The (real) backstage of Letsignit

As I write this to you, Letsignit has overtaken the three-million turnover mark, now employs nearly 70 people, and counts no fewer than 700,000 users. ‍

Rewind 10 years, and of course, the situation was barely recognizable: scale-up woes, failures, and our fair share of mistakes. But from these mistakes, opportunities arose, and these opportunities gave rise to the company culture that we now know.

‍It’s with my CEO cap on that I would like to take you on a trip on what we call a bit of history. I’m not talking about the media headlines, the public financial statements, nor how our marketing strategies have changed over time. No, I would like to share with you what really goes on in the wings of a startup, how resilience is rooted in our values, and what compels us to write the next 10 years of our adventure.

Simple product diversification gave rise to the Letsignit organization.

Everything starts with MailInBlack. Our anti-spam software solution for securing professional emails and prevent cyber attacks. At the time, we were laying the groundwork which would give us the necessary credentials in Saas, B2B, and email in general.

‍The idea of completing the MailInBlack offer came next. We were working on a solution to simplify creating and managing employee email signatures. However, the value proposition and markets differ. Soon, from a simple product diversity, an independent entity came about: and that’s the beginnings of Letsignit.

Without mistakes, there can be no learning: resilience will help us meet our goals.

To adapt, we had to face challenges. And these same challenges allowed us to grow.

‍Literally grow: first of all, with regard to the size of the company, to recruit and renew our teams massively. To give ourselves the resources needed for a change like this, the solution was to be found in the top levels of talent (we brought in a new VP of Sales EMEA and a new CTO, both with experience in larger companies). However, the growing team also needed new investments in customer care to resolve new international client challenges. With bigger teams and an ever-growing user base, the issue of scalability arose. We found the answer to this in standardized processes and certifications (we’re currently in the final phase of our ISO 27001 norm certification on data security management).

I could cite many other examples of our transformations, challenges, and mistakes, but I’m worried about spreading myself thin. And that’s precisely what I’m going to talk about next..

Why we stopped spreading ourselves too thin.

Just last year, in 2021, Letsignit stopped trying to be everything to everyone. To successfully scale up, it was essential that we realized what we could offer most effectively. So, the decision was taken to focus entirely on market segments with high added value: companies with over 100 employees, using Microsoft Office 365.

‍This revolution in our vision of the company was vital. It allows us to see the market changes coming and anticipate them in order to position ourselves correctly, and above all, very quickly.

‍Realizing that you need to fix things is one thing. Putting in place corrective actions is another thing altogether. That’s often the main point of friction. At Letsignit, our priority remains our ability to remain faithful to our key principle. And that key principle has to be foremost in each of our team member’s minds, every time they make a decision, every time they do something.

Keeping a smooth course of action in a changing market.

When your joint ambition is to become the world leader in email signatures, that creates a lot of changes. And transformation is stressful. 50% growth per year is frightening. Moving from being a start-up to scaling up was not an easy thing to do.

It was impossible to control everything all the time. Except perhaps for one thing: our guiding principle. And Letsignit’s guiding principle is rooted in the founding values and culture of our organization. Without that foundation, we would waver. How could we keep our balance? In our case, we had to rest on four fundamentals:

Dare it is by daring and stumbling that we learn to walk.‍
Care means looking after employees, clients, and suppliers alike.
‍Fair is about making sure that everyone works together in openness and loyalty.
‍Fun is the angle of resilience regardless of what comes at us, never forgetting to, genuinely, enjoy changing in the context of this project.

Let’s be honest, these four commands weren’t set in stone from the very start of Letsignit. They emerge from our shared experiences and values. The purpose of this article is not to give you an itemized list of our successes, failures and values. No, my message is something else. You need to know that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Enjoy the journey that leads you to your destination, because that’s exactly where your best lessons are to be found.

In the beginning, Letsignit was a startup searching for its market. It was by challenging itself that it found itself. So, naturally that’s true of our values too. As we grew, we were able to put those values into words, and now, they reflect what is most valuable in our company culture.

Company culture goes deeper than a ping-pong table.

In early 2022, we made some changes to our HR policy. In particular, we decided to give our employees 12 extra days off a year because well-being at work is also about well-being away from the office. Where possible, some employees can even work remotely 100% of the time. That means it’s possible to free up time for some charity work our employees head up and that we still finance—sometimes in full.

‍To be honest, company culture goes beyond a beer pump, a ping-pong table, or other pleasant office perks. As CEO, my main job is to spread the four pillars of our philosophy as much as I can throughout the company. I really make an effort at that, because in the business world, expressions like “the customer is king” are still heard. Personally, I don’t think that’s true. “Care” is one of our core values. We always give our time and our energy to our clients. But “care” is just as true for our employees as it is for our clients. That’s why serenity will always reign—unashamedly—even if that means passing on a proposal.

Everyone has a different definition of success.

I know that with these few words, I run the risk of tipping over into the clichés of the many inspirational speeches which have sprouted up. But the meaning of my message is sincere. The highs and lows we’ve gone through—and are still living with—have provided us with unique experiences. Letsignit is above all a human adventure. The ups and downs we have navigated and will continue to navigate bring us unique experiences. Letsignit is ultimately just a means of having an experience which is rich when it comes to professional encounters, different personalities, and new skills.

Behind the scenes, my biggest source of satisfaction is still enabling everyone to grow— personally as well as professionally. My most important mission is to find the balance between a little discomfort and serenity. That’s when challenges are no longer a source of stress, but rather a source of excitement. That constant changes are no longer tough times to get through, but rather they become an opportunity to reach new heights.

So, turnover and growth are clearly evidence of commercial success, which I’m sure is going to last. However, behind the scenes is where success really happens.

Frequently
asked questions

Is it possible to track the number of clicks on email signatures?

Yes, with the 'Campaigns' offer, it is possible to track the number of clicks on the email signatures of all your employees in the 'Statistics' area of the platform.

You can then access a detailed or global view of the number of clicks on the email signatures of each employee. You can use the search option to target a specific signature or a given period. Finally, you have the possibility to export all statistics to an Excel document.

If you launch campaigns with banners inserted in your email signatures, you can also access their performance via this same space.

Can we add links to social networks, our website, and appointment-setting applications such as Calendly?

With Letsignit, you can easily add social network icons in your collaborators' email signatures and link to your company pages. Also, our "attributes" feature allows you to manage personalized URLs for each of your collaborators such as their individual LinkedIn profile.

And that's not all: you can add links to an appointment-setting application, allow your customers to leave reviews easily, and integrate our 'Chat on Teams' widget to let anyone start a discussion via Microsoft Teams chat.

Can employees update their signature information themselves (number, function, etc.)?

It’s up to you! As an administrator of the Letsignit platform, you choose whether or not to grant modification rights to your employees. These permissions are managed on an attribute-by-attribute basis, which means that you can decide to allow the employee to change their phone number, but not the address of your premises, for example.

This feature applies to all attributes in your directory, including custom attributes created on Letsignit. When your employees change one or more attributes, your directory is obviously not affected.

Why it is important to standardize our email signatures on a large scale to ensure our identity and brand image?

It often happens that employees make their email signature their own: custom format, bad fonts, colors inconsistent with the brand standards... all of this has an impact on your brand!

A consistent visual identity is considered authentic and outperforms a perceived weak one by 20%. And, your customers are 2.4 times more likely to buy your products.

With Letsignit, take back control over your brand identity by standardizing all your email signatures. Our tool has many features that allow you to customize your signatures by department, by audience or by subsidiary. Not to mention the possibility of carrying out campaigns within your email signatures thanks to our Campaign offer.

What is the user experience like for our employees?

If you opt for the Letsignit Add-in for Outlook, they will have a dedicated space in their Outlook account where they will be able to view the signatures and campaigns assigned to them.
If you opt for the Letsignit Desktop APP, they will be able to preview all their signatures and campaigns in this space. If they want to change their default signature to another one when sending an email, this will be done in their signature library in Outlook.

In both cases:

They preview their signature before sending an email and choose from signatures assigned to them.
Based on the permissions granted, they will also be able to modify their personal information such as their name, position, or address in these spaces.

In short, they have autonomy in their email signature, but you keep control on the field, signatures, and banners they can edit or use.

Can my employees have multiple signatures available to them?

With our "multi-signature" feature, your employees can benefit from multiple email signatures. No technical manipulation is required. Thanks to our Add-in for Outlook or the desktop app, they can change their email signatures as they wish with just a few clicks.

Regarding the creation of email signatures, you can make several variations such as:

An English, Spanish, etc. version to adapt it to your audience
A signature template with timely promotional banners.
Use different formats of your logo according to your subsidiaries.
A signature for each of your branches.
Signature banners created especially for internal exchanges.
A simplified version for reply/forward of emails.

Everything has been thought of to go further in the personalization process based on the recipient of your emails.

Regarding “Green IT,” have you implemented measures to limit the digital footprint of email signatures?

If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.

As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:

Optimization of the weight of signatures and campaigns in emails.
Green features: lightening of signatures during response/transfer emails, possibility of not embedding images, implementation of lighter signatures for internal exchanges.
Integration of a 'Switch to Teams' widget to encourage your employees to continue their exchanges via chat, rather than email.

As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.