SINGAPORE — When Evernote was first launched in 2008, it promised to revolutionise the way users manage information by providing a platform to easily digitise content created on the go.

Today, the suite of software and services designed for note-taking and archiving has nearly 85 million users worldwide, with about 500,000 of them in Singapore — making the Republic Evernote’s most successful market in terms of market penetration. And the firm, whose goal is to become a “100-year-old start-up”, shows no signs of slowing down.

“One of the promises we want to give is that we want to help people remember everything, so we need to be everywhere they are as best as we can.

“Going forward, it could be the Google Glass or smartwatches, but we want to innovate on that,” said Mr Foo Tiang Lim, Market Development Lead for Evernote in Singapore.

“We are also working on making it easier for new users to start using Evernote and that could eventually manifest as Welcome screens in our apps and learning materials, but it is always an ongoing effort,” he added.

As part of Evernote’s ambition to be wherever users are, it tries to be one of the first apps to be available on any new device or operating system, a run that started with the launch of the first iPhone.

Evernote Market, an online marketplace that allows one to purchase physical goods such as wallets and Moleskin notebooks, was launched last September. The firm relies heavily on word of mouth to expand its footprint in Asia, said Mr Foo, a member of the company’s three-man-strong team in Singapore that focuses on sales, marketing and user engagement for South-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

“We traditionally rely on users to tell their friends how great Evernote is. We spend a lot of time, energy and effort to get people to talk more effectively about Evernote — not to sell things — and we are very fortunate to have a very enthusiastic fan base,” he added.

Just as the firm aims to help users be more productive, it also espouses a corporate culture that is meant to spur productivity via a simple philosophy: Let employees enjoy their work.

“When people do work that makes them happy, it is work they find meaningful and of which they can see the impact directly,” said Mr Foo.

“For example, we hold many events in Singapore and, at one of the workshops, a 70-year-old man told us he was a user of Evernote Premium. It turned out that he was a fengshui master who used the app to communicate floor plans, charts and readings to his customers. Little incidents like these make us feel that the work we do is meaningful.”

“We also try to remove unnecessary boundaries, such as dress codes and the devices staff can take to work. We don’t have to fill up forms before going on leave — little things like that help us become more productive.”