Jay Jumper. He’s the founder, CEO and President of SIGNiX. As a highly regarded entrepreneur, Jay has worked to establish the company as the leading cloud-based digital signature solution which is a hot space. He has more than 20 years in financial services and technology management experience. Additionally, Jay graduated from University of Tennessee in 1985 with a BS in marketing.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Trump: The Art of the Deal
• What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban
• Favorite online tool? — Email
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5-7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jay would tell himself that hard work and perseverance outdoes anything else

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:45 – Nathan introduces Jay to the show
• 01:33 – SIGNiX is the only cloud-based digital signature company in North America
  • 01:44 – SIGNiX is an independent e-signature solution
• 02:00 – Jay shows Nathan a visual of a cloud-based digital signature
  • 02:08 – Put a signature on the overlight, not on the document
  • 02:48 – You depend on the e-signature vendor to be around forever so they can validate the signature
  • 02:56 – On the overlight is a hyperlink that redirects the person to the e-signature provider
• 03:38 – With SIGNiX, every signature is embedded onto the document
• 03:52 – SIGNiX is a SaaS model
• 04:08 – SIGNiX focuses on security
• 04:32 – 80% of SIGNiX is sold to software partners
  • 04:37 – SIGNiX enables software partners to capture the e-signature market that is sitting on their software
  • 05:05 – Software partners can privately label SIGNiX so they can rebrand it according to whatever the product is
• 05:25 – SIGNiX does a revenue share with their software partners
• 05:32 – SIGNiX gives their software partners a highly robust digital signature solution
• 06:08 – SIGNiX’s pricing on their website
  • 06:10 – $240 per seat equals to 240 transactions a year
• 06:22 – SIGNiX’s emphasis is on supporting their partners
• 06:54 – SIGNiX goes to different industries and tries to match pricing based on the industry
• 07:37 – SIGNiX has very robust APIs which is the core of the business
• 08:11 – The key things that SIGNiX offers: everything is embedded in the document and documents can be deleted from SIGNiX
  • 08:18 – A dependent e-signature always has 2 copies, one for the company and one for the customer
• 09:04 – What SIGNiX is doing is much more difficult
• 09:30 – Team size is 50
• 10:00 – SIGNiX was launched in 2002 and was acquired from another company
• 10:12 – ProNvest is a robo advisor that Jay also owns
• 10:45 – SIGNiX is a bigger revenue stream for Jay
• 10:57 – The market for e-signature is very large
• 11:35 – ProNvest provides management counseling to the 41K marketplace
  • 11:47 – In 2007, more people in 41K are taking their money out rather than contributing
  • 12:06 – Jay really wanted a tool set to work with their 41K providers to help them retain their assets
  • 12:17 – Jay wanted the providers to retain their assets through electronic signatures
• 12:24 – SIGNiX called Jay
  • 12:40 – The company was struggling and Jay became an investor in the company
  • 12:52 – Jay invested around 50% of the company
  • 13:05 – There was an offer from a public company to buy the company after Jay invested
  • 13:22 – The offer was 5x what Jay paid for
  • 14:00 – In 2001, it was good to have a “.com” but in 2002, Jay needed to have revenue
• 14:23 – Jay saw the need for having SIGNiX regardless of its previous company struggles
• 14:33 – Jay really bolted SIGNiX and passed it on an incubator
• 15:04 – The previous company just spent money on the technology and was burning cash
• 15:43 – SIGNiX now has 670K customers
  • 15:52 – It is a combination of seats and customers
• 16:30 – Average MRR
• 16:57 – SIGNiX gives discounts to their partners
• 17:18 – If you’re working with a software company, you have to figure out a number that works for their customers
• 18:02 – The number that Jay gave was an annual number
• 18:20 – SIGNiX does not focus on their competitors because they have a very different product
• 18:48 – SIGNiX wants to go and find the top software developers in every industry and partner with them
  • 19:03 – First thing that SIGNiX looks for in a software partner is their position and role in their particular industry
  • 19:10 – Ziplogix partnered with SIGNiX and named their solution, Digital Ink
  • 19:25 – SIGNiX has a large portion of realtors in their network
  • 19:35 – SIGNiX doesn’t mind being behind the scenes
• 19:55 – SIGNiX is not a reseller and it becomes the key feature of the product
• 20:18 – SIGNiX doesn’t have a standard percentage split because it varies per company
• 20:49 – Jay did a lot of self-funding for SIGNiX, but has also raised capital which is an 8-figure total
• 21:18 – ProNvest is the largest investor in SIGNiX but they needed outside investors to scale
• 21:38 – The funding rounds SIGNiX had in 2016 had a total of around $90M
• 23:30 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

1. Develop and scale your product until you become a totally different product from your competitors.
2. A business that is struggling does NOT mean that it will struggle forever; decide if the company is worth acquiring and if you can grow it into a profitable business.
3. It’s okay if you’re not in the limelight—so long as you’re getting paid and revenue continues to multiply.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Hotjar – Gives Nathan a recording of what is happening on a website or where are people clicking and scrolling on the website
• Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives