Keith Krach: I want DocuSign to be the standard

At Splash SF, DocuSign CEO breaks down the difference between being a leader and being the standard

At our Vator Splash SF event earlier this week, DocuSign CEO Keith Krach, in a conversation with Rory O'Driscoll of Scale Venture Partners, talked about whether or not it was important for a company to have a large reach or more revenue. Krach's answer seemed to be that both were important. (You can read about that here.)

He expanded further upon that in a different section of the interview, in which he spoke about DocuSign being the "standard" for the industry, rather than just a leader, which means being the go-to service for the space and creating a platform that almost everyone is using – that's the reach. But reach is only important for the company in so much that it drives revenue. Combined they both create investor and shareholder value.

"That means that instead of having 40 or 50% of the marketshare, its 90% plus marketshare," he said. "You know, you always hear about, especially in the software business, the number one player is ten times the valuation of the number two."

But, to be the standard, you can be up to one hundred times that of the number two company.

"So that's kind of the objective of the game. And, in this particular business, there's a huge advantage for the customer for that to be the case, and the consumer [when you're product is the standard used by nearly everyone]."

With DocuSign, users can keep all signed docs in one place and never need file cabinet, he said. And Krach wants his company to be the place where almost everyone does that.

DocuSign creates a platform so global business transitions where companies large and small can integrate with their back end systems to keep business digital from start to finish. So, to be able to integrate with all these systems that are going out to transact business, whether its with their consumers, the customers, their partners, their suppliers, their employees, all that, to have on one standard platform for that is a huge advantage."

In fact, just having the opportunity to be the leader of a company whose product is the global standard was enough to bring Kach out of retirement.

"The coolest thing about DocuSign is that it is really is a way to change the world in terms of something that’s been done for 10 thousand years," he said. "Really being able to make a difference is huge."

"It's a huge market" and DocuSign has "the opportunity to be the standard, not just a leader, but to be the standard."

Note: Interested in attending a Splash event? Vator is holding Splash London on Nov. 7. Check it out here. 

(Image source: https://pixt.com/splash1013)