Dropbox: "Viral" marketing of cloud storage services

Dropbox founding team. YCS07 want to share his computer files with colleagues? or access your files from your office computer outside your office? Do you want to send it to your colleagues via email attachment, or even copy it to a USB drive and carry it with you, or use a network hard disk to store it? Drewhouston, who graduated from MIT, has developed a Dropbox program to address these needs more easily.　　In 2007, the beta version of the app was online, and its users reached more than 100,000.　　DREWHOUSTON14 began programming, proficient in Python, C + +, algorithmic design, in addition to Web site development and design, network security and even graphic design and Photoshop barrier, the creation of Dropbox has established at least two companies, including one also lasted more than 4 years. With a beautiful resume, Drewhouston's Dropbox initially won the Combinator and sequoiacapital seed Fund-15,000 dollars.　　In order to better promote dropbox,drewhouston need to be more "smart" way of promotion. Drewhouston found that, like "online storage" (onlinestorage) Such keywords prices are very high, and long tail keywords are relatively few; Most crucially, users who visit the site through these keywords may not choose to have more storage space and a more versatile payment service.　　Therefore, a product price of hundreds of dollars, to allow users to find the product through the search engine and purchase, the process cost of the promotion can reach thousands of U.S. dollars. But, "If you use the free value-added business model, your marketing costs are free users." "Drewhouston that before users use Dropbox, they don't know they need this kind of service.　　He realizes that user referrals are the biggest source of growth. So, to get Dropbox's 20G of free storage, you need to have a wide range of friends to use, you can get a maximum of 8G; If you tell Dropbox that you are a student (by validating an Edu mailbox), you can get an extra 500MB space for each person you invite, Then you can get up to 16G extra space. In addition, in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, a message explaining why you like Dropbox, you can get 128MB of space, up to 768MB, and you can get extra 1G space by participating in Dropbox2011 puzzle activities,　　If you sign up for someone else's invitation link in the Dropbox, you and he can get extra 250MB space ... The move, Houston said, has led to a 60% increase in registered users, representing 30% of all registered users who are recommended by others. The company30% of engineering resources have been invested to attract active users. Today, the number of Dropbox users has exceeded 4 million.　　In the future, if the space is not enough, then the user will pay to buy space, 50G space 99 dollars a year, 100G Space 199 dollars a year. "You're like a mosquito, just keep moving, don't look back." If it is destroyed, start from scratch. "Graham is not at all worried about the competition that is coming from a host of competing peers, even Apple's aggressive icloud," he said. "Your product doesn't satisfy the user, it will really bring you down, not because of the competition from Apple or Google." Graham later publicly stated that it was a more valuable project than Airbnb and that the team was not bad. Drewhouston is a CEO who likes to solve problems and design products that people like to use.　　"We keep a simple, small, cohesive team, keep a close eye on our users, focus on things we do well rather than chasing every opportunity or adding every feature."　　YCW11 the shop to Facebook Beetailer, an app launched by Beetailer, a y-combinator investment, has helped 900 online retailers display 434,000 of items on Facebook. Beetailer's software connects existing E-commerce platforms (such as Magento and Shopify) to import and synchronize online catalogs (including prices, pictures, sizes, colors, and products or even goods). On the retailer's Facebook store, users can browse the product and add the product to the Facebook cart.　　When the user clicks on the checkout button to actually buy the product, Beetailer directs the user to the retailer's website so that the shopper can checkout the retailer's preferred payment process. In addition to being able to target Facebook's vast user base, retailers can use Facebook's "Social Atlas" to lure consumers.　　Beetailer can help retailers launch limited Facebook promotions, such as giving rewards to fans who have praised or commented on products, or fans who bring other friends to the store. In addition, Beetailer also provides the retailer with an analytical tool to measure the effectiveness of each promotional activity.　　Beetailer's data include traffic, population classification statistics, the most visited products, the most visited categories, the number of checkout and so on. -S05-S11 exit and get the financing Project List Project founder number Product class status Memo Kiko2 Online calendar service YCS05 acquisition is forced to put software, sites and domain names on ebay auction Loop for Googlecalendar competitive pressuresT3 Location check-in Service (LBS) YCS05 active 13 million US dollar financing Reddit2 social news platform YCS05 acquisition was condénastdigital in 2007, and recently the latter intends to sell Textpayme3 mobile payment Services YCS05 Acquisition 2006 by Amazon acquisition ProjectWedding4 Wedding Community YCW06 Acquisition 2008 was eharmony acquisition, 4 million USD Wufoo3 online form production self-service YCW06 acquisition 2011 was surveymonkey with 35 million dollars to buy OMGPOP1 social games YCS06 active financing 15.1 million USD Scribd3 cloud YCS06 Active financing 25.71 million USD Xobni3 Cloud computing YCS06 active financing 23.2 million USD Au CTOMATIC3 cross-platform e-business Data Management Service YCW07 acquired 5 million dollars to sell it to Livecurrentmedia Buxfer2 personal Online Banking services YCW07 dormant financing 300,000 USD Heysan4 picture uploaded mobile apps YCW07 acquisition 2009 was Goodtechnology acquisition, 4 million U.S. dollars Parakey2 webOS operating system based on the Web page YCW07 acquisition was acquired in 2007 by Facebook, reportedly 1 million U.S. dollars Zenter2 online slide production Services YCW07 acquisition 2007 was acquired by Google, reportedly 4 million U.S. Dollars 280NORTH3 Network program Development YCW08 acquisition 2010 by Motorola Acquisition, 20 million U.S. dollars HEROKU3 Cloud YCW08 acquisition financing 13 million USD Omnisio3 online video Editing Tool YCW　　08 acquisition by Google in 2008, 15 million dollars RescueTime2 computer software and network statistics services YCW08 active financing 900,000 USD Slinkset1 Personal news site Service YCS08 Acquisition 2009 was Posterous acquisition, undisclosed amount Data source: Techgox, South all editing and finishing YCW11 help the electric trader to keep "repeat customers" to the electric dealers who are in intense competition, it is more difficult than to keep getting new users, and find out which users are going to lose and take appropriate incentives to keep them.　　Some big electric companies have already started to set up their own data analysis systems, and a large number of small electric dealers have become Custora target users. YC2011, Custora co-founder of the New Year's graduating project in winter class, Joen Pospichir JoNpospischil and Cory Piersen (Coreypierson) found that "repeat customers" had a much higher order conversion rate than the first to patronize the new users, but in many of the market's tools to help the dealers attract new users, It is rare to focus on tools that already have users and prevent them from losing.　　This led them to decide to set up a software service company, Custora, which is dedicated to helping electrical and application developers find out which users are most valuable and offer the right advice to retain them. As the company slogan "Google brings you the user, we help you keep him/her", for the user, the software service helps him analyze the order data and find out which users have not patronized the store for a while and is on the verge of losing. At this point, the merchant can send them the EDM through the Custora, encourage them to patronize again.　　At the same time, for those high value customers who frequently patronize, Custora will also provide merchants with suggestions to push the corresponding EDM. In addition, other software services companies, such as Salesforce.com, Foodzie, and GetSatisfaction, are also Custora partners who obtain data on user conversion rates and a range of tool-use effects from Custora as a condition of exchange, They also offer a range of free analytics services to Custora. Currently, the main focus of Custora is to develop more incentive tools to retain users in addition to the EDM push.