given the amount of change in my life over the last year that I owe it, I think it deserves a couple square inches of meat. Don’t you?
hmmm, that logo will be more difficult to remove..;-)
love it!
D.
Awesome post. Though I’ve never gotten a tattoo, I would agree with you that they don’t have to be “always” type things. The things we experience, especially the transitive ones, are the things that shape us into the people that we are. Having spent the last year of my life quitting my life in Indiana, taking a risk to drive out to California to reboot, and ending up working an awesome job at AMD, I know exactly how you feel.
Let’s face it - we will most likely not spend the rest of our lives at our current jobs. We would be crazy, however, if we did not pay credence to how much these places, these events, and these opportunities have changed our lives in many different ways.
-@UPSLynx
You are one crazy guy :)
Good story. You can now mix passion, pleasure and work, that’s great.
When is the NEW VERSION of your EN-book coming out ??
Cheers,
Renfrew
Not being a big tattoo person, I think you are crazy. :) What happens if Evernote gets bought by some horrible corporation and 15 years from now it becomes the new symbol for a revived Nazi movement?.
There use to be a restaurant in California that would give you free lunch for life if you had a tattoo of their logo. I think they should at least give you tenure at Evernote for having the tattoo.
Great. While not a big fan of tattoos I can def see why you got this one.
Are you going to get it shaded as green. Would like to see it imaged inside a evernote notebook.
Cheers
and the ebook is good