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Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast


Welcome to the Legal Tech StartUp Focus podcast from your podcast host, Charlie Uniman. 

On this podcast, I'll be interviewing the people who build, invest in, comment on and use the apps made by LegalTech startups.

My guests and I will be discussing many different startup-related topics, covering, among other things, startup management and startup life, startup investing, pricing and revenue models and the factors that affect how users decide to purchase legal tech.

We’re not going to focus on legal tech per se - instead, we’ll be focusing on the startups that develop, market and sell that tech.

So, whether you’re a startup founder or investor, a lawyer or other legal professional or a law professor, law student or commentator who thinks about legal tech startups — sit back, listen and learn from my guests about just what it takes for legal tech startups to succeed.

And if you’re interested in legal tech startups and enjoyed this podcast, please become a member of Legal Tech StartUp Focus, free online that I mentioned at the outset of this introduction, by signing up at www.legaltechstartupfocus.com.

Jul 7, 2020

Episode 15 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast with Rhys Hodkinson, Head of Growth at Define

In Episode 15 of the of Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Rhys Hodkinson, Head of Growth at Define (www.trydefine.com).

Rhys first discusses his professional background, describing how he moved from practicing at a UK law firm to earning his MBA in the UK and stepping next to heading growth at Define. Charlie and Rhys next talk about Define's product offering, with Rhys detailing how Define enables lawyers to master the reviewing, drafting, editing of defined terms in their contract documents -- all through an easy-to-use plug-in to the familiar Microsoft Word interface. Rhys goes on to explain why Define's use makes contract drafting more accurate and much faster.

Rhys offers pointers on marketing to law firms and legal departments (such pointers including, among other things: (i) finding (and supporting) in-firm and in-house evangelists, (ii) offering social media content and case studies that customers (and potential customers) actually find informative and otherwise of high value, (iii) offering continuing attention (e.g., with regular follow-up's) to existing customers (especially product champions) and (iv) being "present" by attending conferences and engaging with the legal tech community locally and more broadly).

From marketing, Rhys provides advice when it comes to a legal tech startup's customer onboarding efforts (here, describing how Define (i) gives priority to user experience and user interface, (ii) makes use of its corps of customer-champions/evangelists, and (iii) persists in its gathering customer feedback -- all with a view to making sure that, once licensed by a law firm or legal department, its customers' users adopt and consistently use Define's product).

Charlie asks Rhys what he and his leadership colleagues are most proud of from a management standpoint at Define (hint: its a team that's diverse in its viewpoints, supportive of team members and remarkably well-skilled).

Finally, Rhys talks about how the COVID crisis has been a "double-edge sword" as far as leading growth at a legal tech startup goes, with Rhys offering more advice to startup leadership when it comes to empathizing with customers during these challenging times, bringing even greater focus on Define's value proposition during ongoing contact with customers and properly using financial and other incentives to drive sales.