

Ask HN: Was Dropbox a good idea that looked like a bad idea? - coralreef

We&#x27;ve heard that the best ideas are good ideas that look like bad ideas initially. However, I&#x27;m pretty sure I always perceived Dropbox as a good idea ever since hearing about it on HN. Perhaps its because I never tried the alternatives or competitors or knew anything about the space.<p>Was there anyone serious who thought it was truly a bad idea in and of itself?
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icebraining
Here's the original thread, when they launched:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

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snowwrestler
It's amazing how anachronistic some of those comments read today. USB drive?
FTP? SVN? CVS?

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tkinom
I have a similar question. I have been watching "Steve Blank's Customer
development" type videoes on youtube lately. He pitches completely validate
idea before writing a single line of code.

For successfully companies/products like dropbox, google, twitter, etc. What
are the "right" questions/methods to "validate" the idea before the
development - without developing the product and let the massive traction do
the talking?

What are the name of any of "really" successfully product/company follow that
method of "validating idea" before writing a single line of code?

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ed
I actually think this is a good tactic. Basically you try to sell a product
that doesn't exist to determine whether there's any demand.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least 4 large ($50M+ acq. or
valuation) teams that picked their products this way.

It's pretty easy – build a well designed landing page describing the product,
share it on HN/reddit/etc and gauge the response.

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staunch
The response to Dropbox was massive and overwhelmingly positive. Of course a
few individuals tried to pick it apart. That's often just a sign people are
excited about something. Bad ideas just get ignored.

It is true that some stupid investors were wary of Dropbox. There have been
many failed sync and backup products. To the average Digg user it was clear as
day that Dropbox was different.

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helen842000
I don't think it was considered a bad idea. Some mentioned it had been 'done
before' but Dropbox outpaced them by making it simple & actually work. Also it
was considered too simple as it was really bringing the well known concept of
an always-accessible network drive or 'shared docs' folder to the Internet.

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hashtag
The idea behind Dropbox isn't a bad one. In fact, I'd argue that idea still
isn't what Dropbox is, but it's relatively a minor part of it.

