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Dropbox is my absolute favorite YC company by far. This appears to be their biggest weakness to date. They've done a piss poor job of having a public voice. Th
by staunch 15y ago
Dropbox is my absolute favorite YC company by far. This appears to be their biggest weakness to date.
They've done a piss poor job of having a public voice. They don't respond to things quickly and when they do they're somewhat defensive and dismissive.
The truth is most of the noise actually is bullshit. They know that. The problem is public perception isn't fair. You can't ignore false hysteria and expect it to go away. People will form opinions based on headlines alone.
They need to humanize the company. Make sure everyone knows Dropbox is run by good people who have good intentions. More Google, less Microsoft.
They still have a ton of momentum, but it's all based on word of mouth. If they lose the warm fuzzy feeling people have about them they will suffer badly in the long term.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- c4urself 15y agoExactly this. And it (partly) comes down to something someone else has mentioned already here on HN: Hire a good PR person.
- ma2rten 15y agoActually, I think outside of tech tech world Google might have a worse image then Microsoft does. The controversy about Microsoft is long forgotten by most people. Google on the other hand can come over as quite creepy to non-techies: They offer something for free, which is always creepy, they harvest all this information about you and they come of as quite emotionless. I think Google might have a little bit of the same problem with the general public, as Dropbox does now in the tech-world. Even though Google is working on it, with their recent ad campaigns.
- Kylekramer 15y agoYou really think people outside of the tech world are think offering something for free is creepy (they seem 100% fine with major TV networks)/know Google is harvesting info/even think of websites as being emotional? All three of those seem to be exclusively tech nerd complaints.
- duck 15y agoMore Google, less Microsoft. Actually, I think they shouldn't be either and just be Dropbox. That is why I have stuck with them through all of this. They're like the Mom & Pop store that doesn't exist in so many towns these days. Yes, they have done a terrible job with their "voice" of late, but I'm sticking with them because I know there isn't some huge corporation behind it and they are trying hard to put out a great service.