

Dropbox Startup Lessons Learned - cartab
http://www.slideshare.net/gueste94e4c/dropbox-startup-lessons-learned-3836587?from=ss_embed

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msy
Ironically it's more grief to get access to a download for the slides than it
is to sign up for Dropbox.

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hanula
One and only reason I started using Dropbox was because of their desktop app.
It was there, available for Linux, simple and easy to install. One click to
create an account and I'am a happy user since then, since the beginning.
Dropbox is great.

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mhd
One important factor for me is that they went beyond the call of duty on
Linux. Dropbox itself had some Python scripts available that made it possible
to install and run the application, even if you weren't running one of the
major two desktops – or even no X11 at all. It was a bit hackish (stubs for
non-present GUI libraries instead of a proper non-GUI daemon), but it got
things running.

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bentoner
Here's the video: <http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/262672510>

The rest of the videos from this conference are good too:
<http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/videos>

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staunch
Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1290303>

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TeMPOraL
I learned about Dropbox exactly the way slide 28 shows - heard about it from
random source, tested, felt happy and started forcing my friends to use it
(ie. to coordinate work for university projects). And the funny thing about
those "Dozens and dozens of cloud storage companies" that existed prior to
Dropbox (as slides 6 and 7 tell)... personally I don't know anyone who knew
about any of those companies. I didn't know any of them untill today and for
years I was pretty sure that Dropbox guys were the first ones to get that idea
(or at least to get it working). And they did a great job with it.

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mparr4
I too assumed they were just the first ones with the idea. I've come up with a
thousand and one amazing ideas only to find out that they've already been done
--I actually invented the internet... It's encouraging seeing an example like
this where quality matters.

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blantonl
_search is a way to harvest demand, not create it_

This is indeed an incredibly important lesson learned.

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JoeAltmaier
Hm. I guess it works for Enterprise etc, but not for small groups. I've got a
high school club, 12 members. We use(d) Dropbox until we "ran out of space".
Its $9.99/mo to "upgrade" and we ALL have to pay it.

So the business model (from our point of view) is: pay nothing until you're
hooked, then its $1,400/year. Ouch! We have to find a different solution.

And what is that money paying for? Of course from Dropbox's point of view its
"what the market will bear". But from the customer point of view?

They say its to "increase your space". But its MY disk drive, I already bought
it. So that seems phoney right off.

Maybe for all the network transfer costs? Hm, we have 1Gb, to copy it all
every week between all of our computers would annualize to a few dollars, not
$1400.00.

I know they seem successful, but they're still leaving some folks out in the
cold with this business model.

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Simucal
It isn't just _your_ disk drive.

They keep a copy of all your data on their servers. Not just a copy, but the
change history of every file so you can revert to previous revisions of
individual files.

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JoeAltmaier
Ah. How unfortunate. So because they chose to change Dropbox into some
repository/history thing, instead of just file-sharing, now they have to
charge everybody.

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Simucal
Again, you are mistaken.

Dropbox didn't change their business model to a "repository/history" type
thing. It has been this way from the very beginning.

It sounds like you just didn't understand the original intent of Dropbox and
were using it for a purpose that it is not entirely designed for.

Dropbox syncs all of your files with their servers. Lets say you have 2
computers with Dropbox installed and under the same account. You can add FileA
to one of the Dropbox folders. It will sync that file with the server and then
all Dropbox clients sync with the server. This is useful in that you could
format both computers and lose all physical copies of FileA. However, as soon
as you re-install Dropbox it will sync with the server again and download
FileA from Dropbox.

It has always been a lightweight and easy to use cloud-backup solution. The
collaboration and shared folders have been just sort of a bonus.

If you want to just keep several machines in sync without the middleman then
you are going to need to look into other solutions. Something like rsynch
might be a good option.

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JoeAltmaier
Dropbox's feature list calls out File Sync and File Sharing as the major
features. Forgive me if I took that at face value. "Sync Windows, Mac and
Linux computers" sure sounds like what it says.

In fact the word "server" doesn't occur until the 18th bullet point. If this
is a the major feature point, they need to talk pointedly with their marketing
guy.

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Nemisis7654
Cool slides. I definitely enjoyed reading those. The fact that I heard about
Dropbox exactly how he explained made it that much better.

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chris123
Great slides and great job extending Hotmail/PayPal viral growth formula.

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nodata
The reason I _don't_ recommend dropbox, is that it's not clear from the
homepage how someone can send a big file with it.

I can watch a video or sign in to an account. Great, but the people I am
recommending this to want to share a file: why is there no file upload widget
on the homepage?

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soyelmango
Perhaps you should be recommending yousendit.com or similar

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nodata
I do recommend yousendit instead. For me, the "sending big files to someone"
is a great hook to get them using the rest of dropbox' features.

Judging by the downvotes, I guess nobody agrees with me :)

