Creating a startup based on first-hand experience of problems in the legal sector. We discuss what it takes to take a problem experience first-hand and then build a product and find an audience for your new product.
Episode Links
Connect with Charles on LinkedIn
Episode Transcript
Matthew Todd
Hi.
My name is Matthew Todd, and welcome to Inside the Scale Up. This is the podcast for founders, executives in tech, looking to make an impact and learn from their peers within the tech business, we lift the lid on tech businesses, interview leaders and following their journey from startup to scale up and beyond covering everything from developing product market fit, funding and fundraising models to value proposition structure and growth marketing.
We learn from their journey so that you can understand how they really work, the failures, the success the lessons along the way, so that you can take their learnings and apply them within your own startup or scale up and join the ever growing list of high growth UK SAS businesses.
Hey, and welcome back to the podcast. Here today with Charles Brecque as always our our let Charles as with the other founders introduce themselves introduced their business, but they’re really excited to have you on today. And thank you for taking the time. Yeah, thank you, Matt, for having me.
Charles Brecque
So yeah, I’m Charles Brecque founder and CEO of legislate, we started two years ago in Oxford, really to make contracting and contracts easier for non lawyers. And we’re doing that by making contracts machine readable, which means that we’re using technology to automate the creation of contracts, but also the sharing of the data in those contracts with the systems that you interact with, so that ultimately contracting workflows can be streamlined.
Matthew Todd
Awesome, i not i look forward to digging into the, the detail of exactly what that means, as as well as obviously some of the business side of the details as well.
But I guess first up is, is what led to you kind of founding legislation in the first place? What was your your background and enabled you to do that? And I know from our previous discussion, you are not a lawyer. So yeah, interesting to hear how you got started.
Charles Brecque
Yeah. So although I’m not a lawyer, I was doing business development and another startup, and was effectively the middleman between our legal team and clients, legal teams. So I was always, you know, maybe filling in and the template, sharing it, and then waiting for feedback.
And then, you know, looking at the feedback, sharing it with legal, etc. So I effectively saw a lot of contracts dealt with a lot of contracts learned a lot about what should or shouldn’t be in a contract. But ultimately, it was frustrated by how long it would take a simple document, whereas an NDA or a very low value, POC agreement to be processed. And one of the key reasons was because, you know, these documents were never quite a high enough priority for legal teams, which meant that most of the time, we were just waiting for them to look at the contract. And then once they looked at the contract, the feedback was generally always the same.
So what I thought was, why don’t we create a digital platform that me the business user can use to create those documents and have them reviewed without necessarily getting legal teams involved, so that they can to some extent, you know, trust the technology to delegate to, you know, non lawyers, business users, so that they can actually take those decisions themselves. But all within a safe and robust framework. So that was two years ago. And yet, we we’ve built that platform, and we’ve got, you know, 1000s of users and many customers.
Matthew Todd
Awesome. And I think that’s, it’s always good when you hear the founder kind of knows and experiences that pain point is pretty common with people we we have on the podcast that we speak to as they were in that situation, and that that was the thing that motivated them to try and get something off the ground.
So how did you then go from experiencing that pain point, having the idea, you’re seeing the opportunity to, to validating it to starting to build?
Charles Brecque
Yep, so first of all, I needed a bit of capital, because although, you know, I did study engineering, I’m not a developer, I knew how to dabble in code. So I, you know, created a very, very rudimentary, you know, mock up of what the app will look like, how it work and the underlying technology. And, and then I pitched some of the angels that invested in the startup I was working at, and through that shirred, an initial 150,000 In angel funding.
And, you know, then left, left my startup, but I left on good terms, which was, I think, very important because, you know, they, they taught me everything and I also wanted to certain extent, build my app for them so that they could also benefit from it. So you know, I think that’s just one key insight as always, Always leave on good terms don’t make unnecessary enemies. And, and they were very supportive as well.
So that was great. So with that 150, built the first version with some consultants. And then we got a couple of early customers from the local Oxford startup network. And I think that the turning point was we came across a large student landlord, who didn’t want to, you know, it was bang in the middle of lockdown. So didn’t want to, you know, have too much human interaction when onboarding student tenants to the properties, and therefore legislate would be a good fit, and it works. And this will help them save, you know, tons of hours, but but more importantly, you know, it was all online.
So they had all the data, they had all the audit trails that they need for their compliance purposes. And and that was the key point that we use to then raise a million pounds last year from one of the venture funds that was also invested in that startup. So I pretty much just worked with Mike within my network to where I had a track record to secure that funding and and then build out the products initially with consultants. And then when we had enough funding, then we grew out the team properly with a proper team.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, no, see, no, that’s good to, to know that you had that network, then as you say, you you didn’t alienate that net, alienate that network by trying to jump ship as it were, but you were able to kind of do that in a way that added value to them as well. Yeah, yeah. I think, ultimately, you know, this is a problem that that startup had, and I wanted to solve for them. Yeah, absolutely. So you kind of mentioned that you’re kind of later that that second kind of round of funding, then in that bigger round of funding enables you to start to build that see, what does the team look like now?
Charles Brecque
Yeah. So today, we’re a team of 12. And we’ve got a tech team of seven. And and then a non non technical team of five. So.
Matthew Todd
And, you know, what, are they working in office? Are they remote? Are they all in Oxford? Are they distributed? What does that kind of look like, you know, these days for? For that kind of tech team? That was right for you?
Charles Brecque
Yeah, so I’d say as, as most startups, you know, the team you start with isn’t necessarily the steam the team you end up with, in the long run. And obviously, we’ve got, you know, some some people have been here since the beginning. But what we ended up doing is keeping an Oxford our legal team sales and marketing, but also our Knowledge Graph team. Because ultimately, the the technology which underpins the platform, is a knowledge graph. And that’s kind of born in the, in Oxford at the University of Oxford.
So that’s why it is key for us to have had that team here. And we are proper software development team, in Seville in Spain. And that happened with locked down as well. We had a great candidate apply. And we thought why not? And when we secured that funding, then it was we just thought, Well, why don’t we build that? Because it’s working with this great, you know, tech lead? Why don’t we build a team around him now? so and so?
Yeah, we’ve got two offices. Everyone’s goes in their respective offices. But yeah, one office is in Oxford and one offices in Sydney. So it’s, it’s not removed, but you know, it’s to two teams in two locations, two hubs then basically, rather than fully distributed. Exactly. Cool. So having kind of got it, you know, passed that proof of concept stage started to get those first customers, you know, how did you then start to grow that, that customer base early on? Yeah, so we started with friendlies.
And, you know, they were really crucial for shaping the product, providing feedback, but also, you know, understanding where, where do they find value in our product, because we obviously had a hypothesis around where they get value from using legislate, but, you know, everyone is different.
Everyone has their own, you know, views opinions. So it was it was very useful to kind of identify, you know, ultimately, where’s the ROI for them? And we kind of did a bit of outbound to try and find more similar companies. But but I’d say where we were the most success was through I’m inbound. So in my previous role in my business efforts, because I was selling machine learning technology, I always wrote articles as a way of the, for myself, learning more about what it is that I was selling, but also to help clients get a taster, or primer of what it is that we actually were selling, before going into these conversations, so I thought for what we’re doing, it’s really useful because we’re targeting non lawyers who have contracts to create.
So which means that they’re probably not experts in contracts, or probably don’t create contracts often. Or if they do, then, you know, they they’re, they’re struggling. And so really what we did was we decided to publish a lot of content. Last year, we put out 180 articles this year, where we’re already at 350 in total now. And and just by putting out that content regularly, having almost every single team member contribute meant that, you know, very quickly, we ended up getting some organic leads. And, and through that our efforts have been then focused on what how do we get a free sign up to a paying customer. But ultimately, that’s where we’ve been the most successful, and we’ve now got over 70 paying customers.
Matthew Todd
Excellent. I think that’s, that’s obviously the approach approach that we promote the recommend with people that we work with, you know, outbound is only going to get you so far, it’s trying to find the the 1% of the 1%, almost that are ready to buy right now, but also have, you know, already gone through enough of the decision making process that they are in a position to buy. But then if they’ve done that they’ve probably been educated by someone else and already have somebody else’s product in mind.
So I certainly would recommend a content based approach alongside other elements as well. So how did you find out what works from a content perspective, because I see a lot of people trying to put out content, they’ll hear people recommending, oh, I need to do content. And then they’ll probably pay a copywriter to write a bland piece of copy that is pretty generic and isn’t very value adding So so how did you approach that? How do you approach that?
Charles Brecque
So yeah, we don’t use copywriters. And not that I have anything against copywriters, but I feel like a as a startup, we don’t have that much money, objectively speaking. And, and second of all, it’s much faster for us internally to produce and publish an article then, you know, wait a week for a copywriter to produce a piece of content. So it was all about speed, as opposed to, you know, strategy.
Charles Brecque
So I think we definitely wind by just thinking, what are the problems that our customers have? And what problems might they be, you know, what, what queries might they be searching for, to solve those problems?
So it was more just, you know, making sure that we had enough content on our blog to kind of address the various questions of the key topics. And for us pick would either be a contract type that we offer, or, you know, questions around that contract, or, you know, if you think of the day in the life of your persona, target persona customer, you know, what are the things that they might do?
So if it’s a small business, they might do some accounting, or whatever. And so how can we try to attract those customers? So I’d say for the first first six months, it was definitely very, just making sure there was velocity and publishing around those topics. And I think, you know, by using tools like Google Search Console, you can also see what queries your customers or people are using to find you. So that also led to a lot of new topics that we hadn’t thought of, and was a great way to just put out content.
But I’d say in terms of content. The other key thing to remember is that, you know, there’s there’s just because someone is searching for employment contract doesn’t mean they want to create an employment contract. And what’s really important is to make sure that you have content which resonates with different levels of intent. Because if you only have, you know, research type content, so content that a customer will be searching as they’re doing research, then at the end of the day, the chances of them becoming a customer are very slim, because they’re not ready to buy it. So I think what’s really key is to make sure that you have a right balance between content that will educate and content which is maybe a bit more transactional around, okay, you want to create that employment contract. This is how you do it. And as long as you’ve kind of got both, then then I think you can really start to see an ROI. Because both feed into each other. And, and yeah, I rambled a bit. So sorry.
Matthew Todd
No, no, that makes make sense, I think you definitely do need to be putting out content and, and getting your opinion across it at different stages in that kind of buyers journey and decision making process. I think too many people try and jump in at the last second, probably because they’re they’re kind of taught told by all these kind of ad tech tools that you get some someone to a, you’ve got to get a particular click through rate to get someone to a landing page, and you’ve got to get a particular conversion rate. And then your problems are solved. But it’s all focused on the latter part of the journey.
But I think you you definitely do need that balance across the throughout that buyers journey throughout that decision making process, as you say, so you’re not just picking somebody up at one point in that process, you know, you, you do kind of stay with them throughout that process to build that trust. So when they are ready to buy, they will already be knowing where they’re going to go. Exactly. So in terms of the next steps, then, you know, you’ve got contents, bringing people to you mentioned kind of the free entry point, what does that kind of customer journey look like from that point, then to become a paying customer?
Charles Brecque
Yeah, so I mean, it’s free to register an account. But if you want to create contracts, then you need to pay. And, you know, we allow everyone to kind of see a demo contract, we allow everyone to start setting the terms of their contracts, but it’s only if and when they want to view the contract or electronically signed that they actually need to pay. So, so I’d say, you know, in terms of the user journey, it’s we try to make it as easy as possible, so that people do actually, once they’ve registered, create a contract.
And I think that’s also where, you know, if you have content, if you’ve if you’ve not been to if you haven’t been to footfall with your content, you might end up getting leads, which are effectively just people signing up because they want to see what’s what your app does, but they’re not actually interested in things. You know, so we do get users who sign up and they actually create a contract. So really, what we want to do is want to make sure that a were attracting people who want to create contracts, and be we make it as easy as possible for them to set the terms of their contract so that they can be in a position to, you know, pay to unlock it and sign.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, nicely. I think that that’s a very smart strategy. And I think people can get too caught up in these kind of false metrics of number of leads, or cost per lead, or whatever it might be. But the fact is that a lot of marketers will, will tell you that a lead is basically anyone willing to swap their email address for content or their email address for a demo, but you’re quite right, that many of those people probably would not be in a position to buy, there would not be a good fit. So yeah, it’s good that you’ve been able to kind of identify with the importance of quality rather than just kind of gaming the numbers.
Charles Brecque
Yeah, exactly. And is that something that your investors and other team members needed convincing of? Or are they kind of pretty smart enough to recognize the quality of customer is important? No, I think I think they recognize that because ultimately, if there is no quality, then you have no customers. The so. So I think there’s that. But I think, you know, the other thing that we’ve been working on is making sure that we properly nurture customer leads once they’ve signed up.
Because I think, you know, it’s, there’s also customers who generally want to become customers, but you know, they have their own jobs, they’ve got their own lives, so they need to do things. And so there might be that they need a nudge to come back to the app, you know, either the next day or an evening, etc. So, so I think, you know, just because someone has saved their terms for their contracts, and they’ve, they’re really, really qualified. You still need to, you know, set them up for success because I’ve always been you don’t end up getting customers as well or you end up losing customers because they might, you know, forget or they might find a solution which is easier.
Matthew Todd
Now, that makes makes sense, I think, yeah, you do certainly need to stay on top of that and not make assumptions about you know, bothering people or anything else. At that stage. I think a lot of people can be too hesitant to kind of nudge people back into in engagement. I think, you know, certainly the first 30 days or even the first, you know, up to 60, potentially days are, are critical in terms of making sure people are engaged with your platform in order to then get them to convert to a paying customer, but also then to ensure that they get the value from the platform beyond that as well.
Charles Brecque
Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew Todd
So, you mentioned obviously, the content based approach as well, I know, we talked before, you mentioned some plans through through partnerships, I’d love to kind of hear a little bit of more about what those kind of partnership plans might might look like.
Charles Brecque
Yeah, so I think content is great. It’s somewhat predictable. And once you’ve done the work, it doesn’t cost you any more work, if that makes sense. And, you know, if your domain reputation and everything goes well, then you know, The Searchers and reward you with more traffic.
And, you know, in our case, traffic has been compounding organically, quite steadily every every month. And you know, that leads to more signups leads to more customers. But I think, you know, there’s only so much that content can do at a certain pace, and we’re there for a certain amount of budget, if that makes sense. So, we’ve been doing as we’ve been looking at ways to really scale, our customer base. And obviously, we still do outbound.
Because outbound is also very useful for, you know, maybe getting a lot more feedback from your customers, even if they’re not interested, at least you might understand what it is that they’re thinking about, because one thing about Inbound customers is, yes, they’re more likely to become a customer, but they’re also less likely to share feedback. So So I think it’s important to do some outbound so that you do have that, at least some communication and, etc. But I think where we’re where we’re scaling is really through partnerships with with companies that also serve as our target market. So, but obviously, for tangential services.
And, and yeah, we’ve just partnered with one of the UK’s largest company formation groups, to help, you know, entrepreneurs that are incorporated in their business, help them, you know, start off with some, you know, a great suite of lawyer proof contracts, cost effectively. And, you know, that that should hopefully, really, you know, help us get to the other level of a level. But we’re also thinking of partnerships to really offer a complete user experience to our customers. So if you’re a landlord, or, or a small business, or whatever, you might need insurance, you know, there various other services that are connected to your contract.
And by being able to write policies, you know, we hope to offer a more complete experience and an in turn also make increase customer stickiness, if that makes sense. Yeah, is the offering a more complete solution to particular kinds of segments and types of customers? Yeah, exactly.
Matthew Todd
Cool. No, excellent. I think partnerships are on definitely something to explore once you’ve got that product market fit. But I would say also, you need to have that go to market fit that you’ve got as well with the content based approach.
So then you do have something more tangible to go to those potential partners with, but I think you also do get to be a bit more strategic about the partners that you take on how you manage those partners. Rather than just oh, we’re early stages, you know, would you be interested in reselling this for us and everyone has a great conversation they probably want leads from you and vice versa. And then you know, no one actually gets any leads, but you have a lot of conversations.
Charles Brecque
Yeah, no, I think you know, we definitely you know, we only approved partnerships in the past couple of months you know, after a good year and a half of building a product and going to market and you’re right I think if you didn’t have a solid business model or app or customer stream then then partners won’t be interested and I think the the the type of partnership that you can do before though, is more content type partnerships where you know, I post on your blog you post on mine and you know, then helps your content strategy even more and it makes everyone seem a little bit bigger than they really are. And it also creates brand awareness with you know, the right target groups as well. You know, if you if you do a guest post with on a you know, a If a tangential solution or whatever, or a potential future partner, then it also helps create some awareness before you do reach that stage where you can properly partner.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s very smart. I think looking for content partnerships early on, and then you know, there’s fulfillment or white label partners, once you’ve, you’ve got past that stage of products and go to market fit is definitely a very good approach to help with, with growth. So you can I mentioned at the beginning, the looking to make contracts machine readable, as well as human readable, so you can do other things. With that data, I’d love to know kind of more about what that looks like in practice, and what that that could evolve into?
Charles Brecque
Yeah, so I think the the key thing is that a contract, which is not machine readable, typically is only lawyer readable, which means that, you know, if you’re not a lawyer, it can be challenging to really understand, you know, if your contract is a good contract, if it has everything you need, or more importantly, what might be if there are things missing from a contract. And if you’re not a lawyer, it’s really difficult to answer those questions. The other issue is that it’s also difficult post signature to track what’s in your contract.
But it’s also difficult to answer questions post signature about, you know, how many of my employees refer to the next period? Or how many of them on a probation period ending in two weeks? Can we report to a certain line manager? These are all questions which are really difficult to answer, because contracts are not machine readable. So we make contracts machine readable using Knowledge Graph technology, which is we’ve had two patents granted, and a third one pending for this whole approach.
And knowledge graphs are a branch of AI that Google uses to structure the web to establish connections and allow a relevant and efficient navigation of the web. And so we’ve taken that same approach for modeling contracts and documents, which means that you can query your contracts, you can get those insights very quickly, all using, you know, digitally and without having to actually read the contract or without actually having to ask a lawyer to answer those questions. So that, I guess, was a very technical introduction.
But from a user’s perspective, they don’t you know, they don’t know that necessarily that they’re interacting with a knowledge graph. All they know is that they’re creating a contract by answering questions and a formed question and answer type style, in a very simple form. Questions are all interlinked, and, you know, if, if, for example, you select something, then questions which are not relevant disappear.
And we’ve got a lot of flexibility, thanks to the Knowledge Graph, which means that really, you know, compared to other document builders, so we have a Document Builder, that’s kind of how you create a contract. But we have a lot more flexibility, thanks, a knowledge graph. And then after the documents generated, everything is tracked in the Knowledge Graph. So So I say you, it’s really giving control to our users the data that’s in their contracts?And, and yeah, no,
Matthew Todd
I think that is a very, very different approach. I think it’s a very, very powerful approach. And yeah, I can already see some really powerful use cases, yes, for kind of reporting on that data, but also, you know, integrating with that data as well.
You know, I can imagine that an onboarding and process for a new employee, you as you say, you’ve got the kind of holiday terms, you’ve got the, you know, the salary and everything else in the contract. So why not push it out from that contracts into all of the other systems and places that it? It needs to be?
Charles Brecque
Yeah, that’s, that’s really the plan, we’ve, you know, there’s we’re going one step at a time. We focus first on making the data usable to our users. And we definitely in the longer term to make that data exchangeable with their services so that you don’t have to manually re enter that information across the systems that you use. And I think that’s very powerful. I think there’s a lot of potential though. And one thing you you mentioned, there was IP protection. What does that look like in practice?
Yeah, so I think as as a startup, it’s really important to protect your IP, because ultimately, you know, 99% of the value of your businesses is your IP, or at least at least from the investor’s perspective. And so IP needs to be protected.
But what That means in practice as you need to have a moat around your IP to prevent competitors from using it or appropriating it. So obviously, you can protect your IP on a case by case basis with contracts and NDAs. But that doesn’t scale beyond businesses or people or consultants that you’re interacting with. So we took the approach to the decision to file patents to protect our approach give us a bit more protection.
And we did that by filing in the US because the US is typically the first market you fall in because you can accelerate the application process, which you can’t do in other jurisdictions. And that’s how we were able to get our patents granted quickly. And then after is what you do is you then convert your patterns across into, you know, patterns of other jurisdictions via international patent treaties.
And then it goes through them maybe more of the typical process in each of those jurisdictions. So but at least there’s a precedent of a patent in a jurisdiction, which, for our case, also happens to be our, you know, the biggest market in terms of size. We’re not in the US yet, but at least we’ve got coverage there. So yeah, we’ve we’ve got two patterns, a third one pending. And I say the plan is definitely to build a portfolio of patents. So that we have as a maximum coverage of our protection.
And, and then that’s, that’s what we’re doing. But I say, you know, ultimately, what’s what’s even better than patterns is just execution and just growing quickly, and getting lots of users and lots of customers in all these jurisdictions, because the sooner we do that, the sooner we’ll just have market dominance.
Matthew Todd
Yeah. No, it makes sense. I think you definitely good to have as much protection as you can. But you know, you need that growth. Alongside that, otherwise, you don’t have a business. So you said that kind of us first approach makes a lot of sense, because it’s the biggest market and route to kind of extending expanding that protection. You know, for other kind of founders of, you know, tech companies platforms. You know, how long does that kind of process? Take? How much does it cost?
Charles Brecque
You know, how difficult is it to try and go through that kind of process, you know, from a UK is seeking to get protection in the US? Yeah, so I think it’s it definitely isn’t as complicated as, as people think. I mean, it really also depends on if you’re a hardware or a software business. One of the patentability requirements is that it can’t be done in your head. And the problem with software is, if you write the steps down, then an examiner can always argue that it can be done in your head.
So I’d say, it’s really important to say it’s more of a, there’s a bit of a methodology to follow when it comes to writing patterns. Whereas for hardware, you can actually, you know, I wouldn’t say it’s easy to get a pattern, but the, the issue of it being with is it, something you can do the head is less likely to be an issue.
So I think those are the two things and then depending on which bucket you fall in, you can either choose to prepare the application yourself, which I think is always important. But the application needs to be prepared within a certain style.
And after all of that is free, you know, if you can do all the do all that for free, you can, you can also write your own claims, and you can file so then you just need to pay the filing fees, which are a couple of $100. And then if you want to accelerate the process, then it’s you know, a couple $100 Extra.
But where you probably do want to work with a patent attorney is is around the claims, because there is an art to how you design your claims. So that if ever an examiner kind of pushes back, then you end up with a fallback option, which is, you know, still something that you wanted, as opposed to not ending up with a fallback and having nothing. So there’s an art to how the claims are designed, and that’s where you probably do want to seek expertise. But there is also an art to the actual application.
So I you know, in our case, I wrote the applications but still worked with an examiner to a attorney sorry to shape the application and I don’t know if it if it helped, because I didn’t I haven’t done an application without the attorney. But I think, you know, it is it is quite, it can be quite complicated to really understand how everything works. And I think if you have budget, then I would definitely recommend to work with an attorney.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, that makes sense. I think, you know, there are a lot of startups scaleups, that probably don’t have the right contracts in place to start with, and obviously, a platform like yours can certainly help with that. But I think also they don’t often have the right level of, of other types of IP protection in place, even just with the more limited set that you can do in the UK, but certainly further afield as well.
You know, a lot of companies will have that ambition of going to the States, you know, it’s a very, very big markets for for a lot of a lot of companies, obviously. So I think yeah, getting that protection early on does make a lot of sense. Otherwise, your, your growth plans might be kind of held back before they even started. Exactly. So what’s next for for legislators? And I know, you talked about some of the more data related items, but how do you see kind of legislate growing over the next next couple of years?
Charles Brecque
Yeah, so in our case, we’ve built a product, we’ve got customers users, we’re obviously adding more contract types, to the platform so that we really can ensure that our customers can create anything that they need to create and legislate. But I’d say our next phase of growth will be coming from API. So we’re building a public API version of our platform, so that other software platforms can integrate legislate into their workflows to offer, you know, offer contracting in their apps.
And so I’d say, you know, we’ve we’ve had quite a lot of interest from some property related platforms. We’re kind of exploring how that looks like in practice. And I think that will lead to some very interesting use cases and insights, but we’re also looking at employment. And effectively, yeah, trying to kind of work out which platforms we can grow with. And I’m sure that once we’ve actually integrated them, we’ll end up with a lot more users a lot more customers, and then it’ll be interesting to see. You know, what, what problems emerge from that, or opportunities International?
Matthew Todd
Yeah, fantastic. That sounds sounds like you’ve got a lot of clarity on that vision, a lot of plans for for growth based on that as well. So I think, yeah, sounds like you’ve done a great job of launching legislated a potentially tricky time, and I wish you all the best in in growing it over the next next few kind of months, and, and years. So before we go, is there anything else? Any other kind of bits of advice that you’d give to kind of fellow startups scale up founders?
Charles Brecque
Yeah, I mean, I think the key piece of advice is, you know, my legal might seem like an unnecessary expense. And, you know, I’d say most cases, legal bills are way too expensive. For what, what you are, and I think, especially if you’re a startup founder, you pretty much only get one shot at making it right.
So, you know, if you have limited funding, it might seem like a massive gamble to spend a couple of 1000 pounds on one set of documents. And I agree, you know, it’s a huge expense, and it isn’t actually going to move your business forward. All it will do is protect your business, in case something goes wrong, and things do go wrong. And, and I’d say if you kind of appreciate that things can go wrong, and that you do need good contracts that the lawyer approved.
And I definitely suggest checking out legislate, because we offer all the lawyer proof contracts, we get our library templates, from the same libraries as law firms, and our legal teams go through them. And really, I’d say adapt them so that they’re written in plain English, but also adapt them so that you can, you know, get the flexibility that you want. So, you know, for example, you’re hiring a software developer, there’s a question and will, if you select it, add some extra clauses, which are relevant software developers. And then post signature you have all your contracts in one place, which, you know, it might seem like an overkill if you have a team of five, but you will still generate contracts and then If and when you do reach a point where you need to raise funding, and go through due diligence process, then you’ve effectively automated, you know, hours and hours of, or even days of what would work by using legislate. So I’d say kind of is, you know, the tool that you should start using as early as possible in your journey.
Because it will, the benefits will compound in time. And especially as you do grow, you know, it will make your life so much easier, you’ll have the data, you’ll be able to create new contracts faster, and you’ll be compliant.
Matthew Todd
Cool, I think that’s great advice, I’ll be dropping obviously links to legislate in the in the notes for this episode as well. So people can, can take a look, check it out and see if it’s a good fit for them. But I think especially that point on due diligence is, is really important for a lot of startup founders, especially if they’re looking to fundraise at some point, too many, you know, have regret at that point when they start to go through those processes and you know, can be painful processes.
So if there are simple things that can make their lives easier and more cost effective, more time effective in the early days, that’s, that’s going to compound as you save. And I think those type of efforts are certainly worth doing. So. Yeah, thank you for that. I think there’s a lot of interesting lessons for startups scale up from here, not least the importance of, you know, product market fits content based approaches that pick up the right kinds of customers. So thank you for taking the time today. And yeah, I look forward to catching up again, soon hearing how some of those growth plans have had been able to help move things forward for you.
Charles Brecque
Yeah, thank you, Matt, for having me and the the opportunity to give legislative platform for your audience.
Matthew Todd
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Inside the ScaleUp. Remember for the show notes and in depth resources from today’s guest. You can find these on the website insidethescale up.com can also leave feedback on today’s episode, as well as suggest guests and companies you’d like to hear from. Thank you for listening