SignEasy

Sunil was traveling in Mexico when he ran into serious trouble signing an important job offer. The frustration of dealing with paperwork on the road became the seed for a product that could solve the problem. He had a decade of experience on early-stage product teams at Microsoft, Juniper Networks, and TokBox, and he decided to build a tool that let people sign documents from their phones.

Sunil started coding SignEasy in early 2010 and launched around July 2010, roughly six months later. The product was cloud-based and easy to use, allowing individuals and businesses to sign documents, send them for signature, and manage them from a smartphone, tablet, or the web. Sunil bootstrapped the company from the start. The launch was completely free, and the company later moved to a one-time paid model at three dollars for unlimited use. Subscriptions came later, starting at $10 per year per user and rising to $50 and $100 per year, with plans at $200 per year in development.

SignEasy did not rely on paid acquisition. Sunil said the company did not run any paid user acquisition at the time, and that most revenue came from the App Store or inbound interest. The growth engine was App Store search. The team targeted keywords such as PDF signature, e-signature, and digital sign, and ranked first or second in search results for them. Sunil described the ranking as a mix of signals, including the app's age in the store, download velocity, how often it was updated, featured placements, revenue and download rankings, review count, and star rating. The company also learned from Google search and organic keyword signals. By the 2016 interview, the app had over four million downloads and about 60,000 new downloads per month, with the company saying close to 85 to 90 percent of revenue came through the App Store.

The funnel was largely zero-touch. Users downloaded the free app, tried it, and bought a plan. Free-to-paid conversion was about five to six percent on iOS, and roughly half that on Android. Free trials were limited to 14 days or three to five free documents, and users who hit those limits could upgrade to Pro for unlimited signatures and features such as cloud storage integration, passcodes, and legally binding audit trails. Business users could buy a plan that sends documents to multiple people for remote signature with workflows and notifications.

Churn was the main challenge. Because SignEasy served micro-entrepreneurs, freelancers, consultants, and small businesses, churn typically ran 30 to 50 percent per year. The company had reduced this to around 30 to 40 percent per year, roughly 2 to 3 percent monthly. Sunil also noted that roughly 40 to 45 percent of paid users were on subscriptions, and that a large share of the paid base consisted of grandfathered one-time buyers, which pulled the monthly recurring revenue figure below a naive estimate.

In the 2016 interview, SignEasy had about 25 to 30 employees, split between a small San Francisco-based sales and customer success team and a larger product, engineering, design, and support team in Bangalore, India. More than half of revenue came from the US. The company was profitable and bootstrapped, with annual revenue estimated between $2 million and $5 million for 2016 and growth in the high double digits for three years. Sunil said he was open to a partnership that could reach tens of millions of users faster, and that a $15 million acquisition offer would at least merit serious consideration.