"the adventure found at a nimble 250-person startup like Dropbox becomes more tempting"
What is the definition of a startup these days, anyway?
What is the definition of a startup these days, anyway?
Once you've found a business model and start scaling your personnel (i.e. Steve Blank's "Company Building" stage), a startup is no longer a startup, IMO.
Besides, Dropbox has already received some substantial investments, and have a healthy revenue
"A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model."
I would say Dropbox has found a repeatable and scalable business model.
I never understood who or what Dropbox was ever disrupting to earn such high valuations but that's ok. Sometimes just have to admit when you can't see the forest for the trees.
"A company that isn't profitable, but isn't as unhappy about it as I would be yet."
[edit: Worth clarifying that I doubt Dropbox probably ever qualified under my definition... but that's fine. Who wants to be a startup? I'd rather start a company.]
Now I AM going to get cynical by saying it's in the VCs' interest for this to happen, because they can swoop in and grab the few that do turn out to be profitable. The HN dream is a bit like Hollywood - most of the hopefuls who chase the HN dream are going to end up eating ramen through three or four pivots, before they realise quite how bad the odds are against them. Sorry for such a black thought at the start of the week!
Startups are rarely profitable since a company designed for growth reinvests its revenue back into the company to create future growth (think a "ramen profitable" startup vs a "lifestyle business").
Large profits mean the company has run out of investment opportunities.
Apple is designed for growth since their inception (when they were still a startup, by anyone's definition of startup) and that haven't changed much ever since (except, perhaps, on the Scully phase... and probably now, under Cook): they kept iterating fast on new products, predating their own margins with internal competition and all those other small things companies designed for growth do...
I'd rather have a lifestyle business, which at least until the nineties we used to call just company/business.
You know, like Apple, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe et all, despite not being startups are _just_ businesses.
Which leaves open the question of what to call Dropbox. Well funded, profitable, late-stage startup? Sounds like too much of a mouthful.
Which leaves open the question of what to call
Dropbox. Well funded, profitable, late-stage
startup?
But yes. 150 is far too high a number. I'd say it should be closer to 50.
It makes me sad to link to this, since the PARC blog no longer hosts his images, but it's more than nothing: http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2005/10/dunbar_group_co.html
ETA: Oh, wait. His older post actually explains it better: http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html
"In my opinion it is at 5 that the feeling of "team" really starts. At 5 to 8 people, you can have a meeting where everyone can speak out about what the entire group is doing, and everyone feels highly empowered. However, at 9 to 12 people this begins to break down -- not enough "attention" is given to everyone and meetings risk becoming either too noisy, too boring, too long, or some combination thereof. Although I've been unable to find the source, I've heard of some references to a study from the 1950s that says that the optimum size for a committee is 7. Likewise, it's fairly easy for us to see and agree that a dinner party starts to break down somewhere above 7 or 8 people, as do also tabletop games of both the strategic (I prefer 5) and role-playing varieties (I prefer 7). These size limits can be overcome, but require increased amounts of "grooming".
"The chasm that starts somewhere between 9 to 12 people can be especially daunting for a small business. As you grow past 12 or so employees, you must start specializing and having departments and direct reports; however, you are not quite large enough for this to be efficient, and thus much employee time that you put toward management tasks is wasted. Only as you approach and pass 25 people does having simple departments and managers begin to work again, as it starts to really make sense for department heads to spend significant time just communicating and coordinating (and as individual departments become large enough to once again allow for the dynamic exchange of ideas that had previously occurred in the original 5-9 member seed group).
"I've already noted the next chasm when you go beyond 80 people, which I think is the point that Dunbar's Number actually marks for a non-survival oriented group. Even at this lower point, the noise level created by required socialization becomes an issue, and filtering becomes essential. As you approach 150 this begins to be unmanageable. Once a company grows past 200 you are really starting to need middle-management, but often you can't afford it yet. Only when you get up past that, maybe at 350-500 people, does middle-management start really working, primarily because you've once again segmented your original departments, possibly again reducing them to Dunbar-sized groups."
Why are 250 people working at Dropbox? Is Dropbox overstaffed?
A service running on AWS with intra-account deduplication, with signup, referrals, billing and support, Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Blackberry, Android, kindle and web clients, all internationalised into English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish (both European and Latin American), and an API with six platform-specific SDKs for Dropbox integration.
"About a month, one person"?
> Why are 250 people working at Dropbox?
>A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.
According to Paul Graham, "a startup is a company designed to grow fast."
By this definition, they didn't fit the bill. Dropbox might, depending on whether or not they're still in a rapid growth phase.
It stops being a startup when, if acquired or IPO'd for $1 billion, a full-time entry-level engineer makes less than $1 million after taxes. For straight equity, that puts the cutoff around 0.2%. For options, it depends on the strike.
By 250, new employees are getting much less than that.