World has changed since Dropbox came out and it has become less relevant. In my case it is completely irrelevant.
"The service hit 100 million users in November 2012, 200 million in November 2013, 300 million in May 2014, and 400 million in June 2015." and 500 million in Mar 16.
So still growing merrily. Also the shared folder connections have gone from 1.3bn end 2014 to 3.3 billion recently.
They are changing focus from personal file storage to enterprise collaboration stuff which may be why there is less on google trends, perhaps.
>That’s one of the big evolutions in terms of what people are doing when they have a platform like ours, going from access into connections and a huge collaboration network.
>The second big evolution has been the evolution from being an end-user tool into an enterprise tool
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/2016/03/11/dropbo...
It's interesting to consider whether you could apply part of the Dropbox approach to streams of data. Having them singularly controlled by the service you get them from strikes me as sort of limiting and underpowered. But hey, I'm in the minority. I like building stuff and feeling in control of the content I create — even that which gets created passively or implicitly.
Additionally, Google trend numbers are relative to all historic search activity. As Google's market share changes over time, that's likely to impact what Trends shows as well, skewing the correlation with subject popularity even further.
When they launched Carousel I had hopes that they'd really capture the market [1]. But nearly 2 years later I think Google ended up out Carouseling Dropbox [2].
[1] https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-carousel-e5a...
[2] https://medium.com/@jmathai/my-automated-photo-workflow-usin...
I just wish they'd charge me something. Free services scare me (yes I know they're data mining my photos).
If anyone's interested in acquiring pvt company shares in the secondary market, here's what I learned: * You have to be an accredited investor (i.e., net worth of over $1M excluding residence; or income of >$200K individual/>$300K married for the last 2 years and reasonable expectation that this income level will be sustained this year).
* You don't actually own common stock of the company (e.g. Palantir). It actually works like a mutual fund. You invest in an LLC that owns the stock. You get shares in this fund/LLC that correspond 1:1 to common shares in Palantir.
* There is usually a minimum investment amount e.g. $50K or $20K.
* EquityZen/Sharespost charge a commission (of about 5% iirc; 1 of them charged more than the other but had a lower minimum investment amount). They are managers of the LLC and investors have virtually no rights even though they are members of the LLC.
* When the company IPOs, your LLC shares are converted to the same number of company shares. This is common stock, and subject to the same lockup restrictions that employee shares are. That means you can't sell until 6 months after the IPO.
* There is no liquidity. EquityZen and Sharespost differ in this a little bit. But basically you can't sell your shares in the LLC without approval from EZ/SP; they can veto it and they can also require a holding period of 1 year.
* While the transaction is blessed by the underlying company, they don't reveal any information about financials or risks like they would in an IPO prospectus. You are investing blind.
In my opinion the biggest problems with such investments are (1) illiquidity, and (2) the fact that shares are subject to 6-month lockup post IPO.
EDIT: formatting.
Slow news day, I guess.
So many VC rounds protected with liquidation preferences at a valuation that the market probably ends up shredding if there's an IPO or a buyer comes along to acquire the company. These latest devaluations certainly wouldn't help with morale and I'd get nervous thinking about my shares eventually being worthless if the company just sort of tinkers in the private market much longer.
I also tend to be relatively risk averse though, so I'm curious what others here would do.
Still not a wise thing to do if you're employed there.
I am curious, will these secondary shares have the same lockup restrictions that employees face after the IPO?
I am also curious how the market will price Box vs. Dropbox. I would expect them to mostly move in tandem, but with Thiel propagating his "myth of the monopoly", maybe people will consider any positive developments at one to be negative for the other?
At any rate, I expect it will be rough roads ahead.
As the saying goes: There ain't nothing that price won't fix.
Who knew?
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/business/media/buzzfeed-hi...
>"you could attribute the entire 34% "discount" to the fact that these are common shares, not preferred."
I sold common shares via the secondary market and I got exactly what they were valued at. This was a very well-known startup. So that's incorrect. In fact I managed to get just north of that price given the scarcity of obtaining them.
> "You don't actually own common stock of the company (e.g. Palantir). It actually works like a mutual fund."
This is something specific to just EquityZen and this is a technique that is used in instances where the company's employee option agreements forbids such a sale. This is a loophole of sorts used only in those instances.
One other interesting point is that once I had a buyer lined up the company exercised their right of first refusal which means they then had to buy the shares for the same amount as the buyer agreed to purchase them from me for. The company themselves of course didn't actually buy them but they put me in touch with a well-known Hollywood celebrity's wealth manager who then bought them.
This last point irked me a bit when I thought about all the other engineers toiling away to build a good product who were bound by all these options restrictions yet some Hollywood celebrity with no connection to the company was on a shortlist of preferred buyers should some options come available. Sigh.
It could be that in your case they were valued the same. You actually mention that you sold at above the company's last fundraising valuation - it could be the case that the preferred stock was valued even higher.
[it's definitely true] that employees are discouraged from seeking buyers because there is an unspoken implication that this means the employee is "losing faith" or "believes less" in the company, or is getting ready to leave.
If the party line is: "hey, we are going to be a billion dollar company!" and then one employee says "hey, I want to sell at this $100M valuation", even if the $100M is a solid upside from the employees strike price the next natural question for the founder is: "hey, why would you sell at this valuation if we all know we are going to unicorn?" Lots of people are reasonable and could understand many good reasons to sell at that point, but in high-growth culture those are not always appreciated. Sure, employee can/should suck it up, but it still makes it more challenging.
Generally, I think this is why company's should more regularly organize secondaries, it removes this dynamic to a certain extent.
Don't do news.
People are far from rational about this stuff.
As far as psychos and/or the cult mentality, my view is that I wouldn't want to work there anyway but thats me.
If you're happy to sell the shares and work somewhere else, then there's no real problem either way. But if you actually like your job and you just simply prefer to realize a cash distribution from the compensation you earned in the form of equity, and your employer would disapprove of you having this preference, it can be a tricky situation.
I work for a YC company and wanted to sell some shares. EquityZen said it would be easier to sell if I didn't work there any longer, because suing your employer isn't fun. A lawsuit was going to be the easiest way forward.
Also take into account that investors only buy the big name hype companies right now. They're not buying anything small but with good fundamentals. Why? Because they don't get to see the books and why should they trust anyone at their word? But hype? Hype sells. This is the last time I work at a small, but slightly profitable startup that just drifts along. It can't go public and we can't sell. Except the founders who sold at series A.