Startups innovate, Big companies follow
For so long, odrive has been beating the same drum.
Cloud storage is great — especially when it’s unlimited — but it is not usable or effective unless you have the right sync model.
More specifically, you needed to have a Progressive Sync model that enables users to sync down what they want, as they want it. And then Unsync what they no longer want.
The primary culprit was the amount of local computer storage.
It will never keep up with what you want stored in the cloud.
Until the last couple months, we had been beating that drum — alone. The silence was deafening.
That all changed in April when Google announced the release of Selective Sync which allows users to deselect folders from syncing to their desktop and thus freeing their local computer storage:
Google finally recognized that:
“there’s a good chance your computer’s hard drive will run out of space if you sync everything.”
Just last week, Dropbox announced Project Infinite:
We responded to it. We straight-up called out what our users knew to be the truth: it was a copycat, right down to the logo.
We were not angry. We were not scared. We are not newbies at this.
Did we get nervous? I would be lying if we did not take some time out to assess what we should do.
The final analysis: this is freakin’ awesome!
A market is born
This is the moment we have been waiting for. We knew that we had created awesome technology but wondered whether it was the classic tale of a great technology that did not solve a problem — or a problem of only a few.
Our hearts and minds were telling us that we were solving problems faced by everyone using cloud storage: how to unify the fragmentation of your apps and clouds, how to easily access it, share it, and then protect. Our users were telling us the same:
But where was the competition?
Then came Google’s announcement, and then Dropbox’s. They finally got the religion that cloud storage requires better sync because, among other things, local disk storage is limited.
This is good. No, great.
We can’t be the only one to push the market. More competition validates the market and our vision.
Are we Sparta?
You’ve all seen the movie 300, right? In the Battle of Thermopylae, a Spartan force of 300 led by King Leonidas fight valiantly to hold off a Persian army of over 100,000, but ultimately are killed. Their battle did help the Greek forces to beat back the Persian invasion.
No doubt, Google and Dropbox have larger armies. Without saying outright the size of our company, let’s just say that King Leonidas would have preferred his numerical inferiority.
We are not here for a moral victory. We are not here to let someone else win the game and memorialize us with a plaque or a movie. We are here to win.
The Startup shall inherit the earth
It is the law of technology nature.
Large companies once had good ideas but no longer innovate. They have established a business model that generates revenue and profits. They get bigger by getting bigger distribution.
For startups, many die but the few that survive will win because of ideas — and execution of those ideas into a market.
As the startup achieves market success, the larger company may try to do what the successful startup is doing. They throw endless resources and people to duplicate the technology and catch up. It’s not that easy. It’s a losing proposition.
The large company never sees the market as a problem to solve. It’s just business. Its engineers are not the ones driving the development; it’s the sales executives.
Startups follow their gut. Large company engineers follow specs.
odrive will win because we already have the future — today — while others are trying to build it and catch up.
We are nimble and fierce. We are experts at what we do. This also happens to be all we do — make the cloud better for all of us.
Let the giants come play in our backyard.
Come join our fight!