Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
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Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#2Did they prove or felt like they proved product market fit before they hired loads of lawyers? I wonder how that worked. (Serious question, not trying to be critical).
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#3[deleted]
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#4Did they prove or felt like they proved product market fit before they hired loads of lawyers? I wonder how that worked. (Serious question, not trying to be critical).
Companies who raise $75mm don't lay off massive chunks of their workforce because they found product-market fit.
Justin raised $75mm because he's Justin, and for all VCs posture like they're contrarian risk-takers, they're absolutely not and would have invested in shit in a box if Justin said it was his.
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#5>Its goal was to improve on the traditional law firm model, by developing software to improve efficiency for both its attorneys and clients.
Any word on what they actually were doing to gain these efficiencies?
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#6Last I heard part of the idea behind the lawyering was that it'd give valuable in-house experience to develop the tools. What changed there? Did they get a big contract with Orrick to replace the in-house lawyers?
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#7I worked at a company that experimented with them. We had a lot of legal spend to white shoe firms (multiple) and wanted to give Atrium a try.
They had a flat monthly rate, and then a la carte billing if you needed extra things, IIRC. The real problem was, when we needed something reviewed or worked on, they couldn't deliver on time or promise any guaranteed deadline. My CEO was very frustrated.
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#8> Even lawyers aren't immune to the unpredictability of working for a startup—and the appeal of generating high margins from selling software instead of human services.
Companies tend to do the opposite, though, right? Apple could increase its margins by selling iOS and the Ax processor IP. But it makes more “boatloads of money” selling hardware, even at lower margins. Instead of selling IP, Apple uses its superior IP to dominate the market for phones.
Its likely the issue isn’t margins, but scalability. Scaling a law firm is difficult to impossible due to conflict of interest rules. That’s why the largest international law firms have 4,000 lawyers while PWC has 230,000 accountants and advisors. That puts a low ceiling on how much you can scale while doing actual legal work.
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#9>Its goal was to improve on the traditional law firm model, by developing software to improve efficiency for both its attorneys and clients. Any word on what they actually were doing to gain these efficiencies?
If I had to guess based on parsing these articles, Atrium went up against incentives in the legal industry and lost. [0,1]
Legal firms bill hourly. Efficiency means less billable hours.
(warning: moving into personal experience and conjecture) Yes, boilerplate forms for repetitive use cases seems like it should be a thing, but in my experience building businesses, every lawyer I have dealt with has found any reason possible to have custom documents.
It's also not clear they ever found Product/Market Fit. [2,3] > This week Kan confirmed that the company has completed its fundraising process, raising $10.5 million > as Atrium goes through its product development phase and tries to achieve product-market fit.
[0] https://abovethelaw.com/2017/09/competition-is-for-losers-th... [1] https://abovethelaw.com/2017/10/justin-kan-answers-the-call-... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/15/justin-kan-atrium-lts-fund... [3] https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/10/atrium-legal/
Re: Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools
#10Did they prove or felt like they proved product market fit before they hired loads of lawyers? I wonder how that worked. (Serious question, not trying to be critical).
Companies who raise $75mm don't lay off massive chunks of their workforce because they found product-market fit. Justin raised $75mm because he's Justin, and for all VCs posture like they're contrarian risk-takers, they're absolutely not and would have invested in shit in a box if Justin said it was his.
Being willing to back a founder primarily based on who they are is absolutely a viable form of risk-taking.