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

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

#311

Post by knurled99 »

rubyfan wrote: post #205
wallacoloo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always go back to, who’s going to invest in actually building the new blockchain solution and for what reason? blockchain is really hot with VCs these days, so that’s who. why? the rewards for a document signing product are large — as evidenced by new traditional companies entering the space (HelloSign). basing a new competitor in this space off of blockchain offers differentiation. despite being less mature or f…

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. That there is money to be made on industry solutions is not in dispute. The point in dispute is that decentralized blockchain based solution makes any sense. Other than to attract VCs who don’t know any better to give you capital, blockchain offers no competitive advantage to an upstart or really a competitive threat to the incumbents. Further I see no desirable “differe…

So my friend and I have actually built a blockchain-based esignature app recently, because there are a couple advantages of using blockchain.

One is privacy - you don’t actually have to share the document being signed with our application; we never store it and never have access to it. This is because what is actually signed and stored in the blockchain is a hash based on your document. So if there’s anything sensitive in a doc that you’re signing, there’s no risk of a hacker getting into our app and leaking that to the world.

Another advantage is that it gives you a publicly accessible way of proving that a digital file existed in a given state on a given day and time - anyone with the document can later go back and validate that the copy they have is the one that existed on that date and time. The value add of the blockchain is that this information is publicly available on a distributed network that uses encryption and requires agreement among the nodes in the network, so it is functionally impossible to go back and tamper with it later.

Couple other advantages, but they aren’t necessarily differentiated by virtue of the app being on blockchain - one is speed and ease of use, because there’s no uploading or recreating digital signatures. You just identify a document to sign, ensure both parties have possession of and wish to sign the same thing, and click to sign. The other is the ability to quickly and easily use our simple REST API to add this kind of e-signature and document verification capability into your own app. This is especially useful for anyone who’d like to memorialize some information in the blockchain but doesn’t want to deal with figuring out how to do that directly.

Edited to add the name of the app - Indestamp.com

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

#312

Post by GycDH6mb »

burnte wrote: post #91

HelloSign. Great product, every bit as good, if not better than DocuSign. Every bit as valid and accepted. Very inexpensive. Their support, however, is literally the worst support experience I've ever had.

If you don't mind my asking, what could be improved? I work in engineering but would like to send the feedback over to our customer support team.

Unfortunately, a large portion of HelloSign's customer support team was affected by a reduction in force earlier this year, because Dropbox didn't want to pay salaries for support staff in high cost of labor areas, like San Francisco.

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

#313

Post by SavantIdiot »

bad_username wrote: post #234
SavantIdiot wrote: post #14

Because the market is batshit insane right now. Been investing for 30 years (started right after the Savings and Loan Scandal bust in the late 80's), and the insanity dwarfs the Dot Com bubble. People who don't understand the basics of investing always joke about how it is a casino, and that was always a little true, but now it is massively true.

What advice would you give today for someone who is sitting on some cash but looks to begin investing it?

ETF index funds if you don't want to think too hard about it and don't want to hire someone to manage your money. IWF (Russel 1000), IVV (S&P500), VNQ (Vanguard real estate) to name a few. Just trickle money in and forget about it. If you want to be a little more thoughtful map out the cap/growth 3x3 grid from Morningstar with ETFs. Remember: you won't be selling anything until you retire, which will probably be 40+ years from now. Goal isn't stonks or diamond hands or any of that inane b.s., it is about safe stable investments so that you can enjoy life after your primary career comes to a close.

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

#314

Post by rubyfan »

knurled99 wrote: post #311
rubyfan wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. That there is money to be made on industry solutions is not in dispute. The point in dispute is that decentralized blockchain based solution makes any sense. Other than to attract VCs who don’t know any better to give you capital, blockchain offers no competitive advantage to an upstart or really a competitive threat to the incumbents. Further I see no desirable “differe…

So my friend and I have actually built a blockchain-based esignature app recently, because there are a couple advantages of using blockchain. One is privacy - you don’t actually have to share the document being signed with our application; we never store it and never have access to it. This is because what is actually signed and stored in the blockchain is a hash based on your document. So if there’s anything sensiti…

Congrats on making something - I wish you luck.

I don’t think blockchain adds anything novel to the functionality you describe. The ability to get a cryptographic hash of a document has existed for a very long time. As have signature files that can be published publicly. As has archive.org. I don’t believe the blockchain adds anything here other than maybe longevity and I’m dubious of even that.

FYI - when I click ‘Get started’ nothing happens.

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

#315

Post by smcl »

swarnie wrote: post #237
ChrisClark wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He thinks Tesla is a complete scam for one thing... Probably not a good idea to spend time on any of his comments.

Scam is the wrong word... Mispriced and intentional pumped would be two more accurate ones. A company which produces 1% of all global cars is worth more then the companies who produce 90% combined? Sounds legit. Next you'll be telling me a company which has only shipped 160 trucks to employees is worth 100bn... Oh wait...

Ok now we're in scam territory, Nikola was clearly a scam and overvalued. But it wasn't anywhere near a trillion dollars.

If the original comment was just exaggerating for effect, then fair enough. I was genuinely curious by the possibility of not only one trillion dollar scam company, but many.

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

#316

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

throwawaysea wrote: post #74
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #24

My guess - DocuSign has a hard to penetrate moat: It's known and accepted in courts. Everything else doesn't really matter. Imagine you're a legal department. You have to choose between DocuSign, which you know the court will accept, or a competitor. DocuSign costs 10x as much as the competitor. But that's nothing compared to the cost of litigation, or worse, the cost of losing litigation. So you will likely choose D…

Why would they be the only one ‘accepted’ in courts? For instance, when you buy a house you often have to use an escrow service to hold the down payment while the exchange of ownership takes place. Often, these escrow companies are just small local outfits. They are nevertheless trusted with a certain degree of authority and accepted as a neutral facilitator of these transactions by our legal system. In the US many (…

I'm not claiming they're the only one accepted. But if you say DocuSign, the judge will already be familiar with it. If you say anything else, they might not.

And this is not just about one jurisdiction, but also other ones, where e-signature laws may be different.

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

#317

Post by knurled99 »

rubyfan wrote: post #314
knurled99 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my friend and I have actually built a blockchain-based esignature app recently, because there are a couple advantages of using blockchain. One is privacy - you don’t actually have to share the document being signed with our application; we never store it and never have access to it. This is because what is actually signed and stored in the blockchain is a hash based on your document. So if there’s anything sensiti…

Congrats on making something - I wish you luck. I don’t think blockchain adds anything novel to the functionality you describe. The ability to get a cryptographic hash of a document has existed for a very long time. As have signature files that can be published publicly. As has archive.org. I don’t believe the blockchain adds anything here other than maybe longevity and I’m dubious of even that. FYI - when I click ‘G…

Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out… this is so new that while the app is working great the website is not fully functional yet. There was a working version on the lab version of our site; we just pushed a change to the main site so the button works now. It just takes you to a sign up form.

All valid points about hashes being nothing new, etc. We used blockchain because it was a means to accomplish what we feel is a better way of digitally signing documents. We think there’s value in signing docs on the blockchain and that there’s a need for an easy way to do so, largely among people who are doing other things within blockchain.

We are not claiming there’s no other way to skin that cat. I understand why you might run the other way if someone’s claiming their app is great because blockchain. But I also don’t think it’s true that any app that uses blockchain technology adds no value because you could’ve used another technology or simply because blockchain.

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

#318

Post by createunderrate »

smcl wrote: post #81
ChrisClark wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He thinks Tesla is a complete scam for one thing... Probably not a good idea to spend time on any of his comments.

Hm ok, well while I don't think Tesla can really be called a scam I definitely think it's overvalued

I assume you are short selling Tesla then?

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

#319

Post by SahAssar »

dragonwriter wrote: post #243
lostcolony wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that isn't the question. Do you prefer mandatory arbitration to being able to use the public court system? That's a privatized justice system.

Mandatory arbitration is only mandatory by way of the public court system.

Mandatory arbitration is mandatory in the sense that it takes the normal justice system away, if as the parent posits the normal justice system does not exist then everything becomes "Mandatory arbitration", right?

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

#320

Post by dragonwriter »

SahAssar wrote: post #319
dragonwriter wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory arbitration is only mandatory by way of the public court system.

Mandatory arbitration is mandatory in the sense that it takes the normal justice system away, if as the parent posits the normal justice system does not exist then everything becomes "Mandatory arbitration", right?

> Mandatory arbitration is mandatory in the sense that it takes the normal justice system away

No, it is mandatory in the sense that parties will be obliged by the normal justice system to submit to the specified process and will be held bound by the results by the normal justice system (with narrow exceptions.)

> if as the parent posits the normal justice system does not exist then everything becomes "Mandatory arbitration", right?

No, if the normal justice system does not exist, there is nothing holding anyone to a particular pre-specified arbitration process or enforcing the results of that process.

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