October 19, 2011 at 14:58Dropbox rejected more than $ 100 million from Steve Jobs two years ago
Forbes Magazine has published a great article on the history of Dropbox, one of the most successful startups in the global IT industry in recent years.
The idea of a startup was born from Drew Houston on a bus from Boston to New York. The journey took four hours, the guy took a laptop with him, but forgot a flash drive, so he had nothing to do with an empty laptop. Annoyed, Drew started writing code to synchronize files over the Internet right on the bus. Four months later, he flew to San Francisco to present the technology at Paul Combat's startup incubator Y Combinator, but he refused to accept the project until Hauston found a co-founder. Only after that they allocated $ 15 thousand for development. Enough money to rent an apartment and buy a poppy.
One of the highlights in Dropbox’s history was a meeting with Steve Jobs in December 2009, when the head of Apple tried to convince the young founders of the startup to sell the project. Like, soon Apple will enter this market, and Dropbox, according to Jobs, "is a feature, not a product."
The dream of many startups is to sell themselves to a large company for millions of dollars. It is very difficult for the founders of any business to resist such an offer. And surely 99 out of 100 businessmen would agree to a deal that will enrich them and become the final chord in the success story.
However, Arash Ferdowsi and Drew Houston found the strength to refuse. This is how the meeting went on at Jobs’s office.
“When Hauston pulled out his laptop for presentation, Jobs, in his crown jeans and black turtleneck, calmly stopped him with a flick of his hand:“ I know what you guys are doing. ”
At that time, Jobs prophesied that Dropbox, a young startup, could become a key asset for Apple. However, Hauston categorically rejected this possibility: he said he was determined to build a large company and was not going to sell it, despite the status of the buyer (Hauston considered Steve Jobs to be his hero) or a nine-digit amount. Jobs smiled warmly and said he would enter their market with his own product. ”
On the one hand, having refused then, the founders of Dropbox did not fail. Now their business is valued much more than $ 100 million. Just yesterday, the company announcedthe closure of the next tranche of investments in the amount of $ 250 million. The company's overall valuation is likely to be about $ 4 billion (at least, this figure is indicated on the cover of the Forbes latest issue next to Drew Hauston's photo).
Dropbox's prospects, on the other hand, look vague. Apple has just launched a free cloud hosting with iCloud synchronization , Google Drive and similar services from other large companies (maybe Microsoft) are just around the corner . Moreover, these giants have almost unlimited resources, and Dropbox will be hard to compete with them.
The idea of a startup was born from Drew Houston on a bus from Boston to New York. The journey took four hours, the guy took a laptop with him, but forgot a flash drive, so he had nothing to do with an empty laptop. Annoyed, Drew started writing code to synchronize files over the Internet right on the bus. Four months later, he flew to San Francisco to present the technology at Paul Combat's startup incubator Y Combinator, but he refused to accept the project until Hauston found a co-founder. Only after that they allocated $ 15 thousand for development. Enough money to rent an apartment and buy a poppy.
One of the highlights in Dropbox’s history was a meeting with Steve Jobs in December 2009, when the head of Apple tried to convince the young founders of the startup to sell the project. Like, soon Apple will enter this market, and Dropbox, according to Jobs, "is a feature, not a product."
The dream of many startups is to sell themselves to a large company for millions of dollars. It is very difficult for the founders of any business to resist such an offer. And surely 99 out of 100 businessmen would agree to a deal that will enrich them and become the final chord in the success story.
However, Arash Ferdowsi and Drew Houston found the strength to refuse. This is how the meeting went on at Jobs’s office.
“When Hauston pulled out his laptop for presentation, Jobs, in his crown jeans and black turtleneck, calmly stopped him with a flick of his hand:“ I know what you guys are doing. ”
At that time, Jobs prophesied that Dropbox, a young startup, could become a key asset for Apple. However, Hauston categorically rejected this possibility: he said he was determined to build a large company and was not going to sell it, despite the status of the buyer (Hauston considered Steve Jobs to be his hero) or a nine-digit amount. Jobs smiled warmly and said he would enter their market with his own product. ”
On the one hand, having refused then, the founders of Dropbox did not fail. Now their business is valued much more than $ 100 million. Just yesterday, the company announcedthe closure of the next tranche of investments in the amount of $ 250 million. The company's overall valuation is likely to be about $ 4 billion (at least, this figure is indicated on the cover of the Forbes latest issue next to Drew Hauston's photo).
Dropbox's prospects, on the other hand, look vague. Apple has just launched a free cloud hosting with iCloud synchronization , Google Drive and similar services from other large companies (maybe Microsoft) are just around the corner . Moreover, these giants have almost unlimited resources, and Dropbox will be hard to compete with them.