Dropbox: “It Simply Works” (HBS 9-811-065) Kunal Sharma Advanced Entrepreneurship 03 11, 2013 100410018 Expression Count: 854 Question you a) The reason that Dropbox is such a widespread concept is basically because anyone in the world can be a buyer of Dropbox. It can be someone trying to conserve and get their images on distinct platforms or perhaps it can be a multinational firm who uses the product as a “file collaboration” application within the organization. “The thought is to get persons using it inside companies with out IT’s agreement.
Once IT sees that Dropbox is heavy demand and that it works reliably, we’ll get certified for use through the company. (Pg3, P3, Dropbox: it just work’s, 2012). And so basically the client can virtually be you aren’t a need simple access to storage of data across multiple websites. Usually in other industries the buyers might be a small group of men and women or businesses for which the product was specifically made and promoted for, along with each market tries to get a part of industry share. Although in terms of Dropbox, as we can easily see that the customers differ in a manner that anyone can become one while the service is offered cost-free for users who do not wish to retail outlet too much data.
Identifying customers is one of the crucial steps of opportunity assessment. In order to see whether if the product or service could have sales depends upon its buyers and if they will exist or not, when a product or service can be launched and there is not a genuine need for after that it that product will not have sales. Therefore , to conduct a chance assessment the buyers must be identified to be able to see the potential of a services or products in a limited market space as well as to decide if it is really worth approaching a certain buyer or not in terms of the go back business to recover the costs for marketing to this buyer. Issue 2 ) In my opinion, Dropbox was an exceptionally attractive option mainly because that there was nothing else like it out there in terms of an internet storage program that were made to the demands of the persons as well as up-and-coming small to large businesses. The competitive landscape to get Dropbox seems to be very high because before they even went into business there have been already 80 or more websites that presented similar services as well as due to the fact that competition on the internet is fierce as market space is very limited only the firm with the greatest product can survive in the long run.
The biggest threats to a startup including Dropbox is the industry leaders who can easily offer the same services while Dropbox to get a much lower cost due their power in the marketplace and market share, their costs are much reduce as well mainly because they have been in the industry for too long the resources available to them are infinite and these types of giants include entered the industry as Microsoft’s SkyDrive and the Apple iCloud. “But recently, Dropbox features garnered every one of the press. How come?
Because Steve Careers wanted to obtain it to get Apple, but Drew Harrisburg, Dropbox’s CEO, said, “No, thanks. inch Why failed to Dropbox sell out to Apple for a very likely nine-figure amount? Drew Houston thought he could build a bigger organization. Jobs disagreed. He allegedly said Dropbox was “a feature, not really a product. ” (Joshua Gans, 2011) Even as we can see that even Charlie jobs supported the potential of Dropbox and although it wasn’t sold this revealed the world that Dropbox was now a recognizable manufacturer on its own and didn’t need the help of their very own competition.
Issue 3 The Dropbox business model was made to get as simplified as possible in order to target an exceptionally large marketplace so essentially, Dropbox has basically implemented a “freemium” business model, providing its product/service to users for free (such 2 gigs of impair storage), although charging fees for usage of the high grade features (more storage).
Resource requirements to get Dropbox were dealt with in many different ways, the first of which was done by elevating capital through ‘Y Combinator’ a firm that invests in start-ups and provides firms with the required industry networking tools and business tips. Initially these were given $20000 as well as the workplace space to help develop their very own product and at the end with the 3 month process Y Combinator and Dropbox were able to raise approximately $1. a couple of million.
Even though the product was successfully launched for equally consumers and businesses the straightforward file syncing service is continuing to grow, in just a couple of years, to 50 million lively users around 96% from the users tend not to pay everything to use Dropbox. The remaining 4% pay for more storage and purportedly make it profitable. This was not sufficient intended for Dropbox so their tried to attract customers through paid advertising which cost them a great acquisition of three hundred per having to pay customer that has been way too large since reduced account recently had an annual fee of just $99 so that it is extremely high priced.
However they overrode that by an additional $6 million in financing by Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. Sources 1 . LAUREN BARLEY, EILEEN PAO, JONES R. EISENMANN “Dropbox: It really Works” Harvard Business College Case 9-811-065, January 2012. 2 . 2, Joshua Gans | 11: 37 AM November, and 2011. “Where Is Dropbox’s Power? , Joshua Gans , Harvard Business Assessment. “HBR Blog Network , Harvard Business Assessment. N. g., n. d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. <, http://blogs. hbr. org/cs/2011/11/where_is
