Dropbox, an ambitious online storage startup company founded by a young developer gained Apple’s attention when it reverse-engineered Apple’s file system to make their startup’s logo, an unfolding box, appear elegantly tucked inside. This caught the attention of Steve Jobs himself as not even an Apple SWAT team had been able to achieve what Dropbox developer Drew Houston had.
Dropbox offers 2GB of storage for free with an option to raise that to 5GB by referring friends to the service, operating under the revenue model that this free space lure will get a significant amount of users hooked on the service enough to want to upgrade to the 50GB ($9.99/month) and 100GB ($19.99/month) plans. The service will soon come pre-installed on all new HTC phones, showing that the company is willing to partner, but not to sell, as Dropbox founder retells how Steve Jobs met with him with a desire to buy the company and was refused.
Jobs presciently saw this sapling as a strategic asset for Apple. Houston cut Jobs’ pitch short: He was determined to build a big company, he said, and wasn’t selling, no matter the status of the bidder (Houston considered Jobs his hero) or the prospects of a nine-digit price (he and Ferdowsi drove to the meeting in a Zipcar Prius).
Jobs smiled warmly as he told them he was going after their market. “He said we were a feature, not a product,” says Houston. Courteously, Jobs spent the next half hour waxing on over tea about his return to Apple, and why not to trust investors, as the duo—or more accurately, Houston, who plays Penn to Ferdowsi’s mute Teller—peppered him with questions.
When Jobs later followed up with a suggestion to meet at Dropbox’s San Francisco office, Houston proposed that they instead meet in Silicon Valley. “Why let the enemy get a taste?” he now shrugs cockily. Instead, Jobs went dark on the subject, resurfacing only this June, at his final keynote speech, where he unveiled iCloud, and specifically knocked Dropbox as a half-attempt to solve the Internet’s messiest dilemma: How do you get all your files, from all your devices, into one place?
Houston’s reaction was less cocky: “Oh, s–t.” The next day he shot a missive to his staff: “We have one of the fastest-growing companies in the world,” it began. Then it featured a list of one-time meteors that fell to Earth: MySpace, Netscape, Palm, Yahoo.
Dropbox currently has over 50 Million users and earlier this month, secured $250 Million in funding, which is entirely appropriate considering the company earned $240 million in 2011 despite the fact that 96% of its users pay nothing.
That 96% of nonpaying customers is throwing their stuff into Dropbox at such a pace that thousands of people each day blow through the free 2 gigabytes of storage, and upgrade to 50 gigs for $10 a month or 100 gigs for $20. Even if Houston doesn’t sign up a single customer in 2012, his sales will double. As we go over this math Houston pauses to garnish this lovely inevitability: “But we will sign up many, many customers.”
Dropbox competitor Box.net is offering 50gb in free storage when you install their mobile app:
As evidenced by the overwhelming crowds during past iPhone and iPad launches, it’s clear that our lives revolve around mobile. That’s why we’re happy to announce that we’re giving away 50 GB of free storage to anyone who uses a free Box Personal account on an iOS device. That’s right, it’s 50 GB in the cloud completely free, forever. Your 50 GB of storage isn’t just limited to your mobile device – you get it anywhere you use your Box account, like on your laptop at home or your desktop at the office.
This promotion only runs for 50 days, so get your free space in the cloud by following these steps:
Visit the app store and download the Box app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch
Log in to your account or register for a new one directly from the app
Start sharing and collaborating in the cloud
