Website Planet sat down with Chad Brown, co-founder of Orangedox, to discuss the company’s origins, its evolution, and how it differs from similar companies. We will also get his expert insights in the recent trends of the industry.
Please Present Orangedox To Our Audience. What Services/Products Do You Offer, And What Makes You Stand Out From The Competition?
Orangedox provides web publishing services for creators who are looking to share their content online. What makes us unique is that we’re tightly integrated with Google Drive and Dropbox, allowing our users to easily publish their cloud content online, secure it with a password and download code and track whenever it’s accessed.
What’s Your Story? What Sparked The Idea, And How Has It Evolved So Far?
Orangedox started as a simple plugin to track your downloads of shared files off Dropbox. We then moved into tracking PDF’s and then into the digital publishing space. We’ve also launched a suite of business products around document security, allowing businesses to securely share their confidential cloud documents.
What Is The Mission Of Orangedox?
Our mission with our personal product is to provide an easy way for creators to publish their content online and control access.
Who Are Your Typical Customers’ And What Are The Pain Points That You Help Them Solve?
Our personal product is aimed at digital creators who need to publish their content online. We help creators publish their work, which could be anything from PDF e-books to video or audio content all in one platform. Plus we help creators keep control of their work by providing tools, like online only viewing, download codes and passwords to help reduce illegal sharing.
If You Could Give One Piece Of Advice To Anyone Looking To Start An Online Business Now, What Would That Be?
Persistence. It took years for Orangedox to become profitable, and even so we’re still a small company.
Can you give us an overview of the tools you used to build and promote your website?
Quora. We started answering peoples questions on Quora and have found that if you provide people with high quality answers you can get away with a little self promotion. Quora is now one of our largest marketing channels.
What Trends Are Going To Shape The Future Of Your Industry?
For our business suite of products, like virtual data rooms for document protection, we’ll see a large reduction in cost for these tools. Most of these tools will need to work with cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox etc which will drive down prices since most companies will see these tools more like plugin-ins.
Lastly, Any Exciting News Or Developments That You Would Like To Share About Orangedox?
Yes! We’ve just released our first Google Workspace plugin for web publishing. It lets you publish your files online as well as add lead capture pages to your shared files, allowing you to build lead lists without ever having to leave your Google Drive.
