

Show HN: Dropdock, From Startup Weekend Winner to a Real Project - knes

Hey everyone!<p>Last weekend I participated in a Startup Weekend (Paris, France) with a friend where we pitched a simple idea. We wanted to create a cross platform application with the easiest file-sharing experience. Drag and drop the files on the avatar of the person you want to send them to. and voila, the files are sent.<p>During the weekend I posted on HN to get some feedback on our project and was happy to see we got some awesome feedback ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3780777 ). The testing page ( http://dl.dropbox.com/u/149780/Dropsend%20beta.jpg ) got more than 1200 Unique Visitors in 8h with a CTR of 21% ! By the end of the weekend we had a working prototype that was able to send files both locally and through the web.<p>Since we were just there to have fun and took SW more like a hackathon, we were really surprised when we were announced as the Winners of the weekend ( Ze winning pitch deck: http://speakerdeck.com/u/dropdock/p/dropdock-startup-weekend-winning-pitch )<p>After a lot of thinking, we decided to take the projet further and really launch the service, thus creating Dopdock!<p>We are currently refactoring the code, redesigning the prototype and adding some features ( Encrypted transfers, Send to non Dropdock users, etc ). The plan is to launch Dropdock by the end of April. That's where you come in, we need tech oriented / startup enthusiasts to give us feedback on our beta because we think you guys will be the ones benefiting the most from our service.<p>So take a look at http://getdropdock.com to watch a demo of Dropdock and why not signup for the beta if you like it! Any feedback is more than welcome, either on the landing page or the application.<p>If you have read up to this point, you get an extra thank you!<p>TL;DR: Took Startup Weekend as a hackaton, pitched a simple idea, won the competition to our surprise, decided to continue the project. Need beta tester! http://getdropdock.com/<p>Cheers,
Syl<p>PS: My Tech co-founder blogged about the experience, you can read it @ http://maximebf.com/2012/04/startup-weekend/
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rajdesai225
I just looked at your demo and spend only about a minute but my initial
question is how do you diffentiate your company from dropbox?

I do not think the issue is building the code or encrypting the file or
sending it out to non users. The issue is why will someone select your service
over dropbox?

They have better market penetration and stronger cash position. The barrier to
entry comes into play when I have about 1000 GB of my data already hosted on
dropbox and now I see your company doing pretty much the same thing. Why would
I leave dropbox and migrate my 1000 GB of data to dopdock? Before you rewrite
the code and encrypt the file and perform user authentication scirpts - I
think you should answer that question first. If you have a great answer - then
it's great. If your answer is will give them more free space i.e. 200 GB to
start out with - it's good but I don't think it's going to cut it. So, my
thing is answer that first and if you can - you will be golden.

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Lamak
Clicky link <http://getdropdock.com/>

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theoutlander
Looks pretty cool! Good luck to you guys!

