Key Takeaways: 

• The importance of timing the market even when you are innovating
• Why content creation is important nowadays
• How openBOM helps organize data in every step of the manufacturing process

Matt Strauss, CEO of RiseKit, left the venture capital world to pursue his passion for solving social problems. Matt discovered this passion from volunteering when he was asked to mentor a handful of young people. While trying to connect his mentees to jobs and resources, Matt ultimately met with over 1,000 public and private sector leaders across his favorite city, Chicago. He hit a moment of volunteer and activism fatigue when he realized he couldn't mentor more Chicagoans. That's when he went on to create RiseKit.

RiseKit’s platform connects overlooked job seekers with the community support, training programs, and employers they need to rise to better employment opportunities.

Podcast Summary: 

In this episode, Matt Strauss shares his journey on how RiseKit provides solutions to employers, nonprofits and community-based organizations to connect overlooked jobseekers to individualized job training, employment opportunities, and resources.

Key Takeaways in this Episode:

• Challenges faced in the government and non-profit sector
• How to sell to non-profit organizations and identifying their pain points
• Why passion for social changes is necessary in the funding part

Discovering His True Passion

Working as a venture capitalist 5 years ago was when Matt had the opportunity to mentor job seekers and entrepreneurs in Chicago. This constant interaction not only allowed him to understand their needs as challenges, but also discovered his true passion, which was helping people by combining VC and technology. 

How RiseKit Provides an Even Ground for Job Seekers

Matt found out that  under-resourced job seekers rely a lot on non-profit organizations. Oftentimes, staff members of these organizations use outdated technology to equip their job seekers. Employers, on the other hand, need to integrate a tracking system to automate the feedback loop of what happens in the application. Those steps take the employer front line recruiter 2-4 hours per non-profit partner to report that back. Having all that in one place as well as having access to real time data allows recruiters to simplify the process. 

How to Sell to Non-profit Organizations

Matt admits it is a tough market. However, there is a high level of loyalty once an organization becomes your customer. What worked for Matt was to create a free-to-pay model where they can have the first tier for free, an upgraded version, and the highest tier that is a version where they can customize everything based on their daily needs. This selling format has been way more effective than trying to sell to every single non-profit organization.

Challenges in Government and Non-Profit Organizations

Governments have legacy systems in place and therefore, there is a lot of education and mindset perspective shifting. For non-profit organizations, the CEOs tend to lose perspective of what happens in the front line: Trying to find more employer partners, trying to track job applications, and communicating with job seekers. Most of the time they become customers if a solution is provided for the first two pain points but still requires a particular approach. 

Passion and Relationships

Because of the type of solution RiseKit offers, any venture capitalist included in the first raise must have the same level of passion and desire to make this social impact. Matt admits that networking and relations were the main difference makers for the first funding obtained. If you are going to target this market, making a change in society must go first before profit-making. 

Connect with Matt:

Matt Strauss on LinkedIn

Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp

Dan O'Day is the CEO and Co-Founder of ECFX, an automated electronic court filing notice management system for law firms and corporate legal departments. Dan has years of experience in driving strategic vision in legal technology, previously as VP of Sales and Service at American LegalNet and multiple operations and product development roles at Elite and Thomson Reuters. Dan received his JD from Pepperdine and practiced complex civil litigation.

ECFX was founded by attorneys and legal technology experts with a single goal: to address unmet automation needs in the legal industry. They are committed to filling in the gaps in legal workflows with intelligently automated solutions, enabling firms to save time, gain control, mitigate risks, and improve visibility.

In this episode, Dan O’Day will provide us with insights on how automation is being recently introduced in the legal industry. Dan will share how this industry has been very resistant to changes in technology and how they are gradually helping the whole legal infrastructure to be a place that is more open to technological tools. 

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• The challenge of dealing with an industry resistant to technological changes
• Why networking and relationships are crucial during the early stage
• How Covid was a game changer to introduce technology in the legal industry
• No need to speak negatively about the competition in order to compete

Programming and Law

Working in the legal world since he was 16 years old, Dan was able to see that it was a very adversarial environment. And although he really connected with the intellectual side of it, he did not like the argumentative part, which made him move to tech, more specifically to programming. Dan took all this knowledge and applied it to the legal environment where he found out there was a lot of work to be done.

An Environment Resistant to Technological Changes 

Dan explains that when you practice law, you are taught the concept of "precedent". There was a decision made by the court, and that became the law, and the law must be followed so we all can have rules. That same mindset of "this has always worked in the past and it should work for us again" makes one naturally resistant to adopt new technology tools.

Covid as a Point of Inflection

A lot of that mindset changed with the pandemic. Lawyers were forced to embrace tools such as zoom to hold everyday interactions, which made them realize that this tech was actually beneficial for the entire field, especially when this is an industry with a lot of inefficiencies. This showed that time (one of the most valued resources in court) could be optimized in a better way by applying a lot of digital tools. 

The Importance of Network

One difference maker for ECFX’s success was the ability to use Dan's connections and relations during Covid. The technology was accepted and well taken since there was already a strong background in the legal environment and his presence and reputation was already known. Dan said, “When you engage with people, understand that whatever you do in this transaction will pay off in a future transaction.”

The Corporate Side

Other entities that ECFX assists are insurance companies and large companies. Oftentimes, corporations outsource litigation to law firms. Some corporations do some of the litigation in house and these are the ones that have the same problem law firms have: Court notices put on the system, automating files and pulling old files. ECFX is so efficient at this that they actually have a ROI calculator that they can show to the prospect how much they can save.

Legal Advice to SaaS Founders

If you are looking to be a venture funding company and ultimately looking for a clean exit, keep it simple. Start out either as a Delaware C. Corp or California C Corp and get good counsel, and although it costs money, it is totally worth it. Keeping this legal aspect in mind from the very beginning will help you in the future, even if this does not look like a priority during the early stage. 

The Future of Legal Tech

Although lawyers are irreplaceable, the field offers a lot of opportunities for automation in other areas such as adding the ability to deal with new files as well as pulling old files. Automating other workflows like medical records and ITC notices is something that is definitely in the landscape.

Connect with Dan:

Dan O'Day on LinkedIn

Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp