DocuSign (DOCU +1.28%) and Upwork (UPWK +0.15%) are both growing fast and have huge market opportunities ahead, but which company is the better bet for investors?
In this episode of The Motley Fool's Industry Focus: Technology, host Dylan Lewis and Fool.com contributor Brian Feroldi pit these two businesses against each other and share which one they think is the smarter buy.
A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on Nov. 16, 2018.
Dylan Lewis: To have a little fun to wrap up, Brian, you mentioned Upwork and our discussion last week. I will put it to you: Upwork or DocuSign? If you're buying one, which one do you like more?
Brian Feroldi: I think there's reason to be bullish on both companies. But if I was forced to choose just one, my personal choice would be DocuSign. I think the corporate culture is a little bit stronger, it's growing a little bit faster, and I see it as the far and away leader in its industry. I think Upwork is, too. But my money would just be on DocuSign. How about you?
Lewis: You know, I think I'm going to take the other side of this one. I think they're both really strong businesses. The as-a-service segment in general has been so strong, and there have been so many great companies that have come out of there for investors. I like that Upwork's a bit smaller. We're working with a $2 billion valuation, roughly, for Upwork, DocuSign is about $6 billion. I think they both have huge addressable markets in front of them. This might be more of a semantic argument than anything else.
But I'm with you. I think the culture is probably better at DocuSign. There were some issues in Upwork's recent report with growth decelerating a bit. But I like the tailwind of the gig economy. I think DocuSign also benefits from some strong tailwinds, but for my money, I think I like the idea of working with a smaller valuation to start, and maybe blossoming into something a little bit larger. Just by the sheer nature of what it might multiply to, I think I'm a little bit more interested in Upwork.
Feroldi: The awesome thing about investing is, you don't have to make a choice. You can buy both if you want to.
Lewis: It's not a zero-sum game! It's so wonderful.
