In this talk, Jack Herrick outlines the seven core principles that he says all evergreen (self‑sustaining, privately‑held) companies share. He argues that these "secret weapons"—purpose, people, perseverance, paced growth, profit, privacy, and pragmatic innovation—create a durable, mission‑driven organization that can thrive without venture capital or public‑market pressure. Herrick illustrates each principle with examples from wikiHow and contrasts evergreen firms with VC‑backed startups, highlighting how long‑term decision‑making, disciplined profitability, high employee retention, strategic secrecy, and incremental innovation together form a sustainable business model. The talk is aimed at entrepreneurs seeking an alternative to the high‑growth, high‑risk venture path.
Chapters
So how are these Cinderella stories even possible? Well, it turns out all evergreen companies share 7 secret weapons. 7— we all kind of have the same game plan. 7 things are in the game plan of every evergreen company, and I want to share those with you today. Number 1 is purpose. Evergreen companies tend to be run with a noble purpose. In WikiHow's case, Our mission is to give every person on the planet a free practical education. When you have a mission like that, it brings the entire company together and focuses every single person on the same thing. When you have everyone in the company focusing on the same purpose, it's very, very powerful. Number 2 is people. Evergreen companies tend to attract great people. And that makes a ton of sense. Who wouldn't want to work at a place that's aligned with their values and they're intrinsically motivated to work towards a purpose they really like. In addition, evergreen companies are such fulfilling places to work that retention is much higher than Silicon Valley averages. The team I work with at wikiHow is the best team I've ever worked with at over 4 different startups. Number 3, perseverance. When your goal is to live forever and last forever, you make very long-term decisions. And it shouldn't be surprising that in the long term, long-term decision-making pays off. Secret number 4, paced growth. When you don't have venture capital money or private equity money, you don't have the option to go big or go— go big— get big fast. But that's all right, because in most cases, the companies that try and get big fast, go big or go home, Pretty much just go home. Evergreen secret number 5, profit. Now it may seem like a punishment that you've got to focus on profitability from day 1. And in the early era when you're looking at your venture-funded friends who don't have to worry about profitability for years, it will feel like a punishment. But it's not. It's actually a great discipline. I can tell you from having tens of millions of dollars in the bank in the first year of starting a business doing the venture model and having nothing in the bank doing the evergreen model, that one technique builds very good habits that last for the rest of the company that will always benefit you no matter how much money is in the bank. The other technique breeds terrible habits. Whenever you have— when you have tens of millions of dollars in the bank and you see a problem, what's your first solution to that problem? Money. Money. Right. How can I solve this problem? Money. Money can solve a lot of problems, but money is not the best technique to solve any problem. So if you focus on profitability from day one, even though it's painful, it'll build great habits for you. Number 6, private. There's a big advantage of being a private company that's not trying to raise capital. My competitors have no idea what my strategies are. They have no idea. But my competitors who are raising, those 15 companies raising money on Sand Hill, their secrets get out. They have to show their plan to so many venture capitalists, they know— people say this is what's working, this is what's not working, that leaks back to me. And those competitors aren't— I even know— I know a lot about those competitors, but I know even more about my publicly traded competitors. Those guys, they got on a conference call once a quarter, with Wall Street and me, telling me exactly what they're doing, what's working, and what's not. It's like a free information source for me. There is no information source that goes back to them. Being private is a great, great advantage. I love AngelList. AngelList is a wonderful platform. But when you raise money on AngelList, you have to reveal a lot of information. I'm on AngelList. If you're starting a how-to company, you better bet I'm going to read it. What about your employees? Doesn't it seem like they get hired from your competitors? Oh yeah, I mean, that's an information source. That's the information leak you can't control. The good news is retention is so high at an evergreen company, that's going to not happen all that frequently. But it's still a risk. Number 7, pragmatic innovation. Now, truth be told, if you're trying to do a moonshot-type business, moonshot-type innovation, the evergreen business model is not for you. If you're going to do something like that, you're really better off raising a lot of capital because it's kind of an all-or-nothing type of thing. But that's a minority of startups out there. There's a type of startup where a certain breed of pragmatic innovation works the best. And that breed of pragmatic innovation breed of pragmatic innovation is so successful it's actually been adopted now by the venture community. Things like the Lean Startup movement, A/B testing, kind of shooting bullets before you fire a cannonball, all these ways are talking— things talking about the same thing, which taking small investments, measuring how good it is, small innovations, when you find out you got a good one, then you really invest. That model works beautifully in the evergreen model and that model is one of the things that can drive a lot of successful companies.
