Dropbox, the hottest startup company, teaches you how to start a business

Dropbox is the hottest startup company in Silicon Valley, with a valuation of nearly $6 billion. How can a simple synchronization tool achieve this success, let the founder of Dropbox tell you why they stand out from many companies.

In the following video, Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox, gave a speech at startup lessons learned. To make it easier for a friend in the wall to watch it, I downloaded it from YouTube and transmitted it to Youku:

The slide of the speech is as follows:

Dropbox startup lessons learned

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Before Dropbox, there were already several hundred file synchronization companies and cloud storage companies. This field seems very mature and the competition is fierce, but there are not many people who actually use such products, because the existing products are not easy to use.

Before the release of Dropbox, they started to promote Dropbox: they promoted Dropbox on Hacker News and received excellent feedback. Then they published a video about Dropbox, this video was played 75000 times by Digg (a very good video is easy to understand and clearly explains what Dropbox can do for you, you will suddenly find that the product you have been searching for has finally appeared ). When the product was not completed, they first published a website. Users who wanted to experience Dropbox first could leave their email address to wait for the invitation, which greatly increased their appetite. At the same time, early publicity can also receive feedback from many future users and listen to their opinions and suggestions on this product. In short, the pre-release promotion of Dropbox is successful and worth learning.

After the official release of Dropbox, PR did a good job and received a report from TechCrunch. Dropbox also bought a lot of Google Keyword ads, although the effect is not ideal, but this does not affect the exponential growth of their users.

The reason for the rapid growth in the number of Dropbox users is the power of "word of mouth. Because you get a small amount of capacity at the beginning of registration, you can invite friends to increase your free capacity. When a person finds that Dropbox is really useful, he certainly wants to have a larger space and his friends should also like such a great service. When his friends saw the Dropbox, they suddenly found that they also had this demand. After using it, they found that the Dropbox was too easy to use and recommended it to more friends. Then Dropbox started viral transmission.

Revelation 1: do not indulge in products you have never imagined. In fact, many existing products are not easy to use and there is a lot of room for innovation.

Revelation 2: It is often said that "launch early", and it is time to publicize and promote the revelation. You do not have to wait until the product is completely OK. If your product is cool enough, you can start to win attention early, accumulate the first batch of users in the future, and get valuable suggestions and feedback.

Revelation 3: one of the reasons your business is doomed to fail is that you have made a product that nobody wants"

Revelation 4: "Word of mouth" and "friend recommendation", this seemingly old marketing method is actually the most effective. Compared with the advertisements that run randomly on the internet, everyone is more confident in friend recommendations. However, there is a premise that your product is really outstanding, otherwise everything will be nonsense.

Revelation 5: Do you want "viral transmission? You should make it easier for users to share their love for products with their friends. You also need to give them some rewards to encourage them to do so.

Revelation 6: market types include existing markets, further subdivided markets, and brand-new markets. Different markets require different marketing methods, and the existing market also contains huge opportunities.

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The following is another Drew Houston video about Dropbox's entrepreneurial experience on startup bootcamp at MIT:

This video is more about Dropbox's entrepreneurial experience. There are not many "dry goods" in the previous video. Let's list the two below:

If you want to start a business, but you don't feel the time is ripe, the best way is to join a startup company where you will learn more. Failure does not matter many times. You only need to succeed once. X

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There is a very popular topic about Dropbox in Quora. Why is Dropbox more popular than other programs with similar functionality ?, It is strongly recommended that you take a look at this question. I follow this question a long time ago, and there are always wonderful Answers coming out.

Michael Wolfe's opinion on this issue is: first, we should return to the initial needs of this issue. What are our requirements? We have a folder where we put the synchronization things in and it completes the synchronization task silently, which is that simple. However, most entrepreneurs think that it is too simple to meet this demand. Such products are too technical, so they will add tasks such as task management, Calendaring, and customized dashboards, virtual white boarding features that are not required by 99% of users. For a product, solving user needs is the key. Simple and Easy to use is enough. redundant functions will only become cumbersome, making users confused.

Inspiration: products are not projects in schools. The most important thing is whether they can meet users' needs. What users use is cool, not how much you write.Code, To achieve the number of useless features. Easy addition and subtraction. You have a great sense of accomplishment when doing addition, but in the face of complicated products, users do not know how to start. Subtraction is a real test, because you must understand what the core functions of your product are and what the users really need. (PS: this is especially true in China. A large number of domestic users are still "small white" users. The simpler things they like, the more they like. This also explains why 360 of the installation volume is so large, who doesn't like it with one click)

The answers from others are also wonderful. Let's take a look.

If you have never used Dropbox so far, it is too sorry, be sure to try a https://db.tt/4wqPOzM (Note: In China need to access with HTTPS)