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Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

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Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#201

Post by srtjstjsj »

sbov wrote: post #43
akulbe wrote: post #2

Why can't regular folks seem to get in on an IPO? (Admittedly, I don't understand how all the stock stuff works. It just seems like only big investment firms are the ones that are able to do initial investments.)

IIRC Google's IPO did some sort of auction. But I don't know if it was available to regular folks or not, or how it turned out in the end.

It was bad for Google and the investment banks, good for investors. It got an astoundingly low price, in part because banks boycotted the IPO to punish Google for the auction -- share price nearly doubled in the first 2 months, tripled in the first year, and kept growing.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/stockdetails/history/fi-126.1...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109036846726869268

https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archiv...

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#202

Post by abalashov »

vecter wrote: post #192
russdpale wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free as in no time or labor spent by themselves. At least that is what I think he meant

It turns out being an institutional investor is a fulltime job. It's quite ridiculous for GP to believe otherwise.

Be that as it may, this is pedantic quibbling outside of the point the GGP post author was actually trying to make: speculative pressure by investors (lazy or otherwise) conflicts with the aim of stable long-term equilibrium doing +/- one thing well.

If you actually care about building a sustainable business, not Unicorns and moonshots and other things investors want you to become and do, don't take investment, or at least not much.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#203

Post by scurvy »

exoplanet1 wrote: post #60
reverend_gonzo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that, if they wanted to, it shouldn't take Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon too much work to put out a comparable product and offer it for free. As an anecdote, my girlfriend already cancelled her Dropbox account because iCloud provides what she needs at a much cheaper cost. Personally, I require Unix support and also use a large portion of the terabyte of space, but I'd bet that the majority of user…

You'd think so, but it's not that easy. Even the big service providers, like Dropbox and Microsoft have run into issues of scale that result in price increases or reduced storage quotas, later in the product cycle, forced onto existing customers. Typically a result of poor early planning or lack of insight into actual resources required per user. Or bait and switch to grow fast quickly. Dropbox, recently (quietly) ra…

Interesting. I had to sign something saying that I would be exposed to terrible stuff during the course of my job at MSN, and I wouldn't sue the company for damages. This was back in 2003. Maybe they stopped asking employees to sign this document?

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#204

Post by adamlett »

Retric wrote: post #178
dboreham wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, it certainly is how investing works. They think the company will be worth >X in the future ( >>X in the case of pre-IPO investing).

Stock and Bonds are very different things. A bond is an agreement with a company to hand back X amount of money at time Y. Stock is an agreement to share in future profits. Importantly, when you buy stock from a someone other than the company then the price you pay has little to do with the company. But, again my point is risk is an inherent part of the process. If you invest in a startup and they use all of that mon…

I think you are talking past each other because you are not talking about the same party when asserting whether there is or isn't a problem. It's true that the investors don't have a problem if Dropbox fails to live up to its valuation. Venture capitalists expect that most of their investments will fail. But a company that has accepted venture capital is beholden to its investors and will almost certainly have a problem if it fails to live up to their expectations. Remember that investors are part owners, and get to make decisions about how the company should be run. The more dissatisfied they become, the more drastic the changes they will demand.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#205

Post by dagw »

laurentdc wrote: post #35

I'm failing to see their competitive advantage. Is it the file history? Linux client? Genuinely asking, I pay 7 € / mo for OneDrive (1 TB) and I get a desktop license of Office along with that too.

Dropbox has been super stable and is much faster at syncing large files the OneDrive. That in itself makes it worth it for me. Also they're doing some pretty clever stuff with Smart Sync which I'm hoping will get rolled out more in the near future and is likely to be a pretty killer feature.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#206

Post by Elepsis »

fencepost wrote: post #147
reverend_gonzo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that, if they wanted to, it shouldn't take Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon too much work to put out a comparable product and offer it for free. As an anecdote, my girlfriend already cancelled her Dropbox account because iCloud provides what she needs at a much cheaper cost. Personally, I require Unix support and also use a large portion of the terabyte of space, but I'd bet that the majority of user…

> it shouldn't take Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon too much work to put out a comparable product and offer it for free. OneDrive is perhaps not quite as polished and its Linux support is lacking/unofficial/nonexistent depending on your viewpoint, but Microsoft's push to Office365 means that if you subscribe to it you're getting at least as much storage as Dropbox offers at a monthly cost that's ~70% of Dropbox for a s…

OneDrive supports version history for Office documents but not other file types.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#207

Post by thirdsun »

aphextron wrote: post #195
shubhamjain wrote: post #10

One concern about Dropbox I have is its inability to establish itself beyond its File Storage / Syncing software. Salesforce.com, in comparison, has been acquiring companies left and right. Notable acquisitions of Dropbox, like Mailbox, have either shut down, or are nowhere on the impact map. As Dropbox user (albeit a free one), I don't find it useful for anything beyond synced storage (if there is any new addition i…

Steve Jobs said it best: "[Dropbox] is not a product, it's a feature."

While this may seem like an obvious observation, I have yet to see a cloud storage service that does it as well as Dropbox. And that includes attempts by huge companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Apple.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#208

Post by draw_down »

aphextron wrote: post #195
shubhamjain wrote: post #10

One concern about Dropbox I have is its inability to establish itself beyond its File Storage / Syncing software. Salesforce.com, in comparison, has been acquiring companies left and right. Notable acquisitions of Dropbox, like Mailbox, have either shut down, or are nowhere on the impact map. As Dropbox user (albeit a free one), I don't find it useful for anything beyond synced storage (if there is any new addition i…

Steve Jobs said it best: "[Dropbox] is not a product, it's a feature."

He did say that. He was also the CEO of a company that still sucks at solving these kinds of problems. Guess it's harder than he gave them credit for.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#209

Post by 0x6c6f6c »

nicoburns wrote: post #53
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company with a modest valuation can survive by doing one thing and doing it well. A company with a very large valuation needs either very large sales figures OR large growth potential. Dropbox is squarely in the second category, which is why they need to keep expanding.

Surely if the company isn't "living up to it's valuation" that's a problem for the people who erroneously valued it at that level, not for the company?

I recall this being something pointed out in "Silicon Valley" where an offer/valuation was way over the top and would leave the team in this same kind of situation. Dropbox had to accept the offer, so they did agree to the terms that put themselves where they are now.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#210

Post by sbardle »

nkkollaw wrote: post #150

Finally an IPO that makes sense to me. I can understand the value of Dropbox. Stuff like Snapchat being worth billions just make me feel like I don't know how anything works anymore.

Dropbox is a utility/product/feature. It can be replaced.

Snapchat is a network and therefore is open to network effects, i.e. the sum becomes greater than the parts.

I think in ten years time Snapchat will look the more justified valuation, providing they execute.

Dropbox are going to struggle unless they can innovate ontop of the current business model.

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