Dropbox - Rewriting the Narrative
Dropbox Growth Acquisition - 2023
Evolving a single-product brand into a scalable multiproduct experience with measurable business impact
Dropbox’s Challenge
Dropbox’s growth had slowed to under 2% year-over-year, revealing a deeper challenge: users still perceived it as a single-product company focused on cloud storage. After acquiring HelloSign and DocSend, Dropbox needed to reposition itself as a multiproduct platform, but there was no clear strategy or framework to rethink messaging on the marketing site, educate users on new offerings, or integrate multiproduct awareness into high-traffic conversion flows.
The Opportunity
The opportunity was to create a unified framework that showcased Dropbox’s full product ecosystem and drove awareness of its expanded offerings, without overwhelming users or disrupting existing conversion flows. Our goal was to design scalable multiproduct modules that could live across high-traffic surfaces, educate users through clear storytelling, and ultimately increase Basic sign-up growth, our team’s primary metric.
Challenges & Leadership
“Growth happens through motion. When alignment stalls, running small, measurable experiments is what uncovers the path forward.”
Midway through the project, our design lead went on parental leave, and leadership couldn’t provide consistent direction. I took initiative to keep the project moving by organizing weekly syncs, clarifying decisions, and ensuring experiments stayed on track. I also created a clear plan of action and partnered with data science to prioritize hypotheses tied to Basic sign-up growth, allowing the team to keep learning and iterating.
This proactive approach maintained momentum, enabled us to ship early multiproduct experiments, and reinforced the importance of self-leadership and bias toward action, which were principles that continue to shape how I operate as a growth designer today.
My Role
As the product designer on the Growth team, I led the end-to-end design strategy for this initiative. I started by defining the multiproduct framework to launching and iterating on high-traffic experiments. I collaborated closely with PMs, engineers, marketing, and data science partners to translate business goals into measurable design outcomes.
My point of view (POV) throughout was on designing for growth with scalability, creating adaptable components and storytelling frameworks that could evolve alongside Dropbox’s expanding product ecosystem.
The Strategy
Evolved Dropbox’s site from a single-product experience to a scalable multiproduct narrative through page redesign
UX Framework
UX principles (Central/Satellite/Exit model) that provided a repeatable framework for future product launches
Central Station:
Homepage, /business – awareness & discovery
Satellite Station:
Product pages (/hellosign, /docsend) – education
Exits:
Plans page – conversion
Exploring What’s Possible
Homepage & Product page Concepts
Before converging on our final approach, I explored several blue-sky concepts, along with the Brand team, for the homepage and product pages. Pushing beyond current constraints to imagine how Dropbox could tell a richer, multiproduct story. These explorations sparked new ideas that informed later experiments and design direction.
Near-Term Experiments With Huge Payoff
High-impact experiments drove measurable lifts in revenue and engagement.
To help users understand Dropbox’s evolving ecosystem, I proposed and designed an animated intro that visually explained how Dropbox, HelloSign, and DocSend work together. This motion-driven narrative made the homepage more informative and engaging, highlighting Dropbox’s key advantages - privacy, speed, versatility, and trust.
Ecosystem Hero Module
Results*
+5.7%
Adjusted GNARR
+2.4%
Adjusted LTV
2.5M+
Annualize revenue lift
To quickly increase awareness of Dropbox’s full ecosystem, I designed a lightweight homepage module showcasing all key products using existing design system components. This fast, low-effort experiment tested whether early multiproduct visibility could boost discovery and sign-ups.
The module drove higher engagement with product pages was a quick win. It proved that small, system-driven design changes can deliver outsized business impact. Swetting the stage for subsequent experiments in motion storytelling and contextual surfacing.
Multiproduct Exposure Module
Results*
1.8M+
Incremental GNARR
Users previously had to leave Dropbox to learn about new products like HelloSign and DocSend. I designed MVP landing pages within Dropbox to reduce friction and educate users on features, value, and use cases. The experiment validated strong user interest and engagement, laying the groundwork for future dedicated product experiences and showing how fast MVPs can accelerate learning and adoption.
MVP Product Landing Pages
Results*
+25%
in Product exploration
+10%
CTR to Try and Learn more
Impact on the business
2.3%
LTV Lift
1.8M
from multiproduct experiments
5.7%
GNARR Lift
1.3M
from new product pages