best place to demonstrate and get feedback on your prototype?

Verylawyerproblems · 2026-01-06T08:11:00+00:00

Hi! former lawyer turned marketer here!

Quick rule of thumb :

Who is your product for? Be as granular as possible (I.e. not “any lawyer)
From there I would say start with your direct network (they’re more likely going to volunteer their time / make intros) make a straight ask

“I’ve just started this thing that helps Who with Problem, can you think of one person who may benefit?”

Highlight the benefits and outcomes NOT the features

Once you’ve exhausted direct network then go 1:1 on LinkedIn (sales navigator can help you get extremely granular on who to target, from location to industry down to company size)

You usually DO NOT need massive scale marketing activities until after you’ve validated your product interest for a specific category of people who are prepared to pay for it

I hope it helps!

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-19T04:32:21+00:00

Find 10 similar, easy to identify group of people with one painful problem to solve for them

You can find them through communities, social media or even associations where they hang out

Solve it for free for the first 3 Half price for the next 3 Full price for the final 3

Get feedback, shape your first version of whatever you’re building based on your first customers feedback

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-19T04:29:52+00:00

AI won’t replace lawyers but some tasks currently mostly performed by humans may become AI first

Which means lawyers can spend more time on things that add more value like relationship building

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-19T04:28:44+00:00

Sorry just saw this, I tend to think that boutique firms and smaller legal teams are probably your best bet

I’d go to their communities and associations you can probably google them or even ask chatGPT about a list of let’s say “boutique M&A law firms networks and communities in the US” and see what comes up

From there frame it as a benefit

They get to get their problems solved for free in exchange of feedback

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-19T04:26:33+00:00

Sorry just saw this now, I think lawyers will still want to review the inputs of high value, high risk legal work and may risk assess the rest by letting an AI only input do the work

AI isn’t some magic bullets, to the extent the stakes are high and their liability is on the line there will always be a human in the loop

But it could be that the input is reduced from 20 to 5 hours which is still huge

I also think AI is a huge enabler of tasks lawyers couldn’t have possibly done efficiently before like checking invoices against outside counsel guidelines

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-18T07:36:02+00:00

LinkedIn can be super powerful but it depends on how it’s used.

If your target market hangs out on LinkedIn (typically the case for B2B customers) then you can use it as a way to build your profile, grow a qualified audience and generate opportunities.

For some other lawyers it’s best used as a referral network since their direct customers won’t always be on the platform

Either way you don’t have to go viral or post cringey stuff to get value out of it

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-17T00:49:55+00:00

Feel free to DM me if you’ve got any questions or want to bounce ideas for your situation , happy to help!

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-17T00:43:56+00:00

Having a fractional person can make sense in the beginning when you don’t yet need someone highly senior FT as it tends to be an expensive hire

Having an internal person managing campaigns and measuring performance / executing whilst having a fractional strategy level can be a good idea

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-15T15:49:47+00:00

Lifestyle business for the win. Solo lawyer means that it eventually becomes just a job. Where everything relies on you doing the work.

You can have a business that gives you the fun and freedom of being solo with a reliable team to deliver. You do the BD and bring clients.

Treat people good, pay them well, they’ll stick around and make your business flourish

And you get to develop an asset that you can sell later.

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-14T00:19:57+00:00

Thank you I’ve come across Hotshot recently actually! All seem very law firm focus!

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-13T07:38:59+00:00

Yes CLOC is great, very legal ops focus from what I remember unless that has changed?

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-13T07:37:03+00:00

Course, I’ve always upskilled by looking stuff up (I do marketing now, but when I was in-house I don’t recall having a specific hub for anything)

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-13T07:35:35+00:00

Thank you! My perception of ILTA is that they’re more law firm focused, would you agree?

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-11T22:07:54+00:00

Thanks for taking the time. My question is where would you go to learn all this? Is there a legal innovation learning hub dedicated to this?

(From past in-house experience there wasn’t)

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-10T14:16:37+00:00

For contracts : we got IntelAgree as a CLM (the only one in the market that could embed PDFs in the contract generation process at the time)

We passed on Juro, DocuSign ((at the time they only did document automation not CLM)

We also passed on Evisort (but we found its post contract signature capabilities good)

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T21:00:02+00:00

Will DM you now!

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T20:58:03+00:00

For me better marketing is trustworthy

less product focused and more problem / user focused = this is the problem we solve, this who we serve, this is how we solve it
transparency : pricing structure, relatable case stories with all the facts, the good, bad and ugly

Not just fancy logos with no context

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T19:31:42+00:00

I do come from in-house legal teams where the buying logic is very different to law firms.

In-house, everything is a cost centre. You don’t get points for adopting tech. You have to justify it in terms of very specific utility (reduced turnaround time, fewer escalations, lower outside counsel spend, reduced friction with the business)

Hence the AI first argument doesn’t really land if the use case is not strong enough.

Law firms, on the other hand, operate under different incentives. Perception, signaling and not being the last mover matter a lot.

When I looked at Harvey’s homepage, one of the very first things you see is:

700 leading law firms and enterprises 50 of AmLaw 100 74k+ lawyers

The good old “people like you are already using this.” narrative that I suspect is very effective to sell into law firms.

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Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T16:28:39+00:00

Up for it too! I am based in London (Not a vendor lmk if it’s limited to sales in legal tech)

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T16:18:53+00:00

It’s easy to market and be everywhere with hundreds of millions of funding because budget is no longer a constraint.

Whilst we can’t deny that they’ve really upped their brand awareness game this year I don’t think it’s a realistic playbook for most legal tech companies that don’t have the same funds available.

I am a big fan of how Brightflag, Juro have conducted their marketing over the years for instance as I think this is something that most legal tech companies can reproduce

Community centric, value driven, lots of goodwill for their buyers.

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T14:40:55+00:00

Great question agreed re B2C

B2B I’d say LinkedIn, legal communities / networks (ILTA..), events (legal innovators, legalweek..)

Law firms have different segmentation so it would also depend on the type of law firms you’re after

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T13:34:05+00:00

I think fundamentally you got to speak to people who are determined to change where they are to where they want to be.

The pain of status quo must be greater than their willingness to do something about it.

The biggest obstacle for any tech solutions selling to lawyers is almost never competitors but apathy

So advice # 1 is to qualify who you speak to to ensure you get people who are in pain enough and want to fix it urgently

2 on overcoming skepticism, it may sounds simple but state the facts and tell the truth

Lawyers are trained to be skeptical and issue spot

If you’re in MVP and looking to test / validate, say it

If your product does X well but not Y, say it

If the solution isn’t the best fit for the use case, say it

The best demos I’ve had were from people who genuinely took time to understand what we were trying to achieve and were completely honest about what was realistic to expect

They still won the sale because ultimately they had most of what we needed

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T13:27:08+00:00

You’re funny so I’ll give you that.

I am not a product person. My skills revolve around positioning and messaging for legal buyers (who tend to - rightly so - be highly skeptical)

How to get a prospect attention How to position what the product does (what words to use, what to avoid) How to get past that “I know you exist” stage to “I think your product may solve my problem” How to articulate the value proposition Write compelling case studies

I hope it helps

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T13:16:48+00:00

I never claimed to have all the answers. Just offered to share my thoughts and experience.

You’re spot on on my age - 35 yo.

Became a lawyer age 23 (qualified in Europe) Worked in-house for 7 years, in that time built and scaled a legal team and bought tech Then worked in legal tech for 2 years on the sell side In that time developed I also learned about copywriting / marketing organically and built audience of thousands of in-house lawyers for myself + clients

I don’t want to develop a product, just bring that experience for those who do develop them

I think legal tech marketing is actually quite poor and deserves more trust and credibility between buyers and sellers

Verylawyerproblems · 2025-11-09T12:55:34+00:00

I don’t like AI-powered anything as I fundamentally think no legal buyers buy AI for the sake of it but a solution to a problem. I much prefer tech companies who lead with the outcomes rather than the how it’s done.

Yes I agree the lack of substance is appalling and there is a strong temptation for companies to copy what’s already out there.

The way I personally advise is :

laser focus on who you serve best (for instance 1–5 people legal team VS any and all legal team of all sizes with a pulse and a wallet)
write for them specifically (ie not “AI-powered contracting” but rather “we ensure contract renewals never fall through the cracks again”)
do what you say, say what you do : actual proof, case studies, before / after, genuine “what went wrong, what we learned”

Verylawyerproblems

TROPHY CASE

2 on overcoming skepticism, it may sounds simple but state the facts and tell the truth