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Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

techcrunch.com

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Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#81

Post by danielrhodes »

gruez wrote: post #21
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law isn’t like programming. The reason you sign something is to show clear intent that you intended to agree to something. Nobody’s under the impression a paper signature cannot be forged either. It’s no different. It’s social not mathematical.

Then that leads to my second question >Why do we need them at all? Why not just email the contract, and the person replies back with "I agree to this"? Simpler and cheaper than paying $150/year.

You can do this.

The best way to see signatures, in my IANAL opinion, is as layers of protection. The goal is that the person who signs the agreement has total understanding of what they are signing, and there is a paper trail of intent to abide by the agreement.

To that degree, if the agreement is important and you have a lot on the line if the counterparty decides to re-neg on the agreement, you should probably not do the above. But going in the opposite direction and insisting on notaries and wet ink might go too far in respect to how much effort is required.

Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#82

Post by amyjess »

taude wrote: post #68
gruez wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then that leads to my second question >Why do we need them at all? Why not just email the contract, and the person replies back with "I agree to this"? Simpler and cheaper than paying $150/year.

Also, using docusign, etc. are stupid simple for people's who's signatures are needing in multiple places in a document, and initials or certain pages, etc...

My townhouse complex switched from having us hand-sign paper leases to using DocuSign last year, and it's been wonderful.

Being able to just click-sign through a lease that requires almost every other page to be signed is a godsend. My hand genuinely got tired before, and quite frankly, I've lived here over 11 years, and there's not going to be anything in the lease I don't already know, so I don't really give a shit about going slowly through the damn thing.

In my case, it's better for consistency too. My signature is just a random scribble, so at least with DocuSign it'll now look identical on every page whereas it's different every time if I write by hand. The only thing I really care about is my initials, because I insist on writing my initials as a three-way ligature, and DocuSign is great about that, too. DocuSign will let you either pick one of many fonts or let you mouse-draw it, and you can make that decision separately for your signature and your initials. So I just pick one of their stock fonts for my signature and then mouse-draw my initials.

Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#83

Post by nostromo »

chatmasta wrote: post #75

Given DocuSign's market cap of $8B, does this price seem low?

DocuSign makes like $700 million a year.

HelloSign makes less than $4 million a year (according to Crunchbase at least).

If Dropbox was buying revenue then by Docusign's multiple they handsomely overpaid for HelloSign. But they're not buying revenue, so who knows if they over or underpaid.

Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#84

Post by jkravitz61 »

rrggrr wrote: post #61
jkravitz61 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you a dropbox shareholder if you think that the company faces "almost certain failure"?

I ask myself that question every-single-day. I'm hoping they wake from their slumber and start competing against Box, MSFT, Google, etc., with real innovation. This may be a start... even if they had to buy it.

Sounds like you are starting to become an emotional investor in them, which is the worst type of investor.

Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#85

Post by Nullabillity »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #48
nvr219 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally all I want from Dropbox is to sync files between my various devices. I am not interested in doing anything else with it.

I think improving on the syncing-workflow and enhancing it to offer more then just syncing would be something useful. Something like automated actions, or filters. I store sourcecode in my dropbox, and I really would prefer a way to not sync certain junk-files from compiling-process. Or let it automatically commit to a git-repo if there are changes in certain folders. Something like IFTTT for files seems a sane solut…

Incron[1] is pretty great for "do X when file Y changes"-style rules.

[1]: http://inotify.aiken.cz/?section=incron&page=about&lang=en

Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#86

Post by buckminster »

rrggrr wrote: post #10
gruez wrote: post #8

There's something I never understood about e-signature services: how are they legally binding? Why do we need them at all? The end users don't have control over any of the keys, so it all hinges on the e-signature service telling the truth. It's significantly less secure than say, S/MIME with a proper CA-signed certificate. Is the bar for legal "signatures" really that low?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/chapter-96/subcha... Its no less secure than faxing signed documents.

A fax machine is never going to accidentally put my signature on a document I didn't sign. A bug in an online service could very easily claim I clicked the "sign this" link when I didn't. I don't trust them.

Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#88

Post by joeblau »

PStamatiou wrote: post #87

This is awesome news, congrats folks!! Have relied on hellosign over the years, including doing all of my home buying paperwork with it.

I've used HelloSign as well, but every other app that I used that Dropbox bought has been discontinued so while I'm happy for the team, I don't have high long term hopes for the project.

Re: Dropbox buys HelloSign (YC W11) for $230M

#90

Post by ed_balls »

gilbetron wrote: post #27
tln wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used Paper? Also an acquired team, and a great product that has seen a bevy of improvements since being under Dropbox.

It needs a lot more work, the search is horrible, and there are a number of features needed to take it to the next level. So far their feature velocity has been tepid. I like a lot of the ideas, and appreciate a viable google docs alternative, but I fear a Dropbox-level of feature development will doom Paper long term.

I'm forced to use Paper as a wiki now. Search, discoverability and extensibility is so bad that I miss Confluence....
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