
Drew Houston's (Dropbox) YC Application - giu
http://files.dropbox.com/u/2/app.html
======
rkwz
I liked this part >>

 _# Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate? This idea
requires executing well in several somewhat orthogonal directions, and
missteps in any torpedo the entire product.

For example, there's an academic/theoretical component: designing the protocol
and app to behave consistently/recoverably when any power or ethernet cord in
the chain could pop out at any time. There's a gross Win32 integration piece
(ditto for a Mac port). There's a mostly Linux/Unix-oriented
operations/sysadmin and scalability piece. Then there's the web design and UX
piece to make things simple and sexy. Most of these hats are pretty different,
and if executing in all these directions was easy, a good product/service
would already exist._

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dotBen
With Google's GDrive clearly listed as a potential competitor, which had to be
mentioned several times in the application, I didn't find the application as
"strong" as I would have expected.

Of course, I love + use DropBox, and GDrive has never really happened (not in
the dropbox-like incarnation people expected) but at the time the application
was written it seemed as though things were very stacked against DB.

~~~
sushrutbidwai
I always think that for a space like backup and sharing of data/files a
startup always had much chance of success than GDrive or other biggies.

Reasons -

1\. Its important to iterate extremely fast and keep on improving your
solution which a big company like Google cant really do any more.

2\. This space does not require integration with other consumer apps offered
by big companies like emails/calendars/social-network. Therefore there isnt
much to win for big companies to win by focusing enough on competing in the
space. Its more of a distraction really.

3\. Backups of data is very important feature for which people are willing to
pay. Hence consumer is also very demanding. Must easier for a startup to keep
on listening to consumer than a big corporate.

Another similar startup which is doing extremely well in similar space
compared to biggies is <http://www.druva.com/>

------
crocowhile
There was a version of this with PG's comment that was even more interesting
to read. Edit: found here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=801503>

~~~
giu
The URL of this submission is the same as the one of the submission you
linked; it's strange that my submission made it through the _dupe filter_.

Thanks for the link, crocowhile; pg's comment there is really that more
interesting to read

~~~
jedc
I think the dupe filter only checks for stories within X number of days. This
was past the limit => new thread.

------
giu
Source of this submission is pg's following comment:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1938348>

To quote it: _If there's one thing applicants don't get, it's the value of
being concise in the answers. Not brief, concise._

------
ra
> What are people forced to do now because what you plan to make doesn't exist
> yet?

> Email themselves attachments.

For me, that was the killer feature that got me hooked 2+ years ago.

Today we use Dropbox for so much more. It's become the ultimate networked
drive that takes advantage of your local hard disk.

The one feature I wish it had was encryption.

~~~
jodrellblank
I understand the wish for encryption, but once you've put your encrypted
dropbox in the cloud, it's there forever. If anyone is going to break the
encryption it's going to be:

1) Someone with massive computing power (e.g. cloud based)

2) Someone with a long time to work on it

Who's to say DropBox wouldn't setup background processes to brute force
encryption keys? Who's to say your encryption keys might not be trivial to
brute force 10 years from now?

And if you use password protected documents you can't change your encryption
key because they can always look at a previous version where the key was
different.

More to the point, if you don't trust them to store your data, why would you
trust their encryption? If they _were_ malicious (and I'm not claiming
anything) they would deliberately weaken the encryption 'accidentally' and you
would likely never know.

~~~
ra
If the dropbox client encrypted all files using a shared secret known only to
myself, then my files would be protected by an additional layer of security
where I manage the keys, that makes a lot of difference.

Obviously there is no such thing as absolute security, but that's not a reason
not to take protective measures.

~~~
nodata
How would the dropbox client encrypt the files if only you knew the shared
secret? You have to give the client your shared secret, and then we're back to
where we began.

~~~
ra
No because the client is on my machine. See how truecrypt works if you want to
understand this.

------
ThePinion
It's awesome how honest he was in who his competitors were and how similar
they were to his product (including the fear that Google would eventually
overtake) and yet all through the application he seemed very confident that
his product was going to succeed and surpass what the others attempted to do.

I remember showing my friends the first presentation video when they started
giving out private Beta invites. I was so stoked to have something like it
that my friends could also use with me. I'm very glad everything worked out
for him and the Dropbox crew!

------
pasbesoin
OT: The Windows machine I'm using at the moment has the/a Norton... security
suite installed (firewall, anti-virus, et al.).

Upon navigating to the linked page, a pop-up appeared warning that the site is
"unsafe".

Which causes me some concern that the "mainstream" campaign against Dropbox
and others may already be gearing up.

------
dmoney
I wish my employer would get Dropbox. Not being able to host it in-house is
probably a dealbreaker though.

------
lwhi
Providing ideas which could be patented on the application form seems quite
foolhardy (for the applicant) .. is that a trick question?

EDIT: Actually, I suppose it serves two goals -> could show potential
ingenuity, but also reveals how 'trusting/guarded' the applicant is.

~~~
eli
In the US at least, you can still patent an idea for some amount of time after
it's been made public.

------
gabbo
My favorite part:

 _# How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A version you
can charge for? Prototype - done in Feb. Version I can charge for: 8 weeks
maybe? (ed: hahaha)_

Just another example of how optimistic developers can be (I know I'm guilty of
the same).

~~~
mgedmin
For those of us who haven't been tracking Dropbox closely, how long did it
actually take?

------
naz
"How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet?"

I wonder how many single founders make a terrible joke answer to that question
and if some sort of filtering could be applied. Drew handled it well, I would
have just put n/a

------
vaksel
seems like 1 million is the number everyone goes with...so if someone sees a
very promising startup at demo day, would be a good number to offer.

~~~
messel
But with that 1 million acquirers will want the team/product for X years to
ensure they get something of value (the product creation ability / pitching
skill of the founders).

