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Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

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Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#1
I have been searching for a solution to e-sign some lease agreements. It is something that I need to do maybe once a year and the only thing I need is a legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF. I do not need any fancy features.

I was doing research, and it seems like most document signature companies all charge monthly subscription fees! This does not work for me as I am not using the platform on a monthly basis.

Are there free, open source alternatives to Docusign? If so, why do more companies not use them?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#2
Most of the documents people e-sign are related to business deals (contracts, NDAs, etc) or HR (offer letters) which are such high dollar value transactions that the cost of e-signing is negligible.

Your use case unfortunately is just not worth it to them in comparison.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#5
I haven't found free, open-source solutions, but HelloSign[0] is a decent solution if you only need to sign documents a few times per year. Their free tier supports three documents per month. They make it look like they only have paid plans, but you can sign up without a credit card for a free tier.

[0] https://www.hellosign.com/

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#6
Oh it's a long story...where to begin?

It all started in 2006 when the economy grew at 6.6% in Q3 and the Fed still claimed that not tightening was a great insurance policy.

Fast forward:

Subprime crisis

Bernanke says "subprime is contained"

Subprime was not contained

Wheels come off in 2008

Everybody runs away like chicken with their heads cut off

Everybody goes back to Bernanke asking for solutions

Bernanke proposes QE, something that he claims "works in practice, but not in theory"

Slow recovery

More panic

More QE

Temper Tantrum

More QE

13 years of regular QE

2 years of QE on steroids due to COVID

Asset prices only go up

Everything bubble

And here we get to the current scenario where scam companies are worth trillions and Docusign is worth 50B

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#7
As with many situations with enterprise software vs. roll-your-own solutions (FOSS or otherwise): reliability, responsibility, and liability are the reasons.

Most enterprise software is purchased to do something the company requires, but is not within the company's actual line of business. Payroll, tax calculations, identity verification, etc.

In these cases "cheap" is not very important so long as the solutions are cheap enough relative to the value of what the company's business. This is also why companies routinely contract out vast amounts of work to highly-paid lawyers - paying someone six figures to do work on a deal that's worth 9 figures is a rounding error, and is not a cost worth optimizing.

More importantly, the third party provides two important pieces: responsibility and liability. Docusign is on the hook if they fail to validate the signers' identity, and if anything goes awry Docusign is on the hook for fixing it. These are features, not bugs, to enterprises who need a function performed but really do not want the liability or responsibility around it.

This is similar to why tech companies outsource to cloud services rather than run on their own metal.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#10
> legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF.

IANAL, but the idea that a signature is what makes a contract legally binding is not exactly true. It is a symbol of the acceptance of the contract, but legal acceptance can take many forms - so whether you use a service to signify acceptance, or just sign it using acrobat or Adobe's site, or even just a verbal agreement... those are all valid acceptance, legally speaking.

DocuSign's use case is not the signing, but the management of those documents and signatures - tracking which documents are sent, which have been read (yes, the doc owner can get notified when you even look at a Docusign document), which have been signed, and being able to store copies of signed docs. It is mostly for the companies sending you contracts, not for you as the signer.

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