Startup Spotlight Q&A: E-Sign
By: The Startup Grind Team
Tags: Technology, Engineering, Startup Lessons, Startup, Startup Spotlight

E-Sign is a leading provider of electronic signature solutions and document transaction services. We ensure safe transmission of a variety of important documents, from document creation, right through to payment, and signature capture.

E-Sign’s Founder and Managing Director, Thomas Taylor, has over 20 years of diverse experience gained mostly across the IT and engineering industries. As a board-level executive with strong leadership and change management

experience, he has held leadership roles in a diverse manner of

companies as well as government organizations. Thomas has served as

an innovation director and work package leader for a European Commission

research consortium. He thrives on implementing new

processes in large-scale organizations and assisting other technology

companies to operate as efficiently as possible.

Keep reading if you want to learn more about E-Sign!

— In a single sentence, what does E-Sign do?

Document transaction management.

– How did E-Sign come to be? What was the problem you found and the ‘aha’ moment?

The company was founded in 2012, it was following thoughts by the founder that given the available technology at the time, there had to be a better way to send important documents, without the costs and delays associated with the postal service.

E-Sign was created and used QR technology to provide a tamper-proof digital infrastructure for document transmissions and signature capture. This has since evolved into many other things and the company now offers a wide range of solutions to make our user’s lives easier.

— What sets E-Sign apart in the market?

We consistently receive great reviews and great customer feedback.

Easy to use platform with no restriction on features or document sends very cost-effectively whilst maintaining an excellent level of service compared to other providers.

— What milestone are you most proud of so far?

During our early-stage years, it was the balance between not knowing if the company would be operating by the end of the week in one instance, then acquiring big customers from central governments and banks, etc, which then validated what we were trying to do and gave us the drive to constantly strive to be the best we could be.

— Have you pursued funding and if so, what steps did you take?

We successfully raised angel funding and crowdfunded via Crowdcube and now have institutional backing.

– What KPIs are you tracking that you think will lead to revenue generation/growth?

We track every aspect of the customer journey, from initial search through to trial and paying customers and their user journey in between.

— How do you build and develop talent?

Growing and developing the team to where it is today hasn’t been easy, it’s definitely been a learning curve! We have a great team with zero ego culture. There is a culture of openness and communication within the team, each member knows the responsibility that we have on deliver-ability and trust.

— What are the biggest challenges for the team?

There have been many, the more the e-Sign platform has been used, the more issues that were uncovered. The issues then were to prioritize what could be fixed at the time, and what could be offset against future updates, that could then fix the issues. Development resource is always an important (and expensive) issue to address in a growth company.

— What’s been the biggest success for the team? How did you celebrate?

Some of the biggest wins for us came when central UK Government departments started using the platform, as well as NHS trusts. Again this felt like it validated the technology and give us the realization that we were playing an important part in improving people’s lives.

We usually stay well-grounded (we still like to have fun, day to day)!

— What’s something you’re constantly thinking about?

Leaving the planet in a better state than I found it.

— Who is your cloud provider

We have our own Datacentre infrastructure.

— What advice would you give to other founders?

Never sit in the comfy chair, and always feel comfortable in your own skin. It’s easy to brush these two things aside, but I feel if you embrace these, you can achieve a lot.

Listen to your inner voice and believe in what you are doing, but at the same time know when to ask for help from others.