[AlexandrB]

We've codified greed in how tech businesses commonly operate. Once they take VC money, the expectation is constant growth. If you have a product with a limited market/audience there are only a few ways to achieve that:

- Increase prices - which will drive some of your customers away.

- Revenue through ads - which will drive some of your customers away.

- New products - risky, and if successful it sometimes means the original product becomes abandonware.

- New features to try to increase the audience for your product or monetize directly - what it seems like Evernote did.

But not every product can have billions or even millions of users. So sometimes these all fail anyway. Basically investment, whether from VCs or an IPO, is often death for a small business serving a niche market.