Paperless Post Iterations

Image via WikipediaEvite Cries Y(h)elp! Copies Paperless Post Pixel By Pixel

Only now is Paperless Post thinking in terms of the freemium model, and I believe they have been profitable for a year now. That is curious. Most others start with the freemium model. They build the user base, and monetize later.

With Paperless post you get to send out invitations to important events in your life. The paper is gone, but the beauty is preserved, perhaps even enhanced.

And it is not just about digital. It is not just that you used to send paper versions, and now you send digital versions. The digital medium allows for the collection of data as to how the invitation card travels around as people open up the cards, RSVP and so on. That feedback loop was not possible with the paper incarnations of the cards.

Other than sending more and more beautiful cards to more and more people for more and more events what are some of the directions Paperless Post could go on to?

One obvious thing that emerges is that special social graph of people you invite to the special events in your life, people who show up for those special moments. Culling that social graph could lead Paperless Post into unforeseen directions. Amazon started out selling books. The Amazon Web Services was built for internal use, and now is a major Amazon offering.

Evite Cries Y(h)elp! Copies Paperless Post Pixel By Pixel

Mike Arrington still has that thing that made him build the top tech blog in the world. Now no longer with TechCrunch, look at what this dude has dug out!

Mike Arrington: Uncrunched: Embattled Evite Clones Startup Paperless Post In Quest For Survival: For the last few years, though, a small startup called Paperless Post has emerged that lets people create beautiful event invitations online. Paperless Post isn’t free. In fact, that seems to be part of the attraction....... There’s been very little tech press about Paperless Post ...... The company has sent some 50 million invitations, has raised $6.3 million in funding and is break even with 35 employees in New York and San Francisco. Marissa Mayer uses Paperless Post for her events. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The White House executive branch, The National Gallery and even The Prince of Wales have all used the premium invitation service. ...... It’s a fascinating case study against the notion that people will always choose free over for pay online services. ..... an outright rip off of Paperless Post’s business. Evite’s Postmark hasn’t officially launched yet, but they promote it on the evite home page and people have noticed it. ...... “Evite’s Postmark looks like someone hired a programmer and told them to copy every aspect of Paperless Post,” says the person who pointed it out to me. And that’s true. The business model is identical – charge for every invitation sent, plus optional fees for specialized designs and other customizations. The pricing is nearly identical. ...... Evite has also copied the exact look and feel of a number of the Paperless Post invitations as well. ...... I particularly like the line they use at the bottom of the Postmark website – “The comfort from knowing that Evite Postmark is as reliable, effective and innovative as Evite.” .... Innovative, indeed....... And I certainly don’t weep for Paperless Post. In fact, this is great for their business. As much as Postmark has retreated from the stain of the evite brand on its website, most people will still understand where this service came from and remember the years of horror using the evite service.

What is happening to Paperless Post now has happened to FourSquare several times over, and they are stronger than ever before. Paperless Post knows this space, and Evite is just imitating. It feels like a total copy and paste. When you did that with term papers at college, you got into trouble.

In elementary school the guy sitting next to me in an exam copied everything I wrote down without my realizing he was doing so, including my name! That is how he got caught! Hello Mohan! You want to know how Evite got caught? Check out this video.



I agree with Mike Arrington's conclusion.

My guess is Postmark will just raise awareness of Paperless Post, and even more people will flock to the service when they want to send a premium event invitation.

The day Facebook Places was launched FourSquare had its best day ever. That's there, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth. Somebody explain why! Mikie?

Evite is Plaxo, no disrespect for Sean Parker intended. This stunt will not save them. I think this episode, at the end of the day, will go down in history as someone else having launched a PR campaign on behalf of Paperless Post.