Hey dude--we're not a consumer service so rest easy! If you're running a business, you want a vendor that you can call (why folks running real businesses love Rackspace and hate AWS when things aren't working).
Hiya--we're not a consumer service, so yeah, I'm asking people to call me. I'll respond a bit to this thread because HN is read by lots of folks, but it's also filled with trolls. Businesses talk to businesses. Especially when we're going to screw something up with low bandwidth communication. I'm a real dude and happy to chat to real folks running real businesses. Consumers should not be using our platform.
Hi guys--Jonathan here at Bare. I've forced everyone's hand on this because... whelp... we've recently acquired the business and we ended up finding that we can be critical to Stripe Webhooks processing for folks on the older Stripe API. We literally will take down your invoicing on Stripe when a customer cancels. Then we have the unsavory task of working with customers that have canceled, did not complete their deprovisioning and then flame us for causing them outages. I love a lively debate but if you're a customer and love us, reach out to me NOW and I'll hear your feedback. If you're not a customer, then please, please if you never want to talk to your vendor, please go to ProfitWell or ChartMogul. Patrick and Nick are great guys and are crushing it and will gladly take your business. We are getting eaten from the bottom by platforms AHEM Stripe that are inspired by us, folks that clone us and you can see from our revenue transparency that we're the last in line for making money. That is going to change--by helping customers that really want to make more... make more. If you'd like to give me direct feedback, give me a ring at 855 252 6050. (I'm also a CISSP™, CREST CRT™ and Brown Cybersecurity dude--so if you've any legislation that speaks to this, let me know--for you folks quoting CA--we have business customers and they are over 13.)
"I don't start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They put all their money and their friends' money into starting them. They wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. They're what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple of years' more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third lot. If it's really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, and leave their work and their money behind them. And that's where the real business man comes in: where I come in." -- George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House, 1916
Actually--they borrow their own money from their foreign subsidiaries to have full use of the cash in the US. Expect the incoming US president to suggest changes that allow Apple, Facebook, et al to allow this openly rather than through construction.
DocuSign, RightSignature and EchoSign have broken away from the rest of the market--it's really tough to create a lightweight contracting experience that is usable by 99% of the internet population. That plus a long lead time to enough adoption to pay bills and you've got a space that I bet will look roughly the same in 3 years' time.
You are right that now most people have experienced an electronic signature--even at the grocery checkout counter. But walk into your bank, apply to your local retailer or call the plumber and you'll be writing on paper. The general estimate is that we are at 1% adoption today. We also believe that in ten years nobody will be demanding more paper in their lives and business workflow.
Kinda crazy that we've stayed rooted to such an inefficient and archaic practice, eh?
We launched with an Ask HN in 2008. Now established (self-funded) and if you check it out you'll see the execution is pretty elegant (esp. the tech). :-) Hah! It's actually the best product I've ever had the chance to work on.
Hackers that want to find success might find some inspiration from Daryl. He's dope.
Really tho--if you have a passion for CS, but studied Physics, you have the capacity to excel. I fell in love with the ordered-ness of computers and self-taught myself programming in my teens. I went to college and studied Physics knowing I would likely not continue as a career physicist. During college I found that between my basic programming knowledge and physics requirements I had covered a large portion of the CompSci major (except for the upper division classes). I tested out of some and then took the others to end up with CompSci + Physics degrees.
Since graduating, I've benefited from my CompSci degree in areas like data structures, runtime complexity and parsing--but the rest of my CompSci skills were self-taught before or afterwards ("the Internet" was not in my CompSci curriculum).
I believe I've benefited more from my Physics training. Specifically--the Socratic method of looking at root causes in a systematic and problem-simplifying manner. And I've never been daunted by a hard problem or one that needs theoretical analysis for an elegant solution.
Given all of the above, some of the best programmers I've met have no degrees--so passion and willingness to self-learn trump all.
It was great feedback--comment #1 (1055 days ago) is in our app and boosted our conversion into solid double-digits: "You need a sample document, so people can test out the 'using your mouse to sign' part without signing up."
Use a mediator. Your company attorney is a great start. As others have pointed out the 50/50 split can paralyze decision making. Getting your concerns (and your partners) in the open and accountable to a third party will start the ball rolling--and your mediator will help validate or deny your internal narrator's assertions.
As an aside--you'd find "Managing Corporate Lifecycles" by Dr. Ichak Adizes a fascinating and relevant read. It talks through many of the concerns you express and offers solutions I've seen work wonders in practice. For instance, you express things like--"sales are down slightly" and "collegue waste[s] countless hours." I gather that you and your partner haven't delegated responsibility and authority in the area of sales. That is, who is _responsible_ for your sales? You? Your partner? And then, that person must get the authority to make decisions affecting sales.
In practice, you would both make weekly/monthly/quarterly updates for the areas you are responsible (given the responsibility and authority over). If Jan 1 you agreed to give your partner authority for sales, they would give you a measurable commitment say 5% month over month increase this quarter. You would track progress in the W/M/Q meetings, but would get no direct authority over their technique (if wasting time works for them...).
This doesn't mean you'd get no _say_ in things regarding sales. It means you'd only be an influencer, but have no decision-making authority.
Maybe you find after a quarter that you the numbers aren't getting met by your partner. Then you discuss remedies--which might include hiring a salesperson or you taking on the role.
Anyway--all of this is great if you are hitting organizational issues in your growth, but have a strong backbone of a relationship that first brought you together so strongly and has helped you build a successful business. If there are other systemic issues you'll have to address them too.
Congratulations on growing your business to this stage. These are some of the better problems you can have!
Seth Priebatsch: Love a life. Hey guys--I've had the pleasure of working with Seth. He's a stellar entrepreneur. He is intensely intelligent. He's a humble and thoughtful hacker. He's living a dream--enjoying what he does and working hard. And isn't that the special thing about geeking out today? We get to do the things we love to do. The things we stay home on a Friday night to hack at? It's a choice I make all the time and I love to hear Seth talk about it with a sense of passion. It doesn't have to be your choice--but it's one many of us make--and Seth gets my nod.
I would suggest limiting the number of users and calling it beta. That way you can be in close contact with these users and actually pull out their feedback. I would release a simple MVP--one that is useful to you. Not much more. Beware that users make great editors but poor creators.
Get to charging quickly. Once you charge $1, you will treat the project as a commercial endeavor--it will fight for your attention over other work and it is incredibly rewarding.
Why did you build a new product in a saturated market? If it was because none were the right fit for you, might you be able to find the other like-you users in one place to approach? It happens on HN all the time with Review My Site requests...
But the real question is whether you are looking for strategic feedback on the app from these early users or if you are concerned that it is buggy and won't be charge-worthy initially. Can you elaborate?
I'm father of 6. Ages 7,5,4,3,2 and 8 months. (I'm atheist before you ask.) My best work--in technology has coincided with a pregnant wife. Between our disappearing nightlife schedule (more hack nights FTW!) and the caveman drive to go hunt on the plains (which for me means more LOC), a pregnancy has been productivity heroin.
Yes, a baby does change your life--in other more significant ways. The intensity of emotion cannot be described. But you will know it when you are holding your own son/daughter in your arms for the first time.
Don't dilly-dally. Have kids early. While you believe you are underfunded, underprepared and "distracted" with your tech startup.
I've got 11 out of 12 that are failures. If you want to see them ask. And a few that have been winners. I'd build products whether they made me money or not--we're at a lucky time in history when the thing I (we?) like to do as fun and as a hobby is sometimes also really commercially viable.