It has happened to all of us. “File size to large to send.”
As a college student, it happened to me a LOT. Sending presentations became a hassle. I had to put them on a thumb drive, or put the file into a Google doc and hope that the format was preserved. (It never was.) And nothing can be more infuriating when you’re on a deadline than finding out your file is just a tad too big to send through Email.
Episend are trying to change all that.
There are services that provide large file sharing, YouSendIt being one of the most well known, but they are all services you need to sign up for. That, in turn means another hoop to jump through and another password to remember — it can also make users worry about spammy Emails.
This is one place where Episend sets itself apart from the competition; ease of sign in. Episend allows you to sign in using your Google, Yahoo, or Facebook accounts.
Episend founder Richard DiBona told me that one of the reasons Episend is unique compared to its competitors is, “the fact that it was built 100% from the ground up to be completely integrated with the Amazon Web Services Cloud.”
As DiBona as told me, “starting a company like this with no funding would not have been possible even three years ago because it would have required a sizable upfront hardware investment.”
Epsisend is another example of how the cloud is changing the way we do business.
While Episend may sound much like other file sharing services, it has a number of features to eliminate the need to use multiple sites for multiple purposes.
Unlike services like YouSendit, Eipsend allows you to add previews, text and creative content along with your files. This allows the receiver to take a look at what was sent before completely downloading the file, which can be convenient and time saving.
Photo sharing sites seem somewhat pointless with Facebook being so easy to upload to, and that is true if all you want is for people to see your photos. Episend though, stores the original copy of the photo and videos you send, allowing people to download, edit, and print them easily.
One feature that really surprised me is Episend’s ability to allow you to automatically embed rich media content into websites. This feature is unique and offers appeal to a wide variety of people.
Dibona told me he originally went to design this service when he became frustrated with some Email delivery problems. At first, he set out to design a client more like Gmail or Yahoo mail, but found out that this was much more difficult, and providing a cloud service would be easier to design and solve a bigger problem for users.
Said DiBona: “They say most startups change paths from the original idea, and this is no different.”
This is a statement I know all entrepreneurs can get behind, because you almost never end up where you originally planned to start.
The one complaint I have of Episend is that while their site format is fairly intuitive, it is not visually appealing. This can turn people off, especially when they are used to Email clients being colorful and pretty, for lack of a better word, like Gmail and Yahoo.
Fortunately, DiBona told me we should expect a site redesign and application facelift coming up in the very near future.
Episend does somewhat limit the number of files you can share with its free service, as well as file size (50 MB), but their paid personal service raises the amount, and is only $15/year. The next step is the business/non-profit service that is $85/year, and pretty much eliminates all restrictions.
Just last month MITX confirmed Bostinno’s believe that Episend is a solid up-and-coming Boston-area company by giving them the PricewaterhouseCooper Promise Award. Last fall they were also named a semi-finalist for the Adobe MAX Award.
While Episend has received some very nice recognition, DiBona knows that his work is not done on improving his company’s product. He is looking for more people to get involved in Episend, and encourages any feedback of any kind.
