Two companies make the connection with Dropbox for Business

One of the things that makes the internet so powerful is its ability to connect. Bringing together people and ideas opens up worlds of possibilities. And two Dropbox for Business customers are doing just that: harnessing the power of connections to enable people to create great things.

For Able Lending, it’s about connecting small businesses with capital. And for Brit + Co, it’s connecting their users with resources that can help them take on creative projects.

Deserving of credit

Able turns the concept of small business loans, typically a straightforward relationship between entrepreneurs and banks, into a collaborative effort. Following the credo “Credit is a measure of belief,” Able only funds loans after a company has raised 25% of it from friends and family. As co-founder Evan Baehr puts it, “Able is more than a loan. We connect extraordinary entrepreneurs with additional capital, community resources, and expert advice when it’s time to grow.”

But more than just creating a different kind of relationship between businesses and their biggest supporters, Able is speeding up the process of getting loans. And Dropbox for Business has played a crucial part, especially during their recent nationwide expansion. We stopped by their offices to see just how:

Merry makers

Brit + Co, an online media and e-commerce platform, similarly places a high value on relationships. Focused on “building a community of creativity,” the company gives visitors to its website and mobile app the tools they need to create. But when it’s time for the people at Brit + Co themselves to create, they turn to Dropbox for Business. Finding the right visual is a big part of reaching an audience for Brit + Co.

So the company’s creative director, Anjelika Temple, has worked out a system that uses Dropbox to select photos to use on their website. After a shoot, images are added to a shared Dropbox folder. “That’s telling me that all these shoots happened,” says Temple. “If I’m not able to be here, if I’m in a meeting, if I’m traveling for a conference, whatever, I look in Dropbox. That is actually a huge time saver. It means that I’m not having to call each person involved in a shoot.”

Since Temple, founder Brit Morin, and their head visual designer all have access to photos right after shoots, they’re able each select their favorite shots. This Dropbox-based system worked out so well that she and Morin used it as they put together their first book, Homemakers. Able and Brit + Co are just two of more than 100,000 companies using Dropbox for Business to make connections.

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