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How Dropbox Got Its First 10 Million Users

40 points by llambda 15y ago

Poyeyo 15y ago
My take is this: LiveDrive Beta was featured in HN. LiveDrive got lots of users used to having working and functional virtual drives, including me. LiveDrive closed the beta and got users searching for a replacement. I found Dropbox in a post about LiveDrive alternatives. LiveDrive could have been Dropbox, but they 'monetized' too fast and killed the product. And still some people side with Saverin in the Social Network movie...
alttag 15y ago
Yes, they have lots of users (and the article doesn't mention how they used network incentives to increase the user count), but more interesting would be the rate of conversion to paying customer, typical time to conversion (also, segments: do some buy right away or use for years, then buy), etc.
- simondlr 15y ago
  I would like to see time to conversion. I have a hunch the majority of the users haven't capped out their dropboxes yet. When that starts to happen, it will be interesting what the conversion rate will be.
  - rarrrrrr 15y ago
    As a data point: At SpiderOak, 50% of customers purchase paid storage within the first 4 days of opening an account. Of course there's still a long tail of events after.
ImprovedSilence 15y ago
Not to bee too pedantic, but using "Why Combinator" in the article? I kinda looked down on the article after the first paragraph. Good great grammers, an awareness of what you're talking about, and proper spelling go a long way towards establishing proper voice. (sea what I did there)
- younata 15y ago
  It was obviously some rather sophisticated speech-to-text program that didn't realize that "ycombinator" is what he meant in the video The actual article is rather good.
  - taken11 15y ago
    so most likely the speech-to-text startup was not funded by ycombinator
SODaniel 15y ago
I don't really understand how this video in any way explains how they got their first 10 million users. Seems like a the standard straightforward plug for a ycombinator company on TC that we have gotten used to.
rayk 15y ago
I'm reading the article as validation for viral marketing, as targeted towards the big link-sharing sites. I don't remember the last time a startup hit the front page of Reddit. Surely it's happened, but I thought it would happen more than it has, since that site is about sharing links to things on the Web.
- mindotus 15y ago
  Minus hit frontpage of Reddit recently but the typical front page content isn't very much startup focused on Reddit

40 points by llambda 15y ago

My take is this: LiveDrive Beta was featured in HN. LiveDrive got lots of users used to having working and functional virtual drives, including me. LiveDrive closed the beta and got users searching for a replacement. I found Dropbox in a post about LiveDrive alternatives. LiveDrive could have been Dropbox, but they 'monetized' too fast and killed the product. And still some people side with Saverin in the Social Network movie...

alttag 15y ago

Yes, they have lots of users (and the article doesn't mention how they used network incentives to increase the user count), but more interesting would be the rate of conversion to paying customer, typical time to conversion (also, segments: do some buy right away or use for years, then buy), etc.

simondlr 15y ago
I would like to see time to conversion. I have a hunch the majority of the users haven't capped out their dropboxes yet. When that starts to happen, it will be interesting what the conversion rate will be.
- rarrrrrr 15y ago
  As a data point: At SpiderOak, 50% of customers purchase paid storage within the first 4 days of opening an account. Of course there's still a long tail of events after.

ImprovedSilence 15y ago

Not to bee too pedantic, but using "Why Combinator" in the article? I kinda looked down on the article after the first paragraph. Good great grammers, an awareness of what you're talking about, and proper spelling go a long way towards establishing proper voice. (sea what I did there)

younata 15y ago
It was obviously some rather sophisticated speech-to-text program that didn't realize that "ycombinator" is what he meant in the video The actual article is rather good.
- taken11 15y ago
  so most likely the speech-to-text startup was not funded by ycombinator

SODaniel 15y ago

I don't really understand how this video in any way explains how they got their first 10 million users. Seems like a the standard straightforward plug for a ycombinator company on TC that we have gotten used to.

rayk 15y ago

I'm reading the article as validation for viral marketing, as targeted towards the big link-sharing sites. I don't remember the last time a startup hit the front page of Reddit. Surely it's happened, but I thought it would happen more than it has, since that site is about sharing links to things on the Web.

mindotus 15y ago
Minus hit frontpage of Reddit recently but the typical front page content isn't very much startup focused on Reddit