EchoSign of the times.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Jason Lemkin, the very interesting CEO of an equally interesting company called EchoSign.  At first glance EchoSign appears to be a boring service.  But I quickly realized there is much more to this than first meets the eye. EchoSign allows you to process electronic signatures on electronic documents.  Boring you say?  Consider what is a signature?  It’s the last-mile process between a conceptual agreement and legal agreement.  It’s the little detail that either means you make money, or you don’t.

According to Jason, about 60% of all business conducted in the US is done under contract, and about 25% of those contracts are drafted and delivered on the web.  Jason explained that a significant portion of the latter number is enabled by the Salesforce.com ecosystem.  There are lots of contracts that are created digitally and emailed around.  But for many of them – someone literally prints them to paper, inks it, makes a few photocopies, and mails the paper back — or faxes it — or forgets to.  And this makes little sense.  We can collaborate, co-create, use all types of cloud-based tools, Zoho, Salesforce.com, GoogleDocs, Box.net, etc. and when it comes to that last step — someone wants to see scrawled ink on paper.  For a significant percentage of business contacts, this is simply not needed.  Yes, there are some types of contracts where you need to have a notary raised seal, pound of flesh, and DNA sample.  But most just need something that is non-repudiable, or in some cases, biometric.  E-signatures work.  Many of us use them when we file our US federal taxes.

Not only do e-signatures save trees, they save time, money, and hassle.  And if you are sending hundred of contracts a month, you want those signed on time.  Moreover you want to reduce “not-in-good-order” contracts that come back unsigned, or don’t come back at all.

I tried EchoSign.  I had a contract sent to me via email that required my signature.  It was 14 pages long and required 5 signatures and one initial — with dates, titles, etc.  I simply uploaded the document into the system.  Dragged an indicator onto the document where I would have penned my name.  Then I “sent” it for me to sign.  This resulted in a page which showed me where to sign.  There are a bunch of options — like typing my name and having they system convert it into a handwriting font.  Alternatively I could use my mouse or even a stylus (or my finger on an iPhone).  The result was a “signed” document that EchoSign then converted into a PDF (with a timetamp and ID, so that you could not forge this document).  EchoSign then sent an email with the PDF to all the parties I specified.  I could have specified that I needed a signature back, and my client could have used EchoSign too.

Here’s an example of what it looks like.  The system uploads the document and provides you with a place to put your signature.

If you head on over to AppExchange and see the EchoSign application page there, you’ll see what other people have to say about this product.  As of today I see 80 ratings – and an average of 5 out of 5.  Again, when I first heard about this product I thought is was boring — but people who need this kind of service obviously love it.  And I now see why.

I recently learned that in honor of their 1 Millionth customer, EchoSign will plant a tree for each person that writes a comment on their Facebook page.  Take a look at what others have to say, and if you have something to say, add your comment too.  They are playing up the fact that they are saving trees, and thereby planting trees.  I like the message.

In you are interested in seeing more, check out this little video below.  It tells the story.

FromEchoSign on Vimeo.

When I used EchoSign the first time, I was a bit unsure if I was doing it right — so it actually took me three times to get it right.  Then I found out that I was doing it right the whole time.  So now I’d say that the service is pretty intuitive.  But I would suggest they continue to test their user interface just to make sure that there is ample feedback.  I think they did a great job so far — but this is an area where any little improvement can help.

I was most impressed with the fact they can handle a wide variety of workflow options.  Sometimes I’ll initiate a contract, other times it comes to me.  Sometimes I need both parties to sign the contract.  Sometimes I’ll want to only allow biometric signatures (asking the user to use a mouse or stylus) etc.  EchoSign handled all the cases I could think of.  It also integrates with popular CRM systems and it works as a stand alone service too.

So if you find yourself processing signatures and passing contracts around, but you are frustrated that you are printing and faxing instead of using some electronic means, you will find this service very interesting and potentially very valuable.  Check it out.

Disclosure: as with all my blog posts I’ll remind my readers that this blog reflects my opinion and that I received no compensation or other services for this post, nor do I expect to receive any.  I’m just writing this because I think you will find it interesting.

Tagged as: SaaS, tip, tool, vendor