

How To use Dropbox to organize your startup's documents - rlucas
http://blog.revenueloan.com/2011/02/07/howto-use-dropbox-to-organize-your-startups-documents/

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bdclimber14
I organize Dropbox based on access and make folders for each:

Dropbox > MyStartup > Interns (Shared)

Dropbox > MyStartup > Management (Shared)

Dropbox > MyStartup > Entire Team (Shared)

Dropbox > MyStartup > secret_takeover_plans.doc (Not Shared)

Dropbox > MyStartup > Code (Not Shared, Addition to Git)

Dropbox > Personal Stuff

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dmarble
Love me some organized files. We use Google Docs when we need to
collaboratively edit a document, but the finalized versions are all stored in
Dropbox.

    
    
      Startup\ (Shared with all employees)
         Competitors\
         Contacts\ (folders for people/companies, better in a CRM at some point)
         Customers\
         Dev\
             Concepts\ (mockups)
                 Web\
                 iPhone\
                 Android\
             Specs\
         Graphics\ (logo, frequently used images)
         Marketing\
         Presentations\
         Press\
         Reference\
         Research\
         Unfiled\
         Whiteboards_and_Ideas\ (photos of whiteboarding/brainstorming)
    
      Startup-Confidential\ (Shared with those who need to know)
         Legal\
             Agreements-Executed\
                 (Folders by name of person/organization)\
                     (Agreements signed by this person/organization and us)
             Corporate_Records\
                 Master_Record_Book\
                     (Sequentially labeled, signed finalized documents 
                     from the corporate record book)
                 YYYY-MM-DD_<Company-Event-Description>\
                     (Draft documents/revisions for each major legal event like 
                     formation, board actions, hiring)
             Employee_Records\
                 (Folders by name of employee)\
                     Important employee files, agreements
             Forms
                 Template legal documents
         Finances\
    
      Startup\Interns\ (Shared with interns)
    
      Startup-Working\ (for me)

~~~
rlucas
Nice, bonus points for using the YYYYMMDD date form in your folder names --
free lexical sort!! (We do likewise with suffix notation, mainly because the
more common use case for us is to to first sort by "event description" then by
date.)

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BoombaChicken
I'm one of the people that works in RevenueLoan's DropBox structure, and I
have to say that it has saved my butt a number of times.

I work on a laptop, and largely work remotely, so the obvious benefit of being
able to access the latest files all the time is tremendous. (I use GoogleDocs
with another organization I am a part of, and the DropBox interface and user
experience is superior in every regard. Especially with my non-technical
compatriots!)

I also have Growl notifications turned on for DropBox, so I can see the
activity that is happening within the company even if I am not in the office
that day. This is a surprising benefit.

And finally, having naming conventions (like the YYYYMMDD format) that we
rigidly adhere to, ensures that I can find anything anywhere: The folder
hierarchy is clear and concise, the file names are standardized across all
folders, Etc.

All of this increases efficiency, and just has to have saved me all kinds of
time... and that is one thing every startup company in the world could use
more of!

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smoody
you might want to dig deeper into the dropbox encryption and security
methodologies before putting valuable information up there if you haven't
already.

~~~
rlucas
Agreed; for better or worse, though, a lot of what we get comes in unencrypted
email. (This includes legal documents from prestigious law firms, etc., whose
practices we are unlikely to be able to influence.)

Hence, we practice "no-worse-than" security. And if we originate a secret, and
want it to remain so, we encrypt it using strong encryption.

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zdw
Alternatively, you could set up a private git repo, and use ssh keys to
control access with gitolite or similar...

I tend to think that Dropbox is only useful for people who can't figure out
version control, but that's probably my own bias.

~~~
stevejohnson
Or for people who want to share binary files, or for people who like drag-and-
drop interfaces, or for people who don't want to spend a bunch of time
learning about secure shared repo setup. In other words, for people who Just
Want To Share A Damn Folder. Like my thesis advisor, my artist friends, and
_me_ , a loyal git user.

~~~
patrickaljord
I find google doc better for sharing docs, you can edit them online anywhere
and also upload any kind of files now though I never do.

~~~
stevejohnson
Doesn't work at all if the source material is in LaTeX, or anything more
complicated than RTF really.

~~~
patrickaljord
You can still upload LaTeX docs to google docs and edit them with your own
editor or use <http://code.google.com/p/latex-lab/>

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phlux
I have been doing this! However – we are still just two founders, so we
haven't expanded beyond the 2gb freebie.

Though I use the following structure:

NEWCO: \- DOCS – then dirs Doc, XLS, PDF, NDA, PPT, Legal, Research

\- GRAPHICS – All graphic collateral .vsd, .psd, .svg etc.

\- IMAGES – Output of graphics files, .png, .jpg

\- SITE – All HTML pages created.

Outside of this, I make my Eclipse Workspace in my dropbox folder as well.
Then any machine I open eclipse on, everything is as I left it.

—*NOTE: this i proving weird as the Android SDK installs a TON of stuff in the
folder. I am still figuring out the best way to do this.

