Thinking like a Data-Driven Guy for Dropbox

by Marcos Ortiz, Marcos Ortiz Valmaseda

When I used Dropbox for the first time from my Linux box, it was a shining moment for me. In that time, I was looking precisely for a solution for my files that I used to let behind always in my USB memory. For every Linux user, which many of them loves Open Source software; collaboration is an important issue, and Dropbox came to save my work a lot of times, because the platform itself, is a synonym of collaboration, and this is one of the reason why I love the platform.

The other reason why I love the platform, that they use my favorite programming language for the core development of the proprietary synchronization daemon: Python, and 2012, Guido, the creator of the language was included in Dropbox’s payroll: Just awesome !!!

So, I want to do my little contribution to the platform, writing some ideas how to improve it and the business itself. I will divide this in some key points:

  • Improve blogging frequency in Tech’s blog about Data Science at Dropbox
  • Improve user engagement in Mobile devices using Localytics services
  • Hire to Greg Nudelman like consultant to improve Dropbox for Android, and work with Mailbox’s team for Android-based version
  • Build a high class Data Science team to get more useful and better insights from Dropbox massive data sets
  • Improve Marketing efforts using Inbound Marketing techniques focused on Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogging, ebooks, etc

Blogging frequency in Tech’s blog

One of the reason I learned about Dropbox, when I was searching information about how to optimize my Python code for an application which I was developing for Oracle to PostgreSQL migration. And in that time, I found an amazing post written by Pavel Panchekha called “A Python Optimization Anecdote” when he explained in a great detail how to improve your Python code using some useful tricks.

Dropbox is one of the best examples for Data-Driven companies, and why not take advantage of that in Tech’s blog? This is a great resource for two reason:

  • If you talk about Data Science at Dropbox,it could be helpful to engage new talents for the company
  • You could share the knowledge with the world, and the world could help you to spread the word about the platform

If you need some ideas for new blog posts, I will let you here three:

  • There’s an yellow elephant in a blue box: Hadoop at Dropbox!!!
  • Dropbox: a Data-Driven company
  • Using Text Mining to hear to our customers

User engagement improving using Localytics’s services

Mobile devices are very important for Dropbox since day one, so I think that with Localytics, it could very helpful for the business. This amazing team lead by Raj Aggarwal (@analyticsraj) have built an incredible platform for App Analytics and App Marketing, and they know exactly which metrics to use to improve User Engagement in Dropbox’s mobile apps.

Can you see some of these metrics? Just follow their great videos posted on their blog in a section called “Whiteboard Wednesday”. Three of my favorite posts, you can see them here:

See to Raj talking about the last one:

With Localytics’s team, you can work in several optimizations for all this, but I will tell you other metrics that you could track too, taken from Social Gaming industry:

  • Churn rate
  • Daily Active Users (DAU)
  • Monthly Active Users (MAU)
  • Daily sign-ups
  • User clustering based on the best channels for sign-ups
  • User engagement based modeling

In this last topic, there are a lot of good resources to borrow some ideas. For example:

Hire to Greg Nudelman like your Android expert

Greg (@designcaffeine) is a well known Android expert, and with his expertise, he could help you to improve Android-based apps for Dropbox and for the insertion of Mailbox app for this platform. He is the author of two great books focused on Mobile Development, and a co-author of another:

If you want to know more about him, you can visit his site here.

Build a High class Data Science team

For this topic, just one advice: Read Dj Patil mini book “Building Data Science Teams”, or you don’t want to read, see to him explaining all this in this talk:

Use Inbound Marketing techniques to spread the word

Dropbox is an expert in this field, because with its referral program, the quantity of users have exploded in a good shape, like KISSmetrics’s blog described in a remarkable way.

But what about if you improve your social presence in Google Plus, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and you improve your Content Marketing in the site? There are a lot of ideas about all this.

For example, check out this amazing presentation from NewsCred’s team at Slideshare: [slideshare id=22978918&doc=50beststatspresentation-130614091052-phpapp02] or even simpler: Hire to HubSpot’s team to improve your leads.

I use its Marketing Grader everyday, and my social presence is stronger everyday:

Thanks to awesome combination of #Inbound #Marketing and #Analytics provided by @HubSpot Marketing Grader is on 83 pic.twitter.com/dZnSFSoZ60 — Marcos Ortiz (@marcosluis2186) July 3, 2013

Conclusions

My conclusions are simple my friends: Dropbox is one of the best examples for Data-Driven companies, so why not take advantage of its massive data sets to improve everyday the business?

You have an unique opportunity, and you customers love the platform, so, you can improve every seconds, we, the customers, will be grateful for a very long time with you, guys. Thanks for reading.