This note-taking app rivals Evernote, and it’s almost entirely bootstrapped

It’s no secret that some of the most heavily-funded, highly-valued startups on the planet make little or no money. The Silicon Valley mantra seems to be build something that people love, acquire a massive user base, and then maybe dip your toes into the monetization pool. When you’re raising money left and right from eager venture capitalists, it’s easy to keep the ship sailing with nary a banner ad or premium subscription service.

ColorNote, a minimalist, completely free note-taking app from South Korean startup Social & Mobile, has been downloaded more than 90 million times since launching in November 2009. It boasts 18 million monthly active users (MAUs), 4 million daily active users (DAUs), and co-founder Mijae Kim claims that it’s adding 2.8 million new registered users per month. And that’s all solely on Android.

But ColorNote hasn’t earned the husband-and-wife team a single cent, nor have they accepted a penny of venture capital funding. With Mijae estimating that the service will acquire its 100 millionth user by April, more than six years after debuting on Google Play, can ColorNote finally open the floodgates and monetize successfully, or will it nosedive toward irrelevance like Evernote?

Perhaps a better question is, can a Korean startup with zero VC funding beat an American unicorn at its own game?

First-mover advantage

Before domestic giant Samsung unveiled its first Android phone, Mijae’s husband Sungsuh Park was already designing ColorNote. Sungsuh, an early Android developer, noticed that the Motorola Droid was about to hit international markets without a pre-installed note-taking app. He built ColorNote in just two weeks, unveiling it in time for the Droid’s global rollout.

Though Evernote was founded in 2007, ColorNote beat the ailing unicorn to the Google Play store by a month. While its California-based rival offered a number of extra features (and a premium paid service) right off the bat, ColorNote focused entirely on simple color-coded text notes.

Functions are minimal without skipping on necessities. Users can create notes and lists, stick them to their home screen, set reminders, and check things off as they’re completed. Notes can be locked with a password, synced to the cloud or an SD card, shared, and archived. There’s also a search function to find text across all memos that have been taken.

“Being a first mover and avoiding useless features are key factors to our success,” Mijae tells Tech in Asia. “There are so many simple note-taking apps out there, and others who put a lot of money into marketing. We have stayed true to when we launched, cautiously adding new features and channeling simplicity. Whether it’s pre- or post-monetization that will not change. We have gotten this far by putting the user first and believe that our future lies in that.”

Social & Mobile’s husband-and-wife duo, Mijae (left) and Sungsuh.

Chasing venture capital funding, or monetization, hasn’t been a priority for ColorNote because the startup is already earning revenue from other apps – enough to keep its five-member ship sailing. Those apps include popular Android flashlight app Color Flashlight and ColorDict Dictionary, both of which were spun off into a separate entity last November so the team could focus its resources entirely on ColorNote.

“Every startup has its own way,” Mijae says. “Some want to raise money and grow fast, but we want to build the business ourselves and run it ourselves. We’ve been stable for almost seven years by making our own decisions.”

Hitting that 100-million-user milestone will have no bearing on the startup’s decision to keep its note-taking app free, and free of external funding, she adds:

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