I’ve also included links to slides & video below to Drew’s two presentations at sllconf 20. I call it the Dropbox MVP, in Drew’s honor, and I devoted a section of my new book ( The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses ) to it, which you can read below. It’s an example of building a minimum viable product (MVP). One of the techniques he used to validate the concept for Dropbox is so powerful – and so simple – that most entrepreneurs overlook it. I’ve been happy to host him at the past two Startup Lessons Learned conferences, where he’s shared candidly the lessons he’s learned along the way. His success is well-earned, as Dropbox continues to earn its reputation as one of Silicon Valley’s hottest companies.īut what these stories tend to leave out is that Drew has spent years doing the unglamorous work building not just a great product, but a great company.

He just raised $250 million for DropBox (as he explains in this TCTV interview). Editor’s note: Guest contributor Eric Ries is a consultant and the author of The Lean Startup.ĭrew Houston is featured on the cover of Forbes magazine as the entrepreneur who out-Steve Jobs’ed Steve Jobs.

Short dropbox link