Thirty-five years is a long time in any industry. In tech, it’s practically a lifetime. As Paperclip Inc. marks its 35th anniversary, it’s worth pausing to ask: what does it actually take to not just survive, but thrive through three decades of vast technological changes while keeping your customers happy?
The short answer, according to Paperclip CEO and co-founder William Weiss: integrity, accountability, and a relentless commitment to evolving to meet the needs of your customers.
“Staying still is going backwards,” Weiss says simply. It’s a philosophy that has guided Paperclip since day one, and it’s why companies that started working with Paperclip more than 20 years ago are still customers today.
From File Cabinets to the Cloud: A Problem Worth Solving
When Weiss and co-founder Mike Suleski launched Paperclip in 1991, the problem they set out to solve seemed simple: companies were drowning in paper and businesses needed an affordable, powerful, document management system to keep up with operations.
“Companies have always struggled with their documents, including paper files, emails, spreadsheets,” Weiss explains. “They needed a way to have them organized in a fashion that was easy to retrieve, and we needed to make it cost-effective and intuitive.”
Paperclip’s solution to this challenge was Virtual Client Folder (VCF) — a digital filing system designed to feel as natural as the physical filing cabinets people already knew. The logic was elegant: if people were comfortable retrieving documents from physical drawers and folders, why not give them a digital interface that worked the same way? It resonated immediately, particularly in the life and annuities insurance market, where managing sensitive client documents was a daily necessity.
What started as a DOS-based application evolved into a Windows product, then made the leap to cloud computing — a major transition for clients who looked to Paperclip to guide them through their technical evolutions.
“Many customers who use Paperclip software have very strategic information and were more comfortable keeping it all in-house,” Weiss recalls. “When our VCF technology moved to the cloud, it was more difficult for them to embrace.”
The primary concerns related to the ability to secure high-value data. The Paperclip team navigated those concerns by doing what they always do: listening closely and making sure the transition felt seamless from the customer’s perspective. Ultimately, it led to a more advanced and more secure solution for Paperclip’s users.
Innovation on Their Own Terms
Paperclip’s 35-year run is due in part to its ability to not only keep pace with change, but also built a product roadmap that has consistently been driven by foundational customer need rather than industry hype and unnecessary noise.
In 1998, Paperclip launched Internet eXpress — essentially a digital FedEx for documents — allowing its users to securely send and exchange files long before file sharing was a mainstream concern. In 2007, it added eM4 (now Cmail), an encrypted email solution for sensitive business-to-consumer communications. The Mojo solution, launched in 2015, brought patented data capture and transcription technology to clients looking to go paperless, cutting data processing time in half through machine learning and predictive analytics.
“We listen to our customers, and I think listening to our customers’ needs and coming up with solutions around those needs is what has kept us successful,” says CTO Mike Suleski. “No one is working in a bubble. Everyone really understands what we’re trying to solve from a customer point of view — and that’s what’s important in developing product.”
Its most recent major innovation, SAFE, takes that customer-first mindset to a new level. Built initially as the advanced encryption backbone of Paperclips own internal systems, SAFE was brought to market in 2022 as an advanced data security solution that protects data not just at rest or in transit, but while it’s actively in use, in production — a distinction that sets it apart from other encryption tools on the market today. Focused on keeping high-value data secure throughout it’s lifecycle, SAFE also secures AI use cases and is post-quantum resistant. With four U.S. patents and five international patents to its name (with more pending), Paperclip isn’t just talking about security — they’re protecting it at every layer.
Remote Work? They Were Doing It in 2000.
When the world scrambled to go remote in 2020, Paperclip employees barely noticed. The Hackensack-based company had already been fully remote for nearly two decades.
What started from necessity while building a business adjacent to the metropolis of New York has evolved into a revered culture of successful remote work.
“It wasn’t possible for us to compete with large Fortune 1000 companies hiring people in the NYC area, so we went ahead and started looking for talent no matter where they resided,” Weiss explains.” That decision, made around the year 2000, turned out to be a massive competitive advantage. Today, Paperclip’s 27 employees work across 10 states, and the company can recruit the best talent available without geographic constraints.
The tools for hiring have changed, Weiss notes, but the values haven’t. “You need to have people who have integrity and are willing to work hard. We have always been dedicated to creating an environment where good people can do their best work — that is critical.”
The Secret to 35 Years? Never Stop Reinventing.
Ask Weiss what he’s most proud of and he doesn’t point to a product or a patent. He points to trust.
“From the beginning, Paperclip dealt with other people’s most sensitive documents, so trust was key to our success,” he says. “We always believed in doing right by the customers, even when in the short term it might have been to our detriment. That’s why we have customers that have been with us for more than 20 years. That doesn’t happen by accident — that happens when you have integrity, accountability, and security.”
Suleski echoes the sentiment from a product perspective: “As we transitioned from DOS to Windows and to the cloud, the changes were seamless from a customer point of view. We made sure our solutions remained intuitive and simple to use.” Behind the scenes, though, those transitions required the development team to essentially rewrite the entire application multiple times. That kind of commitment to doing things right, even when no one sees it, is a big part of why Paperclip is still standing.
“It’s easy to fall in love with what made you successful, but that is dangerous,” Weiss says, with the candor of someone who’s seen a lot in his 35 years leading the company. “Staying relevant means you have to be willing to reinvent yourself when change occurs. The moment you stop listening to your customers and stop seeing what changes are happening in the industry is the time you will no longer be successful.”
What’s Next: AI, Secure E-Signatures, and the Next Chapter
So what does the future look like? If you ask the Paperclip team, it will be led by embracing new technologies and leveraging them in meaningful ways.
“AI is already changing how we develop our products,” says Suleski. “And AI will change how users can search data and analyze data; it’s going to make a big difference.” Paperclip is already integrating AI-driven capabilities into its solutions, with a firm commitment to maintaining the security standards their clients have come to expect.
Later in 2026, Paperclip will also bring SIGN to market — a secure e-signature solution designed to address the rising costs and security vulnerabilities that plague popular e-signing tools today. Enhancements to VCF and SAFE to align with AI initiatives are also on the roadmap.
For a company that’s been helping businesses harness the power of their data for three and a half decades, the next wave of change isn’t something to fear. It’s the next opportunity to do what they’ve always done: listen, innovate, and never, ever stand still.
Want to learn more about Paperclip’s solutions for insurance and financial services? Visit www.paperclip.com.
