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Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

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Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#151

Post by math0ne »

tdkl wrote: post #95

I wish they had more choice regarding purchasing more space. I'm not interested in 1TB and find 10$ per month too much if I wont even use 10% of it. Although if there is a cloud provider I'd trust that sync would never fuck up, I'd be Dropbox. Google Drive still thinks it's normal to re-download the cloud folder instead of letting me install Drive in the same location after a system reinstall, where all the files alr…

You can get your free account up to 22gb using ehem methods, that's enough for quite a few use cases.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#152

Post by subsection1h »

vlucas wrote: post #126

I really don't understand all the negative Dropbox sentiment these days. Who cares if the investors aren't getting a 10x return? How does that materially affect you as a customer? Why are you even cheering for that anyways? I am a very happy paying Dropbox customer. It's a solid product that does the job very well and isn't stuffed with a bunch of other useless features I don't need. It's pretty much perfect.

End-to-end encryption is useless?

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#153

Post by techpop10 »

malchow wrote: post #79
zer0defex wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nail on the head right here. The only thing Dropbox has these days is consumer confidence in it's syncing process. Beyond that, they trail every competitor feature-wise and frankly, they are succeeding despite their management, not because of it. Recent product enhancements have been, let's be honest, mediocre at best across the board and show no signs of that changing anytime soon. They exist now solely due to brand…

What if -- hold your breath! -- Dropbox is simply a medium-sized, privately held, profit-generating company that will end up satisfying a certain customer segment and paying dividends to investors? The horror!

But they aren't making a profit, not even close

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#154

Post by AVTizzle »

malchow wrote: post #122
subdane wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their investors will revolt. Their investors need 10X returns in the next couple years to satisfy their fund's existence to their LPs. Funds need a few big wins like Hollywood studios need a couple blockbusters every year. Dropbox's investors are counting on them being a blockbuster. Dropbox's private valuation is an order of magnitude higher than Box's public valuation. And Box has a bigger sales team, more revenue,…

I fully concede your point. I think the private financing markets need to become more sophisticated out here, such that they enable the type of company I described -- which I reckon is the type of company Dropbox should be -- to thrive. There are a few very clever and small investors who already do this. But they're a minority.

I agree with what you're saying.

I'm not an expert - just learning more about this myself over the last few months, but it sounds to me like the investment style you're talking about exists inside the world of private equity.

They're not playing the venture game - it's a different model. Buy and hold for either cashflow/dividends, or do some financial/managerial engineering and flip the asset.

Outside of the world of Venture Capital, there's a HUGE spectrum of investors out there doing every kind of investment - just gotta tune into it I've found.

(Great place to start is a podcast called PE Funcast - seems to me they've been doing this type of investing.)

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#155

Post by dontblink »

tdkl wrote: post #95

I wish they had more choice regarding purchasing more space. I'm not interested in 1TB and find 10$ per month too much if I wont even use 10% of it. Although if there is a cloud provider I'd trust that sync would never fuck up, I'd be Dropbox. Google Drive still thinks it's normal to re-download the cloud folder instead of letting me install Drive in the same location after a system reinstall, where all the files alr…

Your latter statement is just plain incorrect. Google Drive app will recognize your old files and re-associate them with the cloud counterparts. Its had this capability for over a year now.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#156

Post by zekevermillion »

I have used Egnyte, almost since their beginning. Surprised no mention here. Pretty good enterprise offering, including hybrid cloud or self-hosted options. The only complaint I've had is they unilaterally tried to double my subscription price to match their competition. I negotiated a compromise and now I have some weird custom tier.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#157

Post by gerbilly »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25
itsbits wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox will be in business by acquisition. How about Microsoft acquiring dropbox? Their onedrive is not as good as dropbox and will surely help in their cause.

Apple. Please Apple. Replace your iCloud abomination with Dropbox when the time comes.

>Replace your iCloud abomination with Dropbox when the time comes.

Sure, but if they did who says they will let you write files directly to Dropbox?

They'll probably have you store your stuff in a hundred different crappy SQLLite databases tied to iNamed applications on your phone and Macbook, just like they do now.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#158

Post by gerbilly »

new299 wrote: post #31

In my mind Dropbox became a company not worth supporting when Rice joined Dropbox's board ( http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ ). I don't know what their future holds. But personally, with a board member who advocates warrentless surveillance it seems unlikely that we share similar views on the security of my data, and I wont be using their service. I'd hope their customers are also looking at the security of their data in…

>with a board member who advocates warrentless surveillance it seems unlikely that we share similar views on the security of my data

Finally someone said it.

Putting my files on someone else's computer is a concept totally alien to me.

If the mob or a russian crime ring offered free online storage, openly advertised as such, I'd fully expect people to line up to store their tax returns and visa statements on it.

I keep that stuff encrypted and offline most of the time in my own home, much less on dropbox.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#159

Post by isaiahg »

rikkus wrote: post #97

Reasons it's still in the game: 1. It works, with fewer problems than any other sync / cloud storage that I've used. 2. It has enough people using it outside of work that it's getting paying business customers (the Linux effect?) If either of these falters (if 1 falters, 2 does too) then they'll be gone. There are plenty of competitors and some even do sync well enough that people will use them. I'm rather upset that…

I agree. I actually use Dropbox, Drive, and OneDrive. I've only used OneDrive once to share some download links once. The only real reason I use Drive is because of Google Docs. For everything else I use DropBox because I trust them more. I've never ever had a problem with it. Also DropBox hasn't had major scandals and for the most part stays out of the news. When a company is basically holding your private stuff for you that's a huge plus.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#160

Post by refurb »

CPLX wrote: post #139
rokhayakebe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every investor is looking for a 10X. DB raised 1.17B, with 1.1 of those in the last three rounds (according to Crunchbase). The last three rounds were 250M,350M, and 500M. A round was 6M. Say A round wanted 100x. B round 10X. C round 7x. D round 5x. That will bring the total expected return to around 8B. However I am sure C and D would not mind a 3X or 2X, while B would probably settled happily for a 5X.

Now add the implications of liquidation preferences (presumably) to the math and you'll see things get a lot more challenging.

Exactly. Throw in a 2x or 3x liquidation preference and participating preferred and some of those investors will be lucky to get their initial investment back.
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