Lockdown-friendly by design 🖊️
How the creation of Edusign was the best prep for future lockdowns…
TL;DR => check out the last paragraph of the article.
Lockdown 2.0 has started two weeks ago, and in addition to the economic impact, many companies also suffer from organisational or HR issues when switching to these new conditions.
However, at Edusign, you seem quite resilient to those constraints and even seem to thrive in harsh conditions. Thank you Elliot for sharing your secret sauce with us.
Can you tell us a bit about Edusign and the issues you address?
We have all already signed attendance sheets during training, events, or a general assembly. Although as signatories we forget about it the moment we drop the pen, in reality, these sheets take a lot of time to print, to sign, and to archive… when they are not just lost. Edusign dematerializes attendance sheets and facilitates their management. We offer a solution that is simple and saves everyone time. We also provide additional useful features for training organisations, such as sending surveys, generating and signing documents, etc.
That sounds quite useful these days, what's your origin story?
Not so long ago, Dylan and I were both pursuing a Master's degree in Digital Marketing & Innovation, and paradoxically, this program still used paper attendance sheets for our courses. After forgetting to sign and losing a sheet, we decided to find a solution to this problem, and after a few months of work, we created the perfect solution for in-person classes. We started testing the solution for the first time… one week before the first lockdown started in France. Therefore, we had to innovate quickly. In two days, we built a new solution that made signing an attendance sheet during an online course a piece of cake.
After that, we were faced with a huge demand and had to learn how to work in a completely remote environment with a lot of pressure and endless workdays.
People need to communicate more and more clearly in remote, it is key.
How do you feel these roots impacted your company culture and DNA?
We are lockdown-friendly by design. It was pretty hard during the first few months because we were still trying to figure out the kind of product people truly wanted. We needed a lot of communication and processes, and we lacked them both. Indeed, communication is key in a remote setup. Even if it seems simple, I can't say it enough. People need to communicate more and more clearly in remote, it is key.
The struggles were real at the beginning, luckily, we had clients to keep us motivated and focused. Today, we have established clear processes to facilitate the work of everyone. People are having a hard time being asynchronous and processes are here to help that happen. One key rule is to always write things down, store everything online, clearly organized, and available to the right people. Another one is to communicate clearly: taking thirty seconds to explain something saves a lot of time down the line. Being patient and friendly can also help a lot!
Another aspect of our culture is trust. Indeed, it is very hard to control everything when working at a distance. Consequently, we give a lot of freedom and responsibility, both of which require much trust. However, this means that the goals need to be well defined for everyone to do their work correctly. To be honest, a few mistakes were made when priorities were not clear enough for everyone.
Finally, since we were under pressure, we limited the number of meetings to a strict minimum. We know from experience that having no meeting at all is a bad idea, but the practice of planning only a few meetings involving only the necessary people saved us a lot of time. We love the Jeff Bezos two pizza rules, and apply it to the extreme, even after the end of the first lockdown.
Most people we recruited are doing very well in a remote environment and the topic was a mandatory question during job interviews. It is essential at Edusign to be flexible while organized and to be able to work properly during a lockdown.
The good part is that after a very difficult first lockdown, we gained the belief that we could achieve anything, whatever the circumstances.
Since you had all these learnings from the first lockdown, how did you react to the news of a second one, and how do you currently experience it?
It was a sad piece of news, but we were ready. We knew that it would mean a lot of business coming our way and that we were going to work even more than before.
This second lockdown is going more smoothly than the first one. We were lucky to recruit wonderful people to help us. Our product is better than it was in March, we know what our clients are looking for, and we have the processes and tools to work properly in a remote environment.
Nevertheless, the experience of the first lockdown highlighted the need to communicate more clearly. Therefore, we have built a short document to share best practices with the team. Additionally, one tool that improved communication on complicated matters is Loom, since a short video can be far clearer than text sometimes.
Moreover, all our team members have already experienced the first lockdown and know what is best for them when they work from home.
The days are still long, but that is for the best.
To manage this high influx of requests, clients always come first […]
Let's talk business, your value proposition must make you quite popular during these periods, how do you manage it?
Edusign is quite popular during lockdown periods, to give some numbers, we had as many inquiries in the first two days of the second lockdown as in the two weeks before its start. To manage this high influx of requests, clients always come first, and so each of us tries to help where the need is highest at the time. What that means is that the marketing team sometimes handles a few sales calls and that the sales team handles some support tickets to go faster.
Reflecting on the first lockdown, we probably could have cut some slack by automating more in the early days. Nevertheless, we are now recognized as a friendly and human solution, and that may be worth the investment.
During this second-lockdown, the conversion rate is higher, clients are happy and we continue to add new features that can differentiate us. Edusign’s connexions with Zoom and Teams, currently in beta, are quite popular right now. The hardest part is to balance between new developments that can bring new clients and developments that help us keep our current clients.
Finally, we try to work more with partners, such as Beecome, Val Software, GYSC, or Universign, that are well established and can help us grow faster. The second step is for us to integrate LMS solutions, 360 Learning, Rise Up, or Articulate to expand our reach.
As you said, clear communication is paramount, however, the management of early-stage startups often relies a lot on the informal. Since working remotely tends to keep only the explicit and the deliberate actions, how do you organise yourselves? Daily, weekly, quarterly?
In remote, we try to keep our agenda up-to-date and use Slack extensively. Finally, Trello is used for project planning, but also sales feature requests.
Daily, everyone can organize his agenda. Weekly, we have two team meetings, one on Monday morning to start the week and one on Friday afternoon to end it with the good news. We do not have a quarterly ritual so far.
As said before, trust is key. The goals are made clear for everyone. Once the team is aligned on what matters with a few processes and access to information, we can go faster, without having to rely on too heavy processes.
People-wise, we still need to figure out what's best in terms of organization, but we are sailing fast in a time of turmoil. This gives us enough confidence to move forward and improve Edusign, as a product and as a team.
The people with the knowledge aren't always the ones in charge.
I imagine all founders are pretty comfortable with this mindset and organization, but what is your process to recruit and to onboard new team members?
We are not very structured on the recruiting part. We use Linkedin and Welcome to the Jungle. I think that we have been quite lucky to find the people we have today.
Regarding onboardings, it starts before joining the company. We usually give access to our software early so that they can test it and understand it. We have a strong culture of feedback and we always ask for our new employees' advice. Asking for their help is a good way to make them feel welcomed.
All our documents are online and we can give access to everything in a few minutes, with no barrier to entry, it is easier to start working directly. Moreover, we make sure to answer every question the new hire may have. We make sure to do so whether we know the answer or not. We do not hesitate to say "I don't know, do you?". The people with the knowledge aren't always the ones in charge. We are trying to make sure that people understand that they can have an impact on the company.
Finally, every manager takes the necessary time to explain how things work and what makes us unique, our customer experience, which is based on human interaction.
Let's look toward the future, what aspects of your current organisation do you see yourselves keep as the company grows in the coming months/years? And which would you evolve?
We may need to change our tools, Pipedrive for Hubspot, Trello for another, etc. However, I think that we found a good equilibrium in terms of communication.
Nevertheless, our mantra is to always gather data and learn from it to change either the product, processes, or strategies. For that reason, it would be hard to say what we will keep and what will change… other than our willingness to adapt.
Before you leave, if you could give us a basic remote survival toolbox in two minutes, what would it be?
Of course, here are your key pillars:
Give access to all the information needed for people to work.
Set clear goals.
Communicate extensively, preferably with written words.
Trust people.
To explore it further, you can download our quick guide of four best practices that we implemented, based on what we learned during the first lockdown.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us, best of luck for the future!