Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#51

Post by username » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 4:13 PM UTC

rmoriz wrote: post #50

Prophecy: In less then 12 months either Apple, Google or Microsoft will buy DropBox for more than 500m$

If none buy by then, then say you didn't say than.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#52

Post by yan » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 4:15 PM UTC

flooha wrote: post #44

I have a funny story about Dropbox which happened two weeks ago. I have a friend who has been running a travel business for about 6 years. During that time, I've hosted her website, email, etc...for $5/month. I've also spent quite a bit of time upgrading her website with each release of the CMS, customizing things and doubling her disk space 3 times (for free) as her email ate up disk space. Needless to say, I was lo…

I don't actually know what's going on, but it sounds awfully a lot like you like this person and are being taken advantage of.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#53

Post by 83457 » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 4:36 PM UTC

yan wrote: post #52

flooha wrote: post #44

I have a funny story about Dropbox which happened two weeks ago. I have a friend who has been running a travel business for about 6 years. During that time, I've hosted her website, email, etc...for $5/month. I've also spent quite a bit of time upgrading her website with each release of the CMS, customizing things and doubling her disk space 3 times (for free) as her email ate up disk space. Needless to say, I was lo…

I don't actually know what's going on, but it sounds awfully a lot like you like this person and are being taken advantage of.

That's an understatement

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#54

Post by flooha » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 4:50 PM UTC

yan wrote: post #52

flooha wrote: post #44

I have a funny story about Dropbox which happened two weeks ago. I have a friend who has been running a travel business for about 6 years. During that time, I've hosted her website, email, etc...for $5/month. I've also spent quite a bit of time upgrading her website with each release of the CMS, customizing things and doubling her disk space 3 times (for free) as her email ate up disk space. Needless to say, I was lo…

I don't actually know what's going on, but it sounds awfully a lot like you like this person and are being taken advantage of.

I was happy to do it when she started. She quit her (good) job to start the biz and had no money. Her lifestyle hasn't changed and I figured she was trudging along in the "valley of death". It seems she's doing ok now, but my guess is that this server will be a major strain on her profits and she made an impulse buy. The "company" was recommended to her by someone she looks up to. I actually feel sorry for her because she is getting ripped off.

The experience made me seriously rethink everything I'm currently doing.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#55

Post by heyitsnick » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 5:19 PM UTC

zatatto wrote: post #47

How can people thing this big? I could never even think about such a service. I would be afraid. How do I keep up with free disk space, crashed, backups? I could never do it.

This is all taken care of using Amazon S3 services.

Interesting read. I wish dropbox had gone ahead with their initial plan to charge $5 a month for individual users. I would happily pay for this service, but $120/year for personal backup is too much. Something in the $50-60pa mark sounds better. Instead I use dropbox all my shared docs, and backup to my own S3 account for larger backups and one-way sharing of bigger files.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#56

Post by mccutchen » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 5:24 PM UTC

> ... and an 'enterprise' plan that features, well, a really high price.

I love this part of the plan.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#57

Post by run4yourlives » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 6:04 PM UTC

rmoriz wrote: post #50

Prophecy: In less then 12 months either Apple, Google or Microsoft will buy DropBox for more than 500m$

I don't know about your time frame, but I agree that DropBox will be acquired eventually.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#58

Post by puredemo » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 8:09 PM UTC

rmoriz wrote: post #50

Prophecy: In less then 12 months either Apple, Google or Microsoft will buy DropBox for more than 500m$

I would think Amazon would buy it.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#59

Post by philwelch » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 8:53 PM UTC

rmoriz wrote: post #50

Prophecy: In less then 12 months either Apple, Google or Microsoft will buy DropBox for more than 500m$

Apple already has a similar system as part of Mobile Me (formerly .Mac, formerly iTools) but they charge $99/yr for it ($10/mo would mean a higher price AND more customers) and don't do a great job marketing it (and it doesn't work as well on Windows).

Maybe they'd buy DropBox just to get people who know how to market this shit.

Re: Dropbox's Summer 07 YC Application

#60

Post by crux_ » Thu, Sep 03, 2009, 9:21 PM UTC

A late to the party comment: I (just now!) finished a submission for an SBIR grant.

Even though I understand why the SBIR submission is the way that it is, the simplicity of this application form makes me jealous. :( I've been doing 6am-2am for two days in a row now and not even writing code.