Background

Heck is an elite one-stop shop for premium production, post, animation, and motion design. With an entirely remote team, the success of every project relies on fast, dependable cloud platforms.

Initially, Heck used Google Drive to manage documents and massive production files. However, as the company grew, it became clear they needed a more comprehensive solution.

Challenge: unclogging the creative workflow

The friction with Drive was tangible. Raw video footage uploads and downloads routinely stalled, and thousands of assets piled up in queues.

“We’re moving terabytes a week,” says Phillip Goodwin, Heck’s founder and CEO. “Folders would say they were synced when they weren’t. Files went missing, and if one folder went down, the entire project stops.”

The Heck team resorted to workarounds, like working through browsers or physically shipping footage to sidestep cloud delays. While effective, these temporary fixes led to missed deadlines, client confusion, and opened the door to security risks. 

Review cycles were equally disjointed, requiring third-party tools that disconnected feedback from the source files. At the same time the sheer volume of assets made finding files a time-consuming scavenger hunt.  

“It was complicated, fragile, and we spent way too much time trying to get the tools to work instead of making videos,” Goodwin explains. “When you can’t find things quickly, clients start wondering whether you’re organized. In creative services, that affects trust.”

Solution: a unified system for remote workflow optimization

As a freelancer, Goodwin had successfully used Dropbox for years. He knew it worked, and wondered whether it could scale to solve Heck’s remote workflow issues.

After the first project, it was clear Dropbox had the speed and reliability Heck needed.

“From the first test, it just worked,” Goodwin says. “We moved the entire company and never looked back.”

After the move, everything fell into place. Heck works with talent in more than 30 countries, often adding dozens of collaborators for a single project. The Dropbox permission tools ensure secure onboarding and hassle-free access to files, no matter where people are working.

The team soon implemented an AI teammate, Dropbox Dash, to connect all of their apps like Slack, Gmail, and Notion in one place. It delivered a much-needed unified search function experience across their entire creative workflow and project calendars.

“With Dash, searches take seconds,” Goodwin says. “I searched ‘Golden Gate Bridge’ and immediately got the exact file we needed out of thousands. Dash knew what I meant before I did.”

The team also adopted smart, shareable content hubs, called Stacks, to create mood boards, pitch decks, and delivery packets. “It’s like having a lightweight creative deck built in,” Goodwin says.

For reviews, Heck now uses Dropbox Replay. This collaborative review and approval tool connects directly to Dropbox folders, allowing the team to easily exchange files with artists and seamlessly gather client feedback. And since everything lives in one place, Heck’s teams can jump into the next round of revisions, no waiting.

Results: scaling to support global work

With their processes stabilized, Heck could stop troubleshooting and start focusing on growth.

Dropbox proved its value during one of Heck’s largest and most complex campaigns to date: a multi-video project with 300+ deliverables across 30 countries and 17 languages. “Dropbox kept everyone synced and the client oriented. That was huge,” Goodwin says. It helped them achieve the streamlined workflow they always wanted and, at the same time, deliver a better client experience.

Most importantly, Dropbox allowed the team do what they do best: create work clients love. “Dropbox keeps our remote team connected, organized, and fast,” Goodwin says. “That’s everything.”