Rich Barton said Zillow grew out of a frustrating home search: online real-estate information was poor when he was looking to buy. Court Lorenzini described a different origin for DocuSign: he acquired an electronic-signature patent and brand from the remains of a failed company, then built on the idea. At a 2025 Founder Nexus event, the two founders also contrasted how they approached customers, revenue and growth.
What inspired Rich Barton to start Zillow?
Barton said the online home-shopping experience left a large information gap. As he recalled it at the Founder Nexus event, “I was shopping for a home, and there was crap available on the web, in this giant vertical of real estate.” He saw an opportunity to make real-estate information more accessible to consumers.
Zillow’s own account describes its purpose as giving people knowledge and transparency to help them move with confidence. It identifies the Zestimate as part of that information-led offering. The company was created in early 2005, according to a Zillow MediaRoom release; GeekWire’s account says it launched in 2004. Those are different milestones reported by different sources, not dates that should be collapsed into one.
How did Court Lorenzini get the idea for DocuSign?
GeekWire reports that Lorenzini helped launch DocuSign in 2003 after acquiring a digital-signature patent and brand from the remnants of a failed company. He described taking the concept forward simply: “We took that idea and ran with it.” The account presents DocuSign’s starting point as an existing electronic-signature idea that the founders developed into a business.
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How did their approaches to building companies differ?
The founders described contrasting strategies at the event. Barton favored building a substantial consumer audience before monetizing through companies already operating in the industry. Lorenzini wanted paying business customers from the beginning. These are their reported philosophies, not a controlled comparison proving one strategy is better for every startup.
| Decision | Rich Barton’s approach | Court Lorenzini’s approach |
|---|---|---|
| Initial customer | Build a broad consumer audience. | Focus on business customers able to pay. |
| When to monetize | Accumulate audience, then attract industry participants seeking access to those customers. | Charge early rather than give the product away for free. |
| Growth investment | Use product features to prompt natural word of mouth and limit early advertising spend. | Wait for a strong product-market-fit signal before investing in sales; add marketing after sales. |
| Stated decision principle | Make the product itself a driver of attention and growth. | Avoid scaling sales and marketing before customers show real pull. |
Barton: earn attention before monetizing the audience
Barton said that once a consumer audience builds, businesses in the established industry may want access to it: “Once the consumer audience has accumulated, the people in the existing industry who want to sell stuff in the marketplace bang down your door.” He added that those companies “may not like you because you’re disrupting, but what they do like is the fact that you have lots of customers.” His account puts audience growth ahead of industry monetization.
He also emphasized product-led word of mouth: “I always wanted to have a feature that provoked people, such that word of mouth carried naturally, and I didn’t have to spend big money on advertising dollars.” In his words, “The most important part of the marketing mix is the product.”
Lorenzini: find paying customers and evidence of demand
Lorenzini said he was “very adamant about never giving anything away for free.” He summarized DocuSign’s focus this way: “The only reason it thrived is because we focused on people that could pay us and eventually earned the right to be a consumer brand.”
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His advice was to sequence growth spending around evidence of demand: “Until you get strong signal, only then do you start investing in sales, and after you’ve got sales, go into marketing.” He warned that “Companies die on the hill of overspending: building a sales team and a marketing engine, long before they’ve actually got true pull.” The sequence he advocated was therefore not simply charge early, but also avoid expanding sales and marketing before customers signal they want the product.
What came before Zillow and DocuSign?
The founders’ earlier experience provides context for their later choices. GeekWire reports that Barton joined Microsoft in 1991 and worked on a travel project that later became Expedia. Expedia spun out and went public in 1999. Barton said he deliberately established a culture of mutual respect when he spun Expedia out: “When I spun Expedia out, I deliberately set a culture of mutual respect.”
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The same GeekWire event report says DocuSign launched in 2003 and Lorenzini left in 2008. Zillow’s creation and launch dates differ by source and milestone: Zillow’s July 2005 company release says it was created early that year, while GeekWire’s 2025 report describes a 2004 launch.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the founders’ stories show—and what they do not
Their accounts illustrate two ways to approach an early business. Barton’s model starts with consumer reach and looks to monetize that audience through industry participants; Lorenzini’s starts with customers who can pay and emphasizes evidence of demand before scaling sales and marketing. Neither anecdote establishes a universal formula. The useful distinction is what each founder chose to validate first: Barton prioritized audience and product-driven discovery, while Lorenzini prioritized revenue from paying customers and a strong demand signal.
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Sources: Taylor Soper, GeekWire, July 14, 2025; Zillow, “Our story”; Zillow MediaRoom, “Zillow, Inc. Announces Board of Directors,” July 2005.
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