The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 21 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Lemkin: EchoSign's Market Share Fell From 28% to 11% Post-Acquisition
“When we sold, this is why it was stupid to sell, we had 28% market share by revenue, and maybe 40% by transactions, because we were cheaper than DocuSign. It was 11 within two years of me leaving.”
Lemkin: DocuSign fired its CEO after losing Facebook deal to EchoSign
“The fifth CEO got fired in part because they lost Facebook to us. And Facebook was even back then was pretty big and they thought they'd already commit. They already did a commit to the board that they were committing this huge deal to Facebook and we won it.”
Lemkin: Adobe Sign lost 50% market share after removing viral free conversion
“And when we, almost a week after I left after acquisition, that got ripped out of the product, the whole free thing, the whole free conversion. And because it didn't help anyone there, But then over the next three years, there may be a variety of reasons, mark…”
Cassidy: EchoSign's early team was much better than LinkedIn's
“The team we had at EchoSign was so much better, by the way, there are some great people on our team at LinkedIn, by the way, phenomenal people that have had great success, but overall the team we had at EchoSign was way better. It was a way better team general…”
Lemkin: EchoSign reached $250M revenue after acquisition despite neglect
“I sold the business at a million a month growing up to a hundred percent with a 110% in our, that was cashflow positive. You would never sell a business like that today, right? And I saw it even while its market share decline still grow to two hundred fifty mi…”
Lemkin: EchoSign's first VP of sales hired 9 reps who closed zero deals
“And then I hired my first VP of sales from Salesforce. He hired 10 people, all of them, except Sam Blonde, who had done a lot with them, became Brex. All of them, all the other nine closed nothing. And with 10 people, that VP of sales closed less than me and J…”
Lemkin: Half of EchoSign's 20 sales reps became tech CROs
“We only had 20 something sellers and 10 of them went on to be top CROs, right? CROs at Brex, CRO at Ripley now, Gong, also CRO at Gong. Seismic, a long list of others, half of them went on to be leading”
Lemkin: EchoSign's viral free-to-paid conversion cycle averaged eight months
“In the early days of Adobe sign, Echo sign, where we had a truly viral product... I measured in the early days how long it would take someone that first got a contract to sign to convert to paid... It was eight months.”
Lemkin never lost an EchoSign customer he visited in person
“We, I lost a lot of customers after I sold my company, but I never lost a customer I met.”
Lemkin: A VC offered $10M in secondary not to sell to Adobe
“I sold in 2011, I sold in 2011 to Adobe, and a VC offered me ten million dollars in secondary, ok, to not sell.”
Cassidy: Sales teams should proactively weaponize product weaknesses in competitive deals
“I think realizing what your, not just what your strengths are, but what your weaknesses are, and then weaponizing that before your competitor exposes it as a liability, right? Taking, why do, why should we lose? Okay, we, if we know why we should lose and why …”
Lemkin: EchoSign did not discuss sales pipeline until reaching $10M revenue
“And when Brendan came in, we never discussed pipeline again, at least not for a long time, not till we were at ten million, right?”
Lemkin: EchoSign revenue alumni became CROs of Brex, Rippling, and Gong
“Our revenue team went on to be the CROs of Brex, Rippling, Gong, So many leaders, like others, like 10 of them, and like that we had this monster team and I missed, I didn't, what I didn't know was how good I had it in some areas.”
EchoSign generated $1M monthly revenue growing over 100% when sold
“I sold in 2011 accidentally. We were at a million a month growing a hundred percent, a 120% in our, I thought I was failing.”
Blond: EchoSign's Aetna case study closed United, Cigna, and BCBS
“I closed Aetna when we were at Echosign and we did a press release with Aetna or convinced them to do a press release with us. Around how much paper they were saving by going green and doing electronic signature. And it was, you know, millions of pieces of pap…”
Blond: EchoSign had zero sales ops staff at its Adobe acquisition
“And echo sign, we were like, ah, gosh, a hundred to a 150 employees or thereabouts when Adobe acquired us. And we didn't have anyone in sales ops.”
Lemkin: EchoSign Fully Localized Its Software at $3M to $4M ARR
“Back in the day when I was running Adobe Sign, Echo Sign, and we were competing with DocuSign, we fully, and it was a pain, right? It was fully, we fully localized a two-byte app all across the, every piece of it, in every language under the world and we did i…”
Lemkin: EchoSign reached $12M ARR by the time Adobe's 2011 acquisition closed
“We sold EchoSign, AdobeSign to Adobe in 11, 20 11. It was ten million at the time we signed the deal. It was twelve million AR when it closed.”
Lemkin: EchoSign's second VP of sales doubled revenue per lead in 60 days
“I hired my second VP of sales, who was one of my customers. He was the first head of sales from LinkedIn. Within 60 days, he had doubled the revenue per lead.”
Lemkin: EchoSign inbound leads flattened rather than dropped in Q1 2009
“Even as the world shut down in Q one of 2009, look at that top what happened with our leads.
They didn't even decline in the worst quarter, did it?
They just flattened out.”
Deeter: LinkedIn was the first private unicorn; early cloud lacked public comps
“When we, when you were starting EchoSign, I was doing Trigo, there wasn't a single public cloud company. In fact, in 2000, it took a couple of years before the first emerged and the first private unicorn was LinkedIn and like, Oh wait, so all new land.”