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Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
Jobs tried to buy Dropbox, from Forbes profile of Dropbox and cofounder Drew Houston
- blurpin 15y agoPress release (and TC) says 45+ million users. Forbes says 50 million. I think 50mm is more like it.
- gr366 15y agoDoes Forbes.com have a print URL? I couldn't find one (did find a print.css which does almost nothing to optimize for printing), and I'd rather not encourage their splitting the article onto 4 separate pages by clicking through.
- taylorbuley 15y agoUnfortunately I don't think we do In this case, however, it's a cover story -- the best print format we can offer
- rkudeshi 15y agoI'm very surprised they split it into 4 pages (it didn't feel like much content on each page). (I understand why web publishers split pages, but you can take it too far.)
- shrikant 15y agoSingle-page view: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fvictoriabarret%2F2011%2F10%2F18%2Fdropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup%2F&format= http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%...
- e1ven 15y agoI believe they would rather you go buy the magazine, rather than print it out.
- bostonvaulter2 15y agoWorks find in readability. This link might work for you: http://www.readability.com/articles/giut9xtb http://www.readability.com/articles/giut9xtb
- JacobAldridge 15y ago"Ferdowsi from the start insisted Dropbox’s home page be a simple stick-figure video showing what the product does. No table of features and pricing; instead, a story about a guy who loses stuff and goes on a trip to Africa." This made me realise I'd never been to the Dropbox homepage. I heard about the company here on HN (Drew's YC Application form is a great read), and I didn't have a need at that time - about 6 months later I took on a global project and one of the first emails I got from the client was asking me to sign up for Dropbox so we could collaborate. As the article notes, that word of mouth (I've passed it on numerous times since) has driven growth, perhaps more than the homepage. After all - it just works.
- paulmckeever 15y agoI found this part of the article a little strange. I've heard Drew present alongside Adam Smith and recall him talking about how the design of the home page started off way more complex and that it was through A/B testing they ended up with the video. Journalistic license maybe?
- DodgyEggplant 15y agoHow many people would sit in front of Steve Jobs, refuse to a hundreds of millions acquisition offer, just before Apple enters their market. You got to admire Houston. He might reach the moon.
- 0x12 15y agoThe dividing line between stupid and brilliant is usually determined retrospectively.
- wh-uws 15y agoExactly look at the Groupon/Google situation (which is still to be determined in my opinion)
- reddit_clone 15y agoAlso reminds me of Yahoo refusing to buy Google. I am sure they had good reasons for that decision then.
- ubasu 15y agoNote: 9-digit is less than one billion. Nothing to sneeze at, though. ;-)
- DodgyEggplant 15y agoCorrect. Fixed that. A Billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
- mike55 15y agoSorry, I don't read articles divided in pages. Fuck you Forbes.
- simplekoala 15y ago"Jobs had been tracking a young software developer named Drew Houston, who blasted his way onto Apple’s radar screen when he reverse-engineered Apple’s file system so that his startup’s logo, an unfolding box, appeared elegantly tucked inside. Not even an Apple SWAT team had been able to do that." Can anyone throw more context around this hack. Technical challenges to accomplish this will be bonus.
- VMG 15y agoI'd be interested to know the meaning of the sentence. How do you hack a file system to display a logo?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- JonnieCache 15y agoWhat? Why on earth would you think that? As others have said, it's the icons in finder. "Hacking the filesystem" makes it sound more drastic than it is, they have worked out how to bend the extensive HFS+ metadata system to their will. They are not monkeying around with the storage of the actual data, that would be crazy.
- Timothee 15y agoI'm assuming they're talking about the Dropbox logo that is displayed on the Dropbox folder and/or the sync icons displayed on the files and folders inside the Dropbox folder, functions which are likely reserved to the default System folders.
- kitsune_ 15y agohttp://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=12498 http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=12498 "more pertinent is the fact that none of the integrations we do with the Finder are actually supported by Apple. this means that it takes significant reverse engineering of the Finder to make icon overlays/contextual menu items to work. Apple completely removed support for contextual menu items in SL (it's possible to have right click options, but it's not possible to have a submenu, or a submenu with options that change dynamically based on context). in order to make these integrations work we have to inject code into the finder to make in memory replacements of finder code with our own (many complexities/details of hackery omitted). if it were easy, you'd see more products than just Dropbox able to do it ;-)" also: http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=938 http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=938
- luigi 15y agoThen come Chris, Jason and Joe (who has a Dropbox tattoo on his arm because he feels “Drew is changing the world”), more MIT brothers aiming to live a California dream they all imagined back in Cambridge as “billionaires, bottles and babes.” Eww, that's offputting.
- dmix 15y ago> "billionaires, bottles and babes.” When the reporter in the video interview brought that up he seemed pretty embarrassed. Sounds like something university students might say. If they made that statement as adults I think it would be more off-putting.
- byrneseyeview 15y agoIt was almost certainly a joke. Avoid sarcasm when talking to journalists; some quotes, out of context, are too good to pass up.
- wyclif 15y agoSounds like a genuine sausagefest.
- johnrob 15y agoI don't find it offputting; I think it's expected: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
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- dr_ 15y agoJobs never changed his interpretation of things. He did in fact feel cloud storage was a feature and not a product, and that's exactly what iCloud is. For Apple it's a feature that will hopefully tie people in to their iOS devices. And with the likelihood that over time they will offer greater amounts of storage for free or a minimum payment, that's not good for Dropbox. I like Dropbox, I use it almost daily. But so far I've never actually paid for it. Same, so far, with iCloud. To Apple, this would be largely irrelevant, but for Dropbox, that's not so great.
- 0x12 15y agoWhat is the difference between you not paying apple or you not paying dropbox? The upside for dropbox is you commenting here that you are using them and that their free tier is usable, so you are effectively a part of their marketing arm. If you really get utility out of dropbox then it is in your best interest that they continue to exist. Sooner or later that might translate into you pulling your wallet. Freemium offerings are predicated on statistics and dropbox seems to be doing just fine in spite of the freeloading nature of some of their customers.
- dr_ 15y agoThere is no difference to me, there isn't much difference to Apple but there is to dropbox - their business is dependent on users paying for cloud storage. The problem with that, as I see it, is that in the longer run cloud storage becomes a commodity. Hence Jobs' description of it as a feature, instead of a product.
- 0x12 15y agoAccess is also a commodity. That doesn't stop ISPs the world over from making a killing on it. Yes, it is a feature if you've already got an OS and a bunch of devices out there. But it is a product if you can do this seamlessly across all os's, and all devices. Both perspectives are equally valid in this case. In the end to the DropBox guys their product vision was worth more to them than Jobs' feature vision allowed him to pay for it. Time will tell if that was the right decision, for either party.
- keithpeter 15y ago2 gig free, next step up is 50Gb. Anyone else find the big jump means they use the dropbox just for day to day projects? A 10 or 20 Gig price point at $5 a month would be something I could rationally use.
- channelmeter 15y agoAgreed. I always wished Dropbox had a lower, entry-level tier for around $5/month. I don't need 50gb. I just need 5-10gb.
- kylec 15y agoThere's no need to even have tiers - it would be great if they would just charge you $X/GB/month over the free amount.
- Maakuth 15y agoI'd think it's a deliberate design choice having it this way. If you think about it, paying only for actually used space would mean a lot smaller income for the company. Maybe it would also erode the magic in it - people would start thinking if they should have this and that files on Dropbox or not. Or accidentally piling up huge bills doing some mistake managing their files...
- kylec 15y agoI don't know about that. Sure, there are some people using 5-10GB of a 50GB account, but I'm sure there are lots of people that are sticking with the free account when they'd gladly pay a little bit $1-$2 for slightly more storage, and people at the other end that are either frustrated by the 100GB limit or haven't even bothered using the service because they know they need to store more than 100GB. I trust Dropbox has done extensive market research and concluded that having two price tiers, plus the other benefits that come with such simplified pricing, outweigh the flexibility of usage-based pricing.
- ludwigvan 15y ago
- rdp 15y agoMy biggest issue with Dropbox, and I am probably not alone in this, is still security. After the lapses earlier in the year, I still store most files in a TrueCrypt share in my DropBox folders. Since I can't access the TrueCrypt volume from my phone or other mobile devices, it limits the portability of the data.
- Maakuth 15y agoWe've been told they do encrypt files internally. I don't think there is any usable way to have users manage their keys by themselves. Who wants to input large encryption keys to their mobile phone every time they want to use Dropbox? And if the phone remembers the key, then it's not too far from the current situation.
- jaylevitt 15y ago"My phone stores my private key" is very, very far from "Dropbox's servers can see all my data".
- Maakuth 15y agoCertainly, but the practical privacy implications are probably similar. In case of a stolen phone, the thief has access to all the files in both of these cases. Sure it would be cool if Dropbox wouldn't have any access to our files, but I don't see how it would happen without eroding the usability. It could be an opt-in feature of course.
- jaylevitt 15y agoDropbox can be subpoena'd.
- physcab 15y agoWhile I love Dropbox and have it installed, I think they are right to fear ICloud. After getting a 4s and being able to simply type my AppleID, I instantly had all my contacts, videos, photos, music, settings, and bookmarks instantly and seamlessly synced. Best part of it all was that I didn't even know I was using ICloud. I didn't have to setup or download anything. It was so simple. Since I'm a mac user, I really don't have much use for Dropbox anymore.
- MikeGrace 15y agoSee a need, fill a need. Love it!
- staunch 15y agoBeen amazing watching the entire process, from YC hopeful to Forbes cover. Way to go Drew.
- joejohnson 15y agoI really like Dropbox. I wish they were actually encrypting users' data in a manner like they originally advertised they were. This is my only concern with using their service. I understand that they wish to save space with deduplication and that this requires them to look at your files a fair bit prior to encryption. I just prefer they let users opt into using their own private keys.
- billtx 15y agoDropbox is written is Python correct? Would it be faster/more efficient/smaller footprint if it was written in C++? I just have this (likely) wrong perception about Python from the original BitTorrent vs uTorrent.
- skadamat 15y agoI think he means that all the server side stuff is Python? The native Windows application is probably written in C++ though. Or did I completely misunderstand your comment?
- kwamenum86 15y agoI think one lesson of the Dropbox story is that you can build a company around a feature of minimal product if you have a savvy team and crisp execution.
- hosh 15y agoThis story sounds like the story of Audion, SoundJam, and iTunes nearly 10 years ago: http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/ http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/
- hosh 15y agoI don't closely follow the changes to Apple developer APIs, so this may be blindingly obvious to others but not to me. Does anyone know if Apple is providing iCloud APIs for iOS/OSX? I suppose, something similar to the file/db libraries, only these would go let you persist files and settings to iCloud (similar to Valve's SteamCloud for games).
- hosh 15y agoNever mind. I see it. http://developer.apple.com/icloud/index.php http://developer.apple.com/icloud/index.php Does DropBox have anything similar? This looks like something that will run over DropBox.
- varenc 15y agohttp://www.dropbox.com/developers_beta http://www.dropbox.com/developers_beta
- hosh 15y agoSo the fight is on two parts of the board: the part where consumer sees and the part where only developer sees. The next question: think iCloud -- or DropBox even -- will provide Google Wave technology? I have no idea how useful that would be to all apps. But it would benefit an app such as Ulysses. Ulysses markets itself as a writer's editor. (To my programmer's eyes, it looks more like an IDE). It distinguishes itself in the market with a very strong document management system. However, it does not have auto-save, and the backups are kept in some obscure location. That's ripe for iCloud or Dropbox integration. However, it can go farther -- some method to sync changes with editors and proofers without having to export to Word.
- esalazar 15y agoI use dropbox everyday for work and my personal life. I have two problems with dropbox though. 1. There is no paid plan between the free 2 gb account and the $100 50 gb account. A nice 10 or 25 gb account would be great. It is hard for me to justify spending the 100 a year when I don't need all that space. 2. There has not been a huge change in dropbox since it's inception. I find myself using it less and less, since it is so easy to share documents with google docs.
- pg 15y agoDrew's case shows how hard it is to generalize. We're generally reluctant to fund single founders. And yet the most successful startup we've funded had a single founder at the time he applied: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html We strongly encouraged Drew to get a cofounder, and he found Arash before the summer 2007 cycle began. Arash turned out to be the perfect cofounder. So Dropbox is pretty much the best case scenario for a single founder applying to YC. And the variation in startup outcomes is so great that even though we have such a large data set, the best single founder outcome is so far better than any of the multiple founder outcomes. This is why one of our rules is that we'll break any of our rules.
- 0x12 15y agoThat application is a joy to read. One answer stands out for me, it probably was instrumental in the eventual success for dropbox: # Do any founders have other commitments between June and August 2007 inclusive? > No; I've given notice at Bit9 to work on this full time regardless of YC funding. That's really great. Drew had already decided to push ahead, with or without YC, he basically positioned himself to negotiate from strength, in turn increasing his chances of getting funded by YC. That's showing a lot of business savvy there. Instead of coming 'cap in hand' he's telling YC: "If you want on board you may, but the train will run regardless."
- pg 15y agoThat does count for a lot with us. It's surprising how many of the groups who apply have a cofounder who's not willing to quit his or her job. It's a worrying sign when someone who knows the company a lot better than we do isn't willing to bet on it. But again, there are always exceptions.
- lawnchair_larry 15y agoThat's just common sense. I am not encouraging dishonesty, but I think you would be a fool to expect funding and not answer that question in this way. I actually assumed that question is in there just to weed out applicants. Edit: More specifically, the "If we don't fund you, will you do it anyway" question.
- marcamillion 15y ago$240M Revenue? Holy CRAP! As I predicted some time ago - http://marcgayle.com/how-dropbox-is-printing-money http://marcgayle.com/how-dropbox-is-printing-money - I am pretty sure that once Dropbox reveals their profit margins, the world will be stunned. Mark. My. Words.
- skadamat 15y agoInspirational story, thanks for that Forbes. I wish I had started programming from an earlier age (I only started 4-5 years ago, I'm a junior at UT Austin) but Drew is still an idol for me for both his crazy development skills and entrepreneurial talent. I use Dropbox on a daily basis and definitely laude him for seeing the idea through and not selling it to a big fish.
- rottendoubt 15y agoJust curious if Dropbox had a MVP? If so, what was it? Was it ready and launched by Demo Day? Was it a purely free model, or were they already going with the freemium model at launch?
- algoshift 15y agoI think context is important here. I don't think I am wrong in saying that most YC startups consist of 20-somethings, perhaps even in their low 20's. At this age few are truly prepared for the stress, conflict and issues that running a business could bring to the table. And, in this context, it is probably far better to have more founders rather than less. I've been an entrepreneur ever since I can remember. And, retrospectively, I know that I did a lot of dumb things when I was younger. It takes a while to develop the business smarts, thick skin and, if you will, intestinal fortitude a business requires. I've experienced business issues as I got older that I know would have totally decimated me when I was younger. You are simply not prepared for that sort of thing. Particularly things like impending catastrophic failure, when you need to be mentally and emotionally in your strongest mode. Barely-out-of-teenage-years entrepreneurs (not meant with disrespect at all, just chronological fact) need a support system in order to stay the course, learn and not derail. That's why I think that in these cases the multiple founder "rule" is probably a very good idea. I would say that older solo founders with previous skin in the game are probably a good bet (all else being equal). One young founder thrown into the jungle that business can become is probably a formula for almost certain failure. While, of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, I do think that what I am saying is a reasonable characterization of the problem.