The Silicon Valley echo chamber is a fun thing to be part of when you live there. Café and meeting room conversations manifest quickly in ugly blog posts. Inevitably they lead to widely circulated posts on Medium and more. Then you’re screwed.

Problem is, the gossip engine is rarely right.

Watching Evernote’s handling of exec changes and product launches, they are due a bit of flack. But nothing like what they are copping. The product is brilliant. Not perfect, but brilliant.

Their problem is straightforward. Lousy marketing.

Evernote is a rich product – the web clipping button is a gem. Handwriting on the new iPad pro is fun. Scanning a business card using the mobile app works great. Sharing meeting notes across any device works well. It’s all any information collecting and creating junky could want and more.

Whenever I ask someone who has joined the parade slamming Evernote, they rarely know about any of these features.

One of the key metrics for any SAAS marketer is “product full potential”. This is how many customers are using how many of the features you regard to be crucial to the product’s intent. I count about nine in Evernote. Haters seem to be using about two. Fans are close to nine.

Instead of working to increase usage they seem intent on marketing to us in an app we’ve already paid for – driving upgrades to the business edition or spotlighting team collaboration (one of the features I’m guessing they count as crucial).

So, maybe its time to cut Evernote a break. Instead of crying their demise, lets encourage a product that many of us love to grow, get better, expose the slate of innovations they’ve made.

I’d like to think they’ll realize their full potential.