7 reasons why Dropbox grows to $ 4 billion

Did you know that Dropbox spends quite a modest amount on advertising, but despite this, its cost has already grown to 4 billion dollars? What is the secret of success? Everything is simple and difficult at the same time. At the head of the corner are tactics of “explosive growth,” which we will discuss in this article.

What does the term "Growth Hacking" mean? Instead of “buying” with the help of traditional advertising for each individual new client, you can solve this problem on a different scale. In other words, the price of getting each individual customer will tend to zero. You will have to pay only directly for the implementation of growth tactics in your company, and further business growth will cost you almost nothing.

For example, one of the growth tactics is to encourage some of the existing users in order to attract others. Such stimulation can be souvenirs with your company logo or preferential (free?) Monthly service. Another example is icons or buttons that web sites can “insert” into their code. These badges or buttons will direct the visitor back to the site, which will serve as advertising. Below we describe some of the tactics of Dropbox's “explosive growth”.
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Dropbox has received many awards, including the award for the best startup 2011 and the Webby for Best Services and Practices (“exemplary website” and “best web service”). Today it is no secret that the founders of this company, Drew Newston and Arash Ferdowsi, rejected the nine-digit offer to buy their business from Steve Jobs.

Here are some facts about the scale of Dropbox:

• The company's profit in 2012 amounted to 116 million dollars, and in 2013 an increase to 200 million dollars was expected.
• In January 2014, Dropbox earned $ 250 million while valuing it at $ 10 billion.
• Every 24 hours, 1 billion files are saved on Dropbox.
• Dropbox has over 200 million users.
• This company employs over 500 people.
• Dropbox is installed on 250 million devices.

Not every SaaS company can achieve such success in 4 years (regardless - with or without advertising). So what led to such an unprecedented growth of Dropbox? I will share several techniques that Dropbox has integrated into its service, leading to an incredible increase in the popularity of a company offering remote data storage.

1. Registration page

First of all, Dropbox visitors notice its simple structure. Simplicity is the principle that underlies the entire Dropbox service. A two-minute video (noticeable without scrolling the page) gives an idea of ​​the Dropbox product. This video is one of those elements that have been on their website since the beginning.

Then:



Now:



The number of options on the main page is limited. Clearly, Dropbox wants its visitors to register. This is similar to what many private beta startups are doing before the official launch. The video on the main page shows the product for promotional purposes.

So you can set the level of interest in the service by counting the number of requests for registration.

Conclusion:
You may be tempted to add the latest press release, a large article or product image to the home page of your site, especially if you think you can increase the level of consumer confidence and conversion in this way. In some cases, this may actually work, but more often this approach leads to page congestion. Every time you have such a temptation, remember that Dropbox instantly earned 70,000 users by simply posting a demo video.

Do not say anything to your users! Your excellent product should speak for itself. Your side will not need any additional arguments!

2. Easy registration

The registration process consists of just a few steps. The user can do this from his “desktop” - not even a browser is needed.



As soon as a user has registered (via a web program or desktop) and installed Dropbox on his computer, the service automatically sends him a folder with a photo and a text file with a getting started guide.



This contributes to the speedy adaptation of new users to the Dropbox product and its functions.

Conclusion:
At the time of its popularity, MySpace added Tom as a friend to all newly registered. Facebook encourages its users to search for friends by e-mail. Mint handles weekly financial newsletters. Amazon sends emails every day with data on the products you’ve recently searched for. Some eCommerce (e-commerce) sites send letters with coupons for a 10% discount if you haven't ordered anything from them for some time.

How will you help your customers get acquainted with the product or service? What will you do so that they come back again?

3. Inviting a friend

According to Houston, such invitations increased the number of registrations on Dropbox by 60%. Dropbox has greatly simplified the dissemination of information about its product to users, this process is even encouraged. For example, a user who has invited someone else to the service relies, as well as the newcomer himself, 500 MB of additional space.
Dropbox makes it easy to invite new users:

Via e-mail:



Link:



The recommendations of friends in any case are more credible than advertising. Moreover, the inviter himself is motivated in attracting new customers to Dropbox, as it gains additional space. The invitee is also interested in registering, as in this case he will receive more space than just a new client. All this costs Dropbox 1GB of space, which is much cheaper than paying Google AdWords for advertising.

Conclusion:
Before paying for advertising on Google or Facebook, consider whether you can organize your “invite a friend” program. People respond quickly to encouragement. You will be able to track the effectiveness of your program, using it as an experiment. If you do not know where to start creating this program or looking for instructions, go to Curebit.

4. media

We've all seen on the doors of the stores sign up “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter”. All this has become too banal and mundane, so no one pays attention anymore. Some companies offer bonuses for having a customer like them, for example, arrange sales at discount prices for Facebook fans.
Dropbox came up with something else. Each of their new Twitter followers or contacts on Facebook receive 125 MB of additional space:



To date, Dropbox has over 720,000 followers on Twitter. Of course, it cannot be argued that this was the reason for the company's breakthrough, but the extra contacts did not exactly hurt it.
Dropbox encourages its customers to join them on Facebook or Twitter, providing them with an additional platform to promote their product.

Conclusion:
It is no longer enough to have a Twitter or Facebook account and hang signs on the front door to the store. If you have an e-commerce site, think about the possibility of providing 10% discounts from each order for all your contacts in the social network.

The "trick" is that the subscriber can like you when placing an order, and then, after receiving the order and the discount, remove it. The point is to create an API for work only with regular, loyal customers, and not with those who are just trying to get a bonus.

5. Easy file sharing

Dropbox allows for easy file sharing. Neither the recipient nor the sender will have to do much. To share galleries with people you just need to copy the link:



This is similar to how people easily share their photos on Facebook:



When sending photos posted on the Dropbox site, this company gets access to new potential users. When an unregistered person browses the gallery, he automatically sees the following short message:

“Zach Baligo created this gallery very simple. The user only has to add files to the folder “.
Create your public gallery on Dropbox. ”

Users can also copy the link directly from their desktop.



Even in this ad, Dropbox draws attention to its trump card - simplicity.

Folder sharing

If a user wants to share a folder with his friend on Dropbox, he must also be registered. This tactic increases the number of Dropbox users with a geometric progression.

Sharing links to files

Remember when everyone used Megaupload, Rapidshare, Hotfile and other hosting sites to download files? These resources were crammed with all sorts of advertising, “premium accounts”, for which a higher download speed and no waiting time were offered, as well as other attributes of making money. All this distracted attention from the main goal of the visitor - the ability to download the desired file without being pushed through millions of paid services!

Dropbox solved this problem.
If the user wants to share the file, he simply applies the 'Get Link' function on the desktop or on the network. Those who need to download the file will see this image:



No ads, no immediate registration requirements, no download link waiting. A clean page with an emphasis only on the file itself.

Compare with download page on Megaupload:



Here a lot of attention is paid to advertising and various ways to make the visitor pay Megaupload. If the visitor does not want to do this, he will have to wait for a free download for at least 35 seconds.
If this can teach us something, it is using the weak points of competitors to improve the quality of their own service. Earn on their shortcomings.

Conclusion:
Not all companies have file sharing functionality. If your business needs it, make the exchange process as simple as possible. Take an example from Facebook or Dropbox. Simplicity is the cornerstone of all these companies. When users share information with unregistered people, Dropbox is able to show the speed, simplicity, design and usefulness of their service. How does your product show itself when users link to it with others?

6. Dropquest (quest for space in Dropquest)

Dropquest is a contest held by Dropbox, which involves solving various puzzles by users and the game “garbage hunt” (a game whose participants must find and collect certain items in a limited amount of time). Those who pass the test among the best 176 receive additional space and / or souvenir. Announcements about blog games collect a lot of likes and tweets.
Dropquest drew a wide audience from the world of technology to Dropbox.

Conclusion:
For a company, such contests can be a great way to create hype and rumors about your brand. If you have not tried this option, then start with a fun contest among your users, and make your company product with prizes. This may be a good PR move.

7. Accessibility on many devices and platforms

For a product such as Dropbox, it is initially very important to work on different platforms. People should have access to the service anytime, anywhere. According to one of the company's founders and CEO, Drew Houston, being accessible everywhere is a key task for Dropbox.

In the world today, about 20 million users of Ubuntu (Linux). Dropbox has released a version of the program for Linux, and until that time, users of this platform did not have a free remote storage service. Continuing its practice of accessibility on a wide variety of platforms, Dropbox makes its services acceptable for everyone.

Approximately 2.0% of Dropbox users use Linux exclusively. Based on the total number of Dropbox users (50 million), it turns out that at least one million work on Linux. This is a million people, each of which can distribute the product further, showing its galleries to others, attracting friends, adding them to social networks and so on.

In addition to Linux, Dropbox supports Blackberry, despite the decline in their market share. This product is available even on even less popular devices, such as Symbian.

Accessibility on most platforms is not just important for Dropbox. This opportunity can also be used to stimulate the growth of the company. A single Symbian user can spread information about Dropbox and bring it to a Mac user who will share the discovery with another hundred people.

Conclusion:
The company's CEO, Houston, has big plans for Dropbox. The founders of Dropbox achieved everything without advertising, they were just where their users made the complex simple and applied several “explosive growth” tactics. Startups are always hard on promotion, but by using some of the tactics of “explosive growth” in your company, you can simplify your goal achievement. To make your work as efficient as possible, do not forget about customer retention.

Have you tried any of the tactics? What else do you think could lead Dropbox to success?