Bond’s mission is to accelerate the pace of financial innovation and access to capital. Bond makes it easy for businesses to offer compliant financial products by making integration to often-antiquated banks and financial vendors more intuitive. Facing massive growth resulting in the need to rapidly hire, Bond relies on DocSend to securely share information with prospective job candidates during the interview and hiring process.

The Challenge

Prior to DocSend, Brittney Harvey, a Recruiter for Bond, would send out recruiting decks, as well as homework assignments for open roles, to job candidates as email attachments or Google Drive files. In a highly sensitive industry and competitive market, Brittney worried at times about information getting into the wrong hands. This led to a search for a more secure sharing solution for external documents during the hiring process.

The Solution:

The team turned to DocSend’s secure document sharing solution to safeguard sensitive presentations and case studies that were sent to candidates during the hiring process.

Controlling access to confidential documents with candidates

Building out the recruiting function at a growing startup is no small task. For Brittney, she wanted to make sure security and ease were top priorities, when sharing information with candidates. During the initial interview process at Bond, Brittney will send an overview deck that shares a bit about the company and the product. Sometimes, candidates could be interviewing with competitors or could be coming from similar industries, so it’s important for these product decks to stay safe and away from the wrong set of eyes.

It’s great that I can require an email address to view documents. If a DocSend link happens to get in the wrong hands and I see an unknown email address I can quickly delete access to that link.

Brittney Harvey

Recruiter, Bond

With DocSend, Britney is able to regain security and control of who is accessing company information. “I love the email notifications I get. I can cross-check to ensure candidates who are viewing documents are also listed in our applicant tracking system,” Brittney shared. If there is an update on a document Brittney needs to make after sending, she can easily make the fix one time and it automatically changes the version of the file. Therefore, Brittney knows she is always sending the most up-to-date version of her recruiting material.

Following-up with interested candidates at the right time

With the acceleration of remote work and increased flexibility of options for job-seekers, the hiring market is seeing a boost in applications like never before. For recruiters, following up with interested candidates at the right moment can make an incredible difference. Before using DocSend, Brittney had a difficult time determining which candidates were genuinely interested. With DocSend’s analytics, Brittney receives page-by-page analytics and notifications when someone is viewing a document that she has shared. Brittney can use this information to follow-up at the right moment. The sooner that Brittney can follow-up with a candidate when Bond is top-of-mind, the more likely she is to receive a positive response.

Honestly the job market is crazy right now. The quicker we are able to move, the quicker we are able to lock in great talent. Having a tool like DocSend is so vital for us to recruit competitively.

Brittney Harvey

Recruiter, Bond

Boosting candidate engagement rates by 25% and maintaining a fair hiring process

Once a candidate makes it through the initial recruiter screen, then they typically move on to a take-home assignment for some roles. Previously, Brittney shared the assignment with candidates as a Google document. However, she realized, “I was finding that I couldn’t keep track of who has or has not looked at that document.” Without the ability to track candidate engagement with the assignment, Brittney had a difficult time prioritizing which candidates to follow-up with.

Now with DocSend, Brittney can see if someone has recently spent time looking at the assignment. If someone hasn’t looked at the take-home assignment, Brittney can reach out to them and validate interest in the role. “DocSend has helped us raise the number of people responding to our take-home assignment by 25% because I was able to follow-up at the right moment.”

The added level of protection in DocSend prevents candidates from sharing assignments with others interested in the opening role. Brittney can set link expiration dates, as well as turn off the ability to download the assignment. By preventing the documents from being sent to others, Brittney is able to maintain a fair hiring process for all prospective candidates.

Analytics to help inform conversations with candidates

It can be challenging as a recruiter or as a hiring manager to know exactly how familiar a candidate is with your company, or anticipate what questions they might have, when walking into an interview. Just as a candidate wants to make a positive first impression, employers also want to put their best foot forward during the interview process to secure top talent.

Brittney and hiring managers at Bond are able to walk into each interview feeling prepared, knowing what about the company might interest candidates and where to anticipate questions. For example, before an interview, Brittney might see that a candidate has spent a longer period of time on the culture slide of the recruiting pitch deck, so she knows to emphasize these elements in her conversations with them. “Being able to see what the candidate is most interested in is so important. I’m able to inform other interviewers what areas to push on or what candidates might have questions about,” Brittney shared.

In a constantly fluctuating job market, it can be difficult to know where a candidate stands, especially when there might be other offers on the table. Knowing whether a top candidate is leaning towards signing an offer allows recruiters to know where to spend their time. For Brittney, she’s able to gauge candidate interest in the later stages of the hiring process with DocSend. “I love that I’m able to let hiring managers know the good news when a top candidate who has multiple offers checks out our material again. That means they’re still thinking about us and now might be a good time to give them a call and see if they have any questions.” Brittney uses DocSend as an early indicator to hiring managers of whether a candidate is likely to sign an offer letter.

If I see a candidate has spent a lot of time on a particular part of our recruiting pitch deck, like slides about culture or the technical details of our product, I use this to guide my conversation and decisions like who they should speak with next. The analytics really allow me to provide a more personalized candidate experience.

Brittney Harvey

Recruiter, Bond

Securely housing employee documents after onboarding with Dropbox

When new employees start at a company, human resources managers walk them through reviewing and signing many different onboarding documents. It’s crucial that human resources managers can rely on a secure, cloud platform to organize files and onboarding documents.

For Bond, when a new employee joins, human resource managers collect all new onboarding documents using Dropbox. “We use Dropbox to manage our employee documents: offer letters, signed agreements, and pretty much anything you can think of that you’ve signed as an employee.” Bond relies on Dropbox’s secure cloud file sync and storage capabilities to safely house all of their internal documents, so that the organization can effectively focus on their larger goals. “We really like how Dropbox organizes all of your files and how you can easily arrange folders. Our legal team relies on Dropbox to make sure that only the right people are accessing internal documents with password protection.” For a growing business like Bond, security and simplicity are critical for sharing files on-the-go.

At Bond, while recruiters rely on DocSend to safely share sensitive documents with candidates, the human resources team securely stores signed employee contracts in Dropbox. Both products together keep the People team at Bond moving, as they continue to grow and scale.

The post Bond optimizes their hiring and onboarding process with DocSend & Dropbox appeared first on DocSend.

Captain Experiences is a platform that unlocks the outdoors for everyone by making it seamless for people to book outdoor sports guides. Offering trips across the United States and beyond, Captain Experiences simplifies the stresses of planning a trip through streamlining reviews and providing excellent, insured guides for booking. Focused first on fishing across the U.S., Captain Experiences is rapidly expanding across all outdoor sports and geographies.

The Challenge

Prior to DocSend, Jonathan Newar, Co-Founder & CEO, would ask lawyers to collect signatures for NDAs and investor agreements on DocuSign. Their time was costly and “getting them to collect signatures would cost their business hundreds of dollars,” Jonathan shared. The team needed a more cost-effective solution to centralize external documents and collect eSignatures.

The Solution

The team turned to DocSend’s easy-to-use secure document sharing and eSignature solution that would grow and scale alongside Captain Experiences. “Not only is DocSend intuitive and easy to use but it also allows us to close deals faster,” Jonathan shared.

A $2 million seed fund and lasting partnership built through the DocSend Fundraising Network

When Jonathan was first testing out his pitch, he relied on the DocSend Fundraising Network for initial warm introductions to investors who align on investing in marketplaces and outdoor experiences. The initial introductions to investors helped Jonathan learn what was working and refine his pitch for future conversations. Eventually, these warm introductions led to securing a $2 million seed fundraise. The data-driven insights provided by DocSend’s Pitch Deck Analyzer helps founders like Jonathan best convey their mission and business objectives for pre-seed and seed funding rounds.

Through the DocSend Fundraising Network, we fielded multiple high-value intros to VC's excited about Captain Experiences. These intros led to relationships we continue to cultivate- hearing directly from VC's on traction benchmarks they're keying on allows us to firm up our fundraising strategy and our deck.

Jonathan Newar

Co-Founder & CEO, Captain Experiences

As a result of being part of the DFN, Jonathan secured his first institutional investor meetings that were critical to the early traction of Captain Experiences.  “It was fantastic to get access to warm introductions with DocSend early on in our growth,” Jonathan shared. The DFN introduced Jonathan to 8 VCs, which led to multiple meetings and follow-ups. “The DFN provided introductions to industry-leading, brand-name VCs that we otherwise would have had to reach out to cold or network tirelessly to connect with. We met with a handful of funds through the DFN and ended up signing with our lead investor,” Jonathan shared. These meetings were fundamental to the company’s early fundraising success and provided detailed feedback that helped Jonathan ultimately fundraise successfully. Additionally, a connection Jonathan made through the DFN made countless other introductions, which helped the team close their seed round.

The DFN provided data-driven feedback that was integral to improving investor views on subsequent versions of Jonathan’s pitch deck. While early slides on traction, team, business model, and “the ask” were in good shape, the data-driven feedback provided by DFN suggested that earlier versions of the pitch deck had too few product slides. Using those insights, Jonathan added a product roadmap slide to the appendix. “Thanks to DocSend analytics, I know that this is one of our most viewed slides and it gives us a chance to present our execution progress and future rollouts to investors,” Jonathan shared.

A more organized and secure way of reaching investors through seamless updates

When Jonathan was first beginning to reach out to investors, he would send out hundreds of emails each day. He knew there had to be a more streamlined approach to launching his business.

After speaking with a founder in Houston, Jonathan learned about how he could use DocSend to more easily manage and share versions of his pitch deck. As Jonathan began to use the product, he was able to seamlessly update pitch decks once in DocSend and make follow-up edits, even after they reached investors’ inboxes. With DocSend, Jonathan could protect sensitive information in his pitch deck by adding a passcode and email verification to ensure that the right investors can view his pitch deck.

Developing more meaningful relationships with investors through insights on pitch decks

Previously, Jonathan was relying on chance to determine whether he would follow-up with an investor. He did not have any insights into whether people were opening his decks, or what parts of his deck were most relevant to the conversations he was booking. Hoping to generate interest and financial backing for his company, Jonathan needed insights on his pitch decks to personalize his conversations with VC firms.

DocSend made all the difference. Jonathan sent a pitch deck out to a venture associate in DocSend and saw that the investor spent the most time on his slide that discussed unit economics. When Jonathan met with that associate, he prepared in advance using document analytics and catered the conversation to focus on unit economics, making it most relevant to that investor.

With DocSend’s insights and analytics, Jonathan was able to more effectively prioritize his time when reaching out to investors and was able to close funding from 15 investors.

Centralizing business agreements with a unified eSignature platform

Previously, Jonathan was paying an hourly fee to a lawyer who was managing Captain Experiences’ contracts through DocuSign; however, this was a costly use of a lawyer’s time – basically project managing signatures – and not sustainable in the long term. Once Jonathan engaged with DocSend for fundraising, he quickly realized he could use the multi-party eSignatures feature to streamline important contracts for his business.

Jonathan is now able to collect multiple signatures on NDAs, consulting agreements with contractors, and convertible note agreements with investors in an automated way without expensive oversight. When onboarding a new hire or contractor, DocSend allows Jonathan to easily send out an NDA and consulting agreement with the click of a button and manage the workflow from the tips of his fingers. Between managing offshore workers and marketing contractors in the United States, Jonathan relies on DocSend as a simple way to manage and unify all of his agreements. Additionally, DocSend’s eSignature solution was more cost effective than other platforms, helping Jonathan and his team improve their bottom-line.

Personalizing investor experiences with multi-party eSignature customization

The founder experience can be particularly challenging, especially when it comes to finding the right investor to join a pre-seed or seed round.

With eSignature, Jonathan is able to tailor each document to include a field for a name, date, or initials. Jonathan loves how the seamless user experience saves him time when creating documents that are sent out for eSignatures.

Multi-party eSignature has been one of the most useful features DocSend offers. We are able to send NDAs, onboard new consultants, fundraise, and close convertible notes all from one platform. It is especially critical when fundraising with many different parties involved-- that’s a lot of signatures to manage and DocSend streamlines the process.

Jonathan Newar

Co-Founder & CEO, Captain Experiences

For example, when Jonathan was preparing a document that was to be sent out for a signature, he noticed that DocSend pre-adjusted the sizing of the text field based on his previous preferences. As Jonathan shares, “The customizable fields are perfect and they fit all of my needs.”

DocSend has allowed Jonathan to customize document viewing experiences for all potential investors. Jonathan has total control every step of his journey sharing pitch decks, collecting eSignatures, and more as he continues to grow and scale Captain Experiences.

The post Captain Experiences Secures $2 Million in Seed Funding with DocSend’s Multi-Party eSignature appeared first on DocSend.