Aquamarine is an investment partnership inspired by the original 1950’s Buffett partnerships, run by Guy Spier, who follows a close replication of the original Buffett partnership rules. Managing millions of dollars in assets, the investment fund is steadily growing and relies on DocSend to securely manage their communications with prospects and other external parties.

The Challenge

Prior to Dropbox and DocSend, David Jud, Finance Manager at Aquamarine, shared that his organization relied on outdated systems to store and internally share files among their global team. Additionally, the team was looking for a more secure way to externally share and track whitepapers with investors, prospects, and other external parties.

The Solution:

David turned to Dropbox’s file sync solution and DocSend’s secure document sharing platform to unify his organization’s content storage, as well as safely distribute communications with prospects and other external parties.

A more seamless way to sync and share files with Dropbox

As part of a fast-paced and globally distributed team that manages an investment fund, David is constantly collaborating with his teammates and communicating with investors, prospects, and other external parties. Initially, Aquamarine was using legacy software to save and backup files. “We were having many issues with our legacy file storage system. We were unable to share files with individuals outside of our company, or view documents that opened in a browser,” David shared. Without a secure document sharing platform, David added, it was “challenging for us to communicate with people outside of our organization.” The team at Aquamarine needed a cloud-based system to sync and store their files from anywhere.

When the organization switched over to Dropbox several years ago, they immediately felt the benefits of a purpose-built system that automatically backed up all of their important documents and investment research. “Someone on our team in the United States could be working on investor research and have a team member in Switzerland make comments on it simultaneously,” David shared. Dropbox has become the team’s go-to file storage platform that makes it easier to work together from anywhere. “We are really happy with Dropbox,” David adds.

Dropbox makes it easier for us to sync important documents to the cloud right from our desktop. No matter where I might be working, I always have access to the most up-to-date file.

David Jud

Finance Manager, Aquamarine

Securely sharing whitepapers in DocSend

David is able to upload documents into DocSend and create protected links for people outside of the organization to access industry whitepapers, reports, and fact sheets. The files in DocSend are secured with an email whitelist, expiration dates, and added password protection, limiting access to accredited individuals. These documents, originally housed in Dropbox for internal collaboration, are then shared externally using DocSend. Before a recipient opens a document, they sign an NDA in DocSend in a single click. Instead of managing multiple documents and links, Aquamarine’s NDA is custom-built into the document viewing experience within DocSend. All of this protection not only provides Aquamarine with peace of mind, but also allows for a frictionless user experience.

DocSend’s NDA lets us share industry research with peers with a single click of a button. Fund managers and investors alike can then access their signed NDAs after completion, making for an easy audit trail.

David Jud

Finance Manager, Aquamarine

Tracking user engagement with thought leadership

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Guy Spier, Managing Partner of Aquamarine, launched a podcast called the Education of a Value Investor. Inspired by his book title of the same name, Spier holds conversations with influential thought leaders, covering everything from investment strategies, mindfulness, machine learning, and more. The podcast has become a cornerstone of how the firm builds awareness and grows its network.

While Spier and his team were producing valuable pieces of content, it was difficult to keep track of individual user engagement among listeners accessing the material on a third-party host.

An innovative way David is solving this challenge is by including podcast transcripts in DocSend within each episode’s description. “DocSend is quite convenient. We upload our podcast transcripts into unique DocSend links and each viewer enters in their email before reading,” David shared. Brand new listeners who engage with the transcripts often become active members of Aquamarine’s network. With DocSend, David can keep track of these potential users and their journeys over time, while also enriching the overall listener experience by allowing access to the podcast in an alternative format. “I can receive notifications if certain episodes are gaining traction and I can see who is interacting with our content,” David shared. DocSend makes the process of gating content intuitive, allowing anyone at the firm to create gated content and track listener engagement over time, regardless of technical marketing background.

DocSend’s intuitive integration with Salesforce

DocSend’s integration with Salesforce simplifies how David tracks user engagement with content. As someone who spends a lot of time in Salesforce, David is pleased that all viewer interactions with investor research housed in DocSend are also reflected on the account level information in Salesforce. “It saves me a ton of time not having to switch back and forth between two softwares. We can see in Salesforce how people are interacting with documents we are sending out.” For David, Salesforce is his single source of truth. DocSend enriches the basic insight he gets from Salesforce, providing “more granular data on how contacts are engaging with our content,” David adds.

Virtual data rooms enrich investor conferences

Guy Spier holds an annual conference with peers to share updates on their investment research. Attendees present their findings and these presentations are confidential, so they need to be housed in a secure virtual environment.

David relies on DocSend’s virtual data rooms to hold conference materials and presentations that are shared with attendees. “It’s much easier for us to use a DocSend data room to hold all the conference presentations, rather than sending out twenty unique links to each attendee,” David shared. Only an approved list of individuals can access the presentations prior to the conference in one easy to access data room.

Through the combined power of Dropbox and DocSend, Aquamarine has a streamlined way to update, manage, and share content, whether with an employee internally or an external individual. “Dropbox and DocSend allow us to be extremely organized, buttoned up, and proactive with all of our content management,” David shared.

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For us to win new clients and effectively demonstrate our unique approach, we need the ability to quickly distribute complex and often dense research to a range of different viewers. We believe that access to knowledge makes the strategic transaction planning process more effective and ultimately demonstrates an important part of the strategic value we bring to clients.

Michael Magruder

Managing Director, Madison Park Group

MPG needed to be able to easily share a library of research with clients, as well as distribute marketing collateral to prospects. Given the unique aspects and needs of each group, laser-focused content is imperative. With hundreds of viewers, and significant amounts of information being shared, it is difficult to understand what content is important to whom, and how to prioritize marketing and research efforts.

DocSend analytics allow MPG to engage new prospects & manage existing customer needs

MPG uses DocSend to host and distribute market research for specific software categories and marketing collateral. This material can include a wide range of content forms and includes everything from one-page company profiles for key industry players to extensive presentations outlining macro-economic analysis and commentary.

With this approach, MPG gained access to analytics that allowed a better understanding of which readers were spending time on what content pieces. On an individual level, this allows them to see specifically who is interacting with which parts of the content and how. This has allowed MPG to better cater to customer needs and more effectively engage new client prospects.

By understanding specific stakeholders’ interests, we are able to gain valuable intelligence on key industry trends and ultimately better advise our clients.

Michael Magruder

Managing Director, Madison Park Group

DocSend gave MPG the granularity they needed to understand what specific readers found valuable in their content. Whether they are speaking to a CEO who is interested in raising investment capital or corporate development professionals who want to learn more about early-stage, market-disrupting companies, MPG walks into each meeting knowing how to tailor the conversation. This results in a more effective marketing and client engagement process for MPG, saving significant time by focusing on how to best serve the client.

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