
From Amazon to Docusign: A CFO’s Guide to Building Durable Systems | Blake Grayson
Run the Numbers
Early AWS and learning by building
Blake recalls launching AWS, unit economics on servers, and building billing and sales as the product grew.
Blake Grayson, CFO of Docusign, joins CJ Gustafson to discuss how a company that redefined e-signature and became a verb is now navigating its next chapter in intelligent agreement management. Drawing on more than a decade at Amazon—where he helped forecast AWS and worked inside some of the company’s most operationally demanding businesses—Blake explains how financial discipline, operational depth, and clear narrative-building shape his approach as CFO. The conversation explores how to evolve a beloved product without diluting the brand, why pricing is as much about positioning as revenue, how to communicate go-to-market mechanics without losing the room, and why effective capital allocation accepts that not every big bet needs to land to shape the leader you become.
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LINKS:
Blake on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blake-grayson-3197043/
Docusign: https://www.docusign.com/
CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/
Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Preview and Intro
00:02:39 Sponsors – Fidelity Private Shares | Sage Intacct | Mercury
00:05:09 DocuSign as a Top CFO Tool
00:07:33 From E-Signature to Intelligent Agreement Management
00:09:09 Complexity Before and After a Signature
00:11:02 Cost of Poor Agreement Management
00:12:30 Agreement Oversight and CFO Risk
00:13:28 Pricing: Usage to Seat Models
00:14:12 Enterprise vs SMB Pricing
00:15:00 Sponsors – RightRev | Tipalti | Aleph
00:19:18 Simplicity, Tiers, and IAM Value
00:20:36 Forecasting New Products in a Renewals Base
00:22:13 Modeling Mix Shift and GTM Enablement
00:23:56 Faster Time-to-Value With Intelligent Repositories
00:25:06 Building GTM Muscle for a Platform
00:26:29 Launching IAM in Commercial First
00:27:31 Forecasting Growth vs Cost
00:28:41 Company-Wide Alignment on Priorities
00:30:02 Aligning Investor Messaging With Operations
00:31:20 Staying Focused on Long-Term Outcomes
00:32:27 Customer-First Decision Making
00:33:41 Transparency and What Not to Disclose
00:34:52 Asking Better Metric Questions
00:36:28 Avoiding Data Paralysis
00:38:52 Amazon’s Weekly Business Reviews
00:41:07 Bezos Meetings and the Silent Read
00:45:09 The “Question Mark Email” and Customer Anecdotes
00:50:22 Unit Economics of a Server and Early AWS Bets
00:53:42 Handling Nonpayment Risk
00:55:07 Operational Chaos: Perishables and Regulation
00:57:04 The “No Eggs in California” Story
00:59:31 Treating Escalations as Company Problems
01:00:59 Biggest Career Mistake
01:02:44 Advice to His Younger Self
01:06:34 Tools Finance Uses: Oracle, Bots, IAM, Salesforce, Workday
01:09:21 Wildest Expense Attempts
01:12:32 Closing Thanks and Credits
#RunTheNumbersPodcast #Docusign #CFOInsights #SaaSLeadership #AIManagement
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