Meet GoodNotes founder, who turned dorm-room passion into top download on Hong Kong’s app store
- Steven Chan spent hours developing GoodNotes while juggling lectures and exams during his varsity days
- GoodNotes received US$6 million seed funding in 2020 from Race Capital to develop an expanded app version into a note-sharing platform
The eureka moment that put Steven Chan on his path to entrepreneurship occurred 12 years ago while he was scrawling mathematical equations on loose-leaf paper notebooks at the University of Queensland. Apple’s iPad, freshly launched in 2010, just did not match the feel of putting pen to paper.
Frustrated, Chan - who was pursuing a degree in mathematics - decided to build his own application from scratch. Having learned coding since 10, Chan toiled through his sleeping hours to create what he hoped would be the best application for recognising hand-written characters, scribbles and even mathematical equations.
“I had this belief that bringing pen and paper to the digital world [was] something that will be fundamental,” Chan said in an interview with the South China Morning Post, adding that he bought stacks of Moleskine notebooks to feed his obsession to mimic the colour of the pages in his app.
The result is GoodNotes, a free-to-download app used every month by more than 15 million active customers, who each pay a one-time US$7.99 charge to unlock all its annotation, handwriting recognition and organisational features. It’s the top-grossing productivity app in US, Hong Kong and mainland China, according to SimilarWeb, an online traffic monitoring service.
Now London-based, GoodNotes employs more than 100 globally, with 40 working in an open-planned office in Tsim Sha Tsui district. The staff get daily catered meals and free Uber rides, an improvement from Chan’s dormitory.
“If you can afford it, you should do the best for the people you employ,” Chan said. “They are the ones building the company.”
Casually dressed staff work on standing workstations with ultrawide 49-inch monitors in an office that features a corner - complete with musical instruments - for impromptu jamming by musicians every Tuesday.
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The company raised US$6 million in seed funding in 2021 from Race Capital, the Silicon Valley venture fund founded by fellow Hongkonger Alfred Chuang. It followed a 2020 expansion into the United Kingdom, when they opened an office in London which has grown to 30 employees from an initial six.
“London is a major global tech hub. We’re excited to make our mark in the tech ecosystem here as we grow and reach a more diverse pool of talent as well,” GoodNotes said in its office blog. “Secondly, London is English speaking, which is also our primary language for work. Lastly, the time zone overlap with Hong Kong makes it a more convenient location too.”
Success did not always come easy, Chan said. As the sole developer without any capital, marketing expertise and connections, Chan said he was unsure of the app’s sustainability in the long run. When Apple launched the Apple Pen in 2015, Chan knew he needed to build a team to keep up with the anticipated surge in demand for his app.
Without any outside help, he slogged through the early years with revenue from app sales, and relied on word of mouth on social-media and online forums to boost its market position.
“The first few years were like survival mode,” he said. The early success was due to the authenticity of the experience, he added, emphasising his commitment to good user experience.
Students are now the majority of GoodNotes users, making up 70 per cent on average and up to 90 per cent in mainland China. Chan decided to adopt the one-time pay model to avoid burdening them with a recurrent monthly subscription fee.
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The biggest challenge, he said, came when he made the transition from sole developer to team leader. A self-described “introvert”, Chan said he was unsure of how to delegate roles and responsibilities.
His next aim is to evolve the app from a simple note-taking function into a larger note-sharing platform. Currently in closed-beta or internal testing stage, Chan hopes to launch the new version of GoodNotes sometime in 2023.
Chan said that young entrepreneurs in Hong Kong looking to emulate GoodNotes’ success should not be intimidated by the time and effort he personally spent in driving GoodNotes to where it is today.
“You should be working on a problem you’re personally really passionate about so that you’re thinking in the long-term,” he said. “Maybe in a few years you cannot see a difference, but maybe in a 10-year timescale, the difference could be huge.”
