Imagine if you performed a really important job, and you weren’t paid well, and no one respected you. No, you’re not a teacher . . . you started a legal technology company! Congratulations — please find a discount coupon to Target for office supplies.
Starting a company from scratch is hard. It’s hard even if you have a preexisting brand — because it takes some time to associate your reputation to a new brand. It’s hard even if you had some seed money squirreled away — because everything (especially software development) is going to cost you more than you think it will. If this is the first time you’re starting a business of any kind, go ahead and grab your shinebox.
When you compose your initial team, you and others, you’ll ostensibly have C-Suite (chief-something) titles. Somebody is the CEO (chief executive officer aka grand poobah), somebody is the COO (operations manager), somebody is the CTO (chief technology officer). Usually. Not all configurations work the same way. Sometimes you’ll have other C’s thrown in there, too— like the CMO (chief marketing officer), or some other shit someone just made up. (Just so you know, you can make up pretty much whatever titles you want for yourselves when you own your own business.). But, if we’re only drilling down to the level of the standard setup for a legal technology company, it makes sense that the three positions most frequently filled are the CEO (who is the visionary, and directs the overarching progress of the organization), the COO (who manages day-to-day operations) and the CTO (who oversees design of the technology). Those are the most important primary functions for a legal technology startup. The early challenge is twofold: (1) You have to be working your ass off, or you have to find people who are willing to work their asses off, upfront – usually for equity, not cash. This is not a situation where you’re going to be walking into a lot of cash, or have a readymade staff of minions — instead, you’re going to have to do all the work by yourselves, until your funding and/or revenue position justifies otherwise. Not everybody is willing to embrace that construct, even if it’s (hopefully)only for a (relatively) short period of time. (2) Ultimately, you’ve got to find people whose personalities stand up to their particular role. Not everybody is cut out to be (or wants to be) the CEO of an organization, in part because that person is the face of the company. That’s a lot of responsibility, and it’s a lot of exposure and it’s a lot of pressure. If you’re the more shy-and-retiring type, perhaps a COO role would be more your speed. Of course, at the beginning, everybody in the organizational chart is going to have difficulty adjusting to overly broad roles, and managing all of the too much that they all of a sudden have to do. If you’re working at an early stage startup, and you’re not feeling at least a little uncomfortable, you’re doing it wrong. So, use that as motivation. One of the places where you can find the edge of fear and motivation is in sales. When you’re starting a company, everybody involved has to be a salesperson — yet, most people recoil at the term. Know now that if you’re in a legal technology startup and you’re not willing to sell your product, your company isn’t going anyway. So, embrace sales, learn key concepts, and employ them. After all, this part of the journey won’t last forever. Foundercide is real; and, it’s spectacular.
Certainly, it’s challenging to ‘find the right people’ — those who have the skill set they need with the right temperament, perhaps with a requirement of living in the right place . . . though, on that last checkbox, you may want to consider getting over yourself, and adopting a distributed workforce model. That all being said, it may take you a little while to feel comfortable with your choices. After all, these are big, big decisions — you’re bringing on people who will have an ownership interest in your business, and who will have a real say in the direction of the company. Not only do these folks have to represent the right choices ‘in a vacuum’ — they also have to fit in with the rest of your team. So, if you’re having trouble locating the right people, and you don’t want to rush it, you can contract out some of these roles. Although you probably would ‘t be contracting out for a CEO or a COO role in a legal tech startup situation — you could. And, certainly — most of those other roles can be up for grabs. You can find outside or contract CTOs or CMOs. If you go that route, though, just be sure to make sure that all of your intellectual property remains protected and remains yours. And, if you decide to farm out those roles, just understand that you lose some appeal for investors who are looking for a settled team, that will stay all in place, in part because they’re tied to your organization by more than just a personal services contract that could expire or be terminated at almost any time.
Remember that, by almost any startup valuation model, ‘team’ is one of the most important, if not the most important, drivers for capital investment.
I guess it’s true what they say: teamwork makes the dream work. So, don’t get a C-, when you’re filling out your C-Suite.
About the Author
Jared D. Correia, Esq. is the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, which provides business management consulting services to law firms and bar associations. Red Cave also advises startup companies and existing companies wishing to reach the legal vertical. Jared is a recognized subject matter expert on law firm management. He is a regular speaker for local, state and national bar associations and lawyers’ organizations and consistently writes for national legal publications, including this column for Above the Law. He prefers James Taylor and was in noticeably better shape before his kids were born.
