"The product needs to grow fast, and we believe that joining Dropbox is the best way to make that happen. "
Why not do a funding round?
Why not do a funding round?
Financially --
- Cash out the existing (presumably closely-held) equity holders with 100% of deal proceeds.
"Existentially" --
Reduce execution risk by getting the team access to:
- Existing battle-tested deployment infrastructure (& devops)
- Existing pool of engineers that can be assigned to the project, and who are familiar with the infrastructure
- HR, facilities, logistics, support, etc...
(1) join dropbox, probably for a pretty penny with stock options that will probably look very nice when Dropbox goes public -- fuel further growth and integration with Dropbox with even more significant resources at your disposal (including HIRING really good engineers a la "come work for Dropbox!")
(2) stay as a high-risk start-up with no revenue, no tested plans of monetization with huge problems of scale (due to its rapid growth) and create a funding round which liquidates your ownership stake significantly, puts you @ the mercy of some risk averse VC's and limits your exit options (depending upon valuation)
I love the product, but I have to admit this (1) would be my choice as well