Compiled by Monica Bay

This is the first episode of a new CodeX Blog series, Take Two, where we revisit startups that were featured in our Startup Snapshot series. The first Startup Snapshot interview featured Casetext and Pablo Arredondo, so—of course—Casetext is our first Take Two report.

Casetext launched in 2013. CEO Jake Heller answered our questions.

 

> How has Casetext changed since Pablo Arredondo discussed its progress in July, 2015?

In July, 2016 we launched Casetext Pro, our premium subscription offering. Casetext Pro includes a number of features that help users effectively research the law. Its headline feature is the Case Analysis Research Assistant (aka “CARA”). Users can drag-and-drop a brief or memo into CARA, and it will quickly find cases that are relevant to, but not cited in, the document.

Selling Casetext Pro is an important change for us. For the first two years of the company, we focused on building up our database by developing high-powered research tools and content relationships with the legal community. After building the database, the content and key underlying technology, we were in a position to release Casetext Pro and start really building the business.

> How have your goals changed?

Our goal has always been to transform the way lawyers research. That begins by making the law free—and including the annotations necessary to understand it. Making Casetext a profitable business tool is an important part of our vision. The biggest change has been focusing on CARA. Building this machine-learning research assistant is quite a different challenge from building a free annotated database of the law—from technology, marketing, sales and messaging perspectives.

> Have you received funding?

Our investors include a Series A, led by Union Square Ventures in 2015 (They are also behind Twitter, Etsy, tumblr, and Zynga). We are also backed by Y Combinator (a Silicon Valley startup incubator) and we raised a $1.8 million seed round from various investors, including many attorneys and industry experts.

> The biggest surprise?

The biggest surprise is how our data science team turned CARA into a reality. When we dreamed the concept, my thought was “this would be really cool, but it’s probably impossible.” I assumed that the incredible skill necessary to parse through the law and find the right cases is something only humans can do—and it would take quite some time before computers could do a great job.

> The biggest challenge?

This is our first time selling a product. Selling to law firms and lawyers, who are extremely discriminating purchasers, meant learning a lot about the market fast, taking on a whole new set of skills and hiring a new group of people. It’s the kind of challenge I love—one wonderful thing about startups is that your job changes every time you take on a new endeavor. You keep learning and growing.

 

> Has your leadership changed?

The same people are still running the business, including COO and General Counsel Laura Safdie; and Vice President of Legal Research, Pablo Arredondo (who among other things, is the brainchild behind CARA and a CodeX Fellow.)

> Have you hired full- or part-time employees?

We’re still a pretty lean team—just 17 employees—but we’ve grown over the past year, across the company. We plan to continue growing the team over the next few months.

We’re building up our engineering and data science staff to continue improvements to our existing tools. We are responsive to feedback from our users, such as adding improvements and features to CARA upon request.

With the launches of Casetext Pro and CARA, we’ve hired our first full-time salesperson, Senior Account Executive John Greenfield,  and we will continue building our sales, marketing and customer support teams.

> Has the experience so far changed your perspective about your career plans?

I don’t spend time thinking about “what’s next” for me. In a perfect world, we continue building exponentially on Casetext’s early successes, and I get to run this company for the rest of my career. It’s what I love doing.

> Has the experience changed your ‘personal’ life?

Absolutely. Running a company is all-consuming. My social life has taken a hit—there just isn’t enough time in the day. Even when I relax, listen to a podcast or play a board game, my mind always wanders back to Casetext.

> Where do you hope to be in a year?

We’re looking forward to seeing how a full year of CARA access changes the way our current customers think about legal research.

> What would you do differently if you could start over from scratch?

I would spend even more time listening to the people who use the product from the get-go—and make a larger investment in translating that feedback into the product. For example, with CARA, we’ve been devoting more time and energy into turning user feedback into product decisions. That helps us  build the tool that our users really want, not the one we think they want.

> Have you taken a new job or responsibility?

Almost everyone at Casetext, including me, is constantly taking on new responsibilities. For instance, when we first released CARA, several members of the team took on sales roles. Things move quickly, to keep up our team must be flexible and willing to take on new roles and challenges.

> What advice do you have for new startups?

In football, the best running backs keep churning their feet while they’re being tackled—even as someone is trying to bring them to the ground, they are fighting to inch forward. Have that attitude when you’re starting a business. Work and fight as hard as you possibly can and don’t give up, ever. You’re willing something into existence from nothingness, which is exceptionally hard. The number of challenges you’ll face—skeptics, reluctant buyers, software bugs, competitors, hiring the right people—can feel overwhelming at times. Don’t let it get to you. Keep churning your feet.

> Have you started another startup?

Ha! I admire people who can do two startups at once. I’m not one of those people. Building  powerful legal technology is more than a full-time job. I spend 100% of my time on Casetext as it is; the idea of another startup is overwhelming.

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist and analyst. She is a member of the California bar. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.

Cover and inside “2” images: Clipart.com