How I Built It: Dropbox

Interestingly enough, Dropbox was launched here on Hacker News with a video to "throw away your usb drive".

Since I had been writing "ad copy" for many years for my own shareware app at the time, and liked to encourage posters rather than criticize (as I knew how hard it could be to launch something), I instead posted a list of benefits in a way a person 30-70 years old could understand.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 ↗

I've been honored to watch as subsequent Dropbox videos had become better at explaining the benefits to real people, with wording similar to mine, as well as surprised to see screen shots of that page with my username on it in presentations done by Drew Houston and Adam Smith at YC Startup School or MIT Startup Bootcamp.

I had the pleasure of meeting Drew after YC Startup School 2007, when he was still looking for a partner, at the apartment where the Xobni founders lived. I got a good overview of what he was building but didn't have time to show him what I was working on. A few people left to pick up burgers while I was talking with Drew.

My next encounter with Drew was also the day after Startup School, this time in 2011. It was surreal to sit around a table with Drew and visitors to Dropbox Headquarters in large office in downtown San Francisco, joining the people peppering him with questions about taking Dropbox. Again, people ate, but (mini) burgers were catered, and hundreds of them. :)

Edit:

Also, when I interned at Justin.tv (I went back to college to complete a B.S. Computer Science and a B.S. Mathematics), I created a console app (in Python) for broadcasters that could start with their JTV credentials and channel name and modify the packets of the video stream playing on VLC in real-time in multiple ways. Arash Ferdowsi was helpful in putting me in touch with the person at Dropbox responsible for client-side builds for some tips on building executables of my app for Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

Dear Dropbox,

How I love thee, though I have some issues I would hope you can see.

I am a paying customer. I have used dropbox for a time, though now I have been using it on a team - but not as a paid team.

We are in a grey area - between really needing to pay for a much more expensive team account and being crippled by the free account.

Here is my issue: Matrixed relationships of shared folders.

If I, a paid user, have 50GB of space, and I create several folders, 1,2 & 3 - and I share them with unpaid users A, B, C, D, E, & F -- my paid space consumes their unpaid space.

So, if I share folder 1 with users A B and C who all have 2GB of space - and I add 3GB into that folder (I have 50 remember) it breaks their account (Sync stops).

I would request the following: ONLY folders that YOU share out/create should eat your quota.

I know this is not a simple request, or easy -- but I think that when one joins a folder I share, it should not affect their quota.

If this is not feasible, we need more options.

I am willing to pay, but the current model is half-broken.

How about letting me create a paid for share that is communal, which is outside my free 2GB.

So, we pay $20/month for 100GB - It is a space that is associated with multiple users. I still have my 2GB "personal" storage, but I have one shared folder that is 100GB that we all share.

the shared folder allows all users to place stuff in there, but it does not eat away at their local quota.

Let me have ~5 users on that $20/month share. Each additional user is ~$3 per month...

The spectrum as it stands doesn't quite fit. Can we come up with other options?

Thanks

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any info on if Dropbox is profitable?

I personally don't know anyone who actually pays for more space. Most people that use it are not tech savy and I don't think would take the leap to start paying monthly for virtual space. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say maybe 2% of users pay; but that's purely on gut feeling.

I feel like their business model is like Youtube: ie. provide massive amounts of storage and make very little money per GB stored (last I heard Google isn't making much money off of that). It's the "new" traffic + users = success. Not profits - costs = success.

The fact that they didn't sell themselves to Apple seems to suggest that they have higher hopes... Or maybe they're waiting out for a higher bid.