Electronic document company DocuSign (DOCU -2.23%) has unsurprisingly been a beneficiary of trends of consumers and workers sheltering at home because of COVID-19. But the extent of the benefit DocuSign has seen and the implications this has on its future growth opportunity is quite significant, helping explain the growth stock's sharp rise higher recently.
While DocuSign's fiscal first-quarter results earlier this month were impressive, the top-line year-over-year revenue growth rate of 39% during the period understates the company's momentum as a result of this rapidly changing business environment, which was magnified by the impact of the coronavirus on the global economy. During the company's earnings call, management broke down some incredible insights on the surge in demand it has seen as a result of COVID-19, as well as why it thinks this bodes well for future quarters.
Here are three must-see takeaways from DocuSign's fiscal first-quarter earnings call.
DocuSign's eSignature product. Image source: DocuSign.
Demand for DocuSign's eSignature product surged
Looking beyond DocuSign's revenue growth during the quarter, investors will find that billings -- an indicator of demand -- jumped 59% to $342 million over this same time frame.
"Much of the strong Q1 performance was driven by increased demand for eSignature from organizations that suddenly needed a way to sign and manage agreements from wherever they were," explained DocuSign CEO Dan Springer.
In fact, the company said it added over 10,000 new direct customers and 58,000 new self-onboarded customers during the quarter across all of its products. It's new direct customers, which represent the bulk of its revenue and are typically larger customers, mostly came to DocuSign for its eSignature product, management said.
Why new customers will stick around
Of course, some investors may be concerned that this spike in demand will fade as the economy reopens. But DocuSign CFO Michael Sheridan believes that its churn rate will "remain pretty stable" because of how compelling the value propositions are for its products. The company is confident that its offerings drive both time- and cost-savings, resulting in customers not only sticking around after they onboard but eventually expanding their adoption of DocuSign's services.
A major cross-selling opportunity
Management sees a significant cross-selling opportunity in the quarters ahead.
"[I]f you think about those 10,000 direct customers that came in, [a] significant portion of those came in with eSignature and in the quarters ahead, they're going to be our most fertile opportunity to cross-sell and expand their overall Agreement Cloud solution," explained Springer.
The process of expanding meaningfully with a customer typically doesn't take long, Springer said. Its land-and-expand strategy with a given customer typically gains traction just three or four quarters out from implementing eSignature offerings.
