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DropBox Demo

theragax

255 subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 4 people: 4 on Hacker News.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2013 to 2024.
  • Presented by Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox
  • Made by the vendor. The company whose product it covers made or sponsored it.
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 18 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

673K views18 years ago4 recommendations

Careers and interviewsWeb developmentStartupsInside tech companies

Drew Houston demonstrates the original features of Dropbox in a famous early product video used to validate market demand.

Dropbox is the easiest way to share and store your files online. Download at : easycommander.com/telecharger/dropbox

Why it's here

4 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as a classic example of using a video demo to validate a product idea before building it.

aresanton Hacker News • Recommends

On “How to win as a first time founder - a Drew Houston Manifesto”

DropBox is one of the most useful products to come out in the last decade. I still remember seeing the original 5 minute demo (1). My jaw was on the floor, I instantly needed it. And it's still the best, even at a premium price (marked in cost of GB of storage). The article has several interesting points, but the takeaway for me remains "Solve a worthy problem." (1) link to this video
View on Hacker News

justboxingon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO”

Not sure about the code, but here's the original Demo Video Drew had on their getdropbox.com landing page. It presents the features in a very entertaining way :) Sep 15th 2008 DropBox Demo link to this video
View on Hacker News

murukesh_son Hacker News • Recommends

On “Dropbox Chief to Join Elite Ranks of Idea-to-I.P.O. Founders”

For anyone who hasn't watched it, checkout the original demo videos made by Drew himself. Video1 (Probably earlier version) link Video2 (Better than Video1, more witty and well made.) link to this video It's pretty impressive and the product then looked pretty polished (though minimalistic as it is even today) that even after 11 years, it hasn't gone through much changes. One thing that is interesting is that many people use Dropbox as a poster child of MVPs and Lean methodology, but given the possible effort and polish that Drew had put into the product, I am not sure we can call the beta version as an MVP.
View on Hacker News

pedalpeteon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Show HN: Dewhale – GitHub-Powered AI for effortless development”

What was the logic in the name Dewhale? Maybe a better method to showcase would be a walkthrough demo video. If you haven't seen the original dropbox video, it's great format, and really worked for them. link to this video
View on Hacker News

bmeltonon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Why do people keep creating small useless apps in the weekend?”

…s willing to pay for or use your app at all. Dropbox started out with just a video1. No working product whatsoever. He figured if he could show people what his software aimed to do, then he could find out if they'd pay for it. The alternative was to spend a year or two building a product that he couldn't sell. Why waste a year of his life? 1 - link to this video…
View on Hacker News

bjones53on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: How do you validate your ideas?”

Validation is often oversimplified. Driving traffic to a landing page validate's that you're good at marketing; signups validate interest from consumers; feedback provides insight for product development. However, none of these actions validate your idea. Product demo videos provide people the context they require to properly assess the value of your idea. The best demo videos quickly describe the value of the product and then provide a use case which creates context for the audience. Finally, they end with a QUICK walk-through. Drew Houston launched Dropbox with a product demo link to this video . Try to think of validation as an ongoing process and product demos as the next step.
View on Hacker News

leiperton Hacker News • Mentions

On “Dropbox Drops Photo Galleries”

Funny, it seems that it has been a feature since the first day. Just yesterday I watched this 1 first demo of dropbox which notably mentioned the feature 1: link to this video
View on Hacker News

RickSon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Show HN: Convert a Markdown Doc to WordPress Posts and Pages”

This is a brilliant idea. Wishing you well. I'm a .com user so I can't use this (though I'd like to), but here's a walkthrough of all my thoughts as I interacted with your page, and some notes about how you might improve the site given my experience. To others reading, if you'd like a more formalized version of this type of feedback for your own products, including split testing recommendations designed to help validate the hypotheses, I'm available for consulting and my email's in my profile. Cheers! --------- "wow, this is a great idea" At this point, I fundamentally misunderstood what your product was. Here's what I thought it was, that it seemingly isn't: I maintain a local dropdown fold…
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satvikpendemon Hacker News • Mentions

On “How and when to acquire SaaS users”

Funny you mention Dropbox because they did exactly what you say not to do, provide a video demo that doesn't actually work, it just looks like it's working 0. Their Show HN thread has more details 1. In general though, you definitely should work on figuring out if customers want your product without building it if at all possible, and most times it is possible. I run a SaaS that's a project management tool (todo list + calendar, basically, at link ) and the main page is simply a video demo that I made with Figma and an animation tool called Principle. People signed up and it works great for showing users what they'd be getting in the future. 0 link to this video 1 link
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hoofheartedon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: How to show a not “so perfect” MVP to potential customers?”

Show it to the users in person as soon as possible and ask for feedback if you can. I have personally carried around an iPad around an expo hall demoing an MVP multiple times. You can also record a low budget demo of your product, and ask for user feedback. The best example of this is when Drew Houston created a demo video of what appears to be a working product. Apparently some of the video is mocked out and was edited and uses camera tricks. Even to this day, it looks like a solid working product. link to this video
View on Hacker News