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Ep 76: Lawtrades Co-Founders on Creating a Gig Economy for Lawyers
75 Plays8 days ago
How are marketplaces for legal work transforming the way that we work and the way that we live, creating opportunities for a better match between what you need from work and the work that you do?
Join Lawtrades co-founders Raad Ahmed and Ashish Walia, as they discuss their path from dissatisfied law school graduates to running a powerhouse legal services startup that links white collar freelancers to legal departments, with $9.7 million in venture backing and $12 million in annual recurring revenue.
Listen as Raad and Ashish talk about taking the leap to start a company, making difficult business pivots, working with leading startup accelerators, bringing the management suite into the gig economy, democratizing opportunities for entrepreneurial lawyers, building strong relationships with clients and investors, and much more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-76
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Why two start-up founders went to law school: 2:04
Deciding to go all in on your start-up: 5:46
Participating in the 500 Startup accelerator: 10:49
Pivoting your business model to match talent with legal departments: 17:58
Is gig work good for workers?: 20:33
Cultivating a diverse and gender equitable talent pool: 25:18
Removing administrative burden for independent legal professionals: 28:17
Changing course and enduring layoffs: 30:09
Getting buy-in from team members and investors: 35:30
Managing stressful times in business and coming out the other side: 39:56
What’s next for Lawtrades?: 43:34
Rapid-fire questions: 46:36
Book recommendations: 50:13
What you wish you’d known as a young founder: 53:19
Connect with us:
Raad Ahmed - https://www.linkedin.com/in/raadahmed/
Ashish Walia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishwalia1/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues.
Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
The Rise of Freelancers and AI Augmentation
00:00:00
Speaker
I think that we're kind of like at this sort of you know phase where like you know we we kind of like conquered this mountain, so to speak, of like getting companies comfortable with using freelancers. And that was the big idea. 10 years from now, like there's going to be more freelancers than full-time employees, and we want to get people excited about hiring freelancers. And I think like the next phase of it is you know how do we sort of augment freelancers with AI agents and almost like build out a marketplace around that idea, whether it is augmenting the freelancers and giving them 10x, 100x more leverage to work with more clients with keeping the cost structure roughly the same, or even you know starting a almost like a separate marketplace of AI agents that are trained by our freelancers that you can hire, and you can review, and they're very good at certain tasks, and you pay per task.
00:00:50
Speaker
um I think it's very exciting.
Founders' Journey: Law School to $12M Business
00:00:58
Speaker
How are marketplaces for legal work transforming the way that we work and the way that we live? Creating opportunities for a better match between what you need from work and the work that you do. And giving companies more flexibility as they think about talent.
00:01:16
Speaker
Today, we are joined on the abstract here in New York by my friends, Rod and Ashish. Known them for a long time and they are the co-founders of Law Trades. Rod and Ashish started Law Trades together in 2015. They've gone through 500 startups together, raised 9.7 million in venture backing, and they've grown the business to a sustainable, which we're gonna talk about, 12 million in ARR.
00:01:45
Speaker
As we'll discuss also, their journey from law school to founders to profitability hasn't always been easy. Guys, thanks so much for joining me here today in New York for this episode of the podcast. Nice. Thanks for having us, Tyler. Super pumped to have this conversation. Yeah, same. Thanks for having us, Tyler.
00:02:04
Speaker
Cool. Okay. Let's go back to maybe sort of the beginning. Both of you are actually lawyers by training. It's not the most common background for founders. I want to ask each of you to begin with, why'd you go to law school?
00:02:18
Speaker
My parents may be. I went to law school because when I was an undergrad I was originally a chemistry major and ah the original path that I was supposed to take was to become a pharmacist. that was the I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. Yeah, yeah that was that was the thing. That was the hot thing then. My dad was all about that and you know making it comfortable.
00:02:41
Speaker
100K salary, being a pharmacist, working at CVS, going to St. John's for that. And then I realized I did not like the idea of being a pharmacist, so I just kind of took some courses in undergrad around like legal studies, philosophy of law, and just realized I like reading, analyzing, kind of you know seeing how the pieces of the law fit together to kind of like keep society running and functioning. And then I was like, all right, like maybe you know maybe I'll lean a little bit more to that and apply to a couple of law schools and got in and you know the rest was history. But at the time I was not thinking about doing a tech company or anything like that. It was kind of like, let me just be a lawyer and kind of make roughly the same salary that I thought I would make as ah as a pharmacist. which
00:03:27
Speaker
It turned out to be not true, and it was a pretty terrible job market when when I got out, which kind of prompted the idea for law
University Days and Fraternity Influence
00:03:34
Speaker
trades. But yeah, to please my parents and make them happy, like a typical first-generation brown dude. um what What about you, Ash? What was that? Yeah, I mean, similarly, I started St. John studying political science and government. Originally, I wanted to do something in public service, so like I thought that that was going to be my path.
00:03:53
Speaker
You and me both. Yeah, I wanted to do that. And I also was interested in business at the time too. And I thought law school was an easy way to kind of test the waters with both. It's like, you know, you could either practice law and go into public service or you could practice law and go into business. So um it it really gave me the optionality that I was looking for at that time because I was still pretty unsure of like what I actually wanted to do.
00:04:17
Speaker
You both mentioned St. John's. Is that how you guys got connected and and where did the idea for law trades come from? Yeah. So we met many years before law trades became a thing or an idea. So we both went to undergrad together at St. John's. We joined.
00:04:33
Speaker
ah the same fraternity. I had the great pleasure of ah pledging Ashish. Took a lot of joy in that. and you know He crossed and we were in the same fraternity. and We weren't like particularly like super close, I want to say. like We were in the same circle, but we weren't like hanging out like every
Tech Sparks: From App Development to Law Trades
00:04:50
Speaker
single day. and like best friends or anything like that. like we were We were cool with each other. But I think, like at least for me, the fraternity, like I think in many ways, like set up for a lot of like very sort of loosely related business practices that is employed today. like
00:05:07
Speaker
How do you get people excited? How do you rally the troops? How do you make the frat money and make it profitable and be able to reinvest that profits back into doing other cool stuff and just growing it? And um and I think like you had like similar ambitions with the fraternity. and We might have like toyed around with the idea of doing something together. yeah but the the The fraternity we were in was small enough where like you knew everyone and you knew their story and you were connected with them even if they were a few years apart. um But yeah, it was really like the bedrock for establishing trust and just getting the relationship going up until you know the idea of law trades came about.
00:05:46
Speaker
And what were the early days like like? Was there an inflection point where you decided, okay, the two of us are going to go all in on this? Did that just sort of happen naturally over time? like How did it go from idea to like, yeah yeah we're going to pursue this thing? So we knew each other from undergrad. We ended up going to two different law schools. We kind of just stayed in touch. during my second year of law school I Launched like the first sort of internet thing um and it was one of the first apps on the Facebook app store when it existed doesn't exist anymore But it was a simple web app that essentially allowed people to customize their cover photo image so a couple of months before Facebook was gonna announce this big like Facebook profile redesign that just had this banner image that anyone can customize so that was like the
00:06:35
Speaker
big sort of like It a big deal at the time because you know when you look at like MySpace, if if people sort of remember that, it was all about customizing your... and My parents wouldn't let me have a MySpace account. yes You're a hidden one. You're anonymous to MySpace account.
00:06:52
Speaker
It was all about customization. Facebook was sort of the opposite. Everything was very much like cookie cutter, like yeah how it was designed. So I thought it would be a good idea to come up with like an app that just allowed you to customize that cover photo banner image. So you'd go onto a website. It's called MyFVCoverPhoto.com. Browse through thousands of different cover photos like, you know, Justin Bieber photos, inspirational quotes, and you click a button, it would automatically resize it and change it for you on your profile.
00:07:16
Speaker
So um that somehow grew to about 30 million hits a month and I ran some banner ads through Google Ads on it and turned it into like a six figure business while I was in law school. And I thought that was pretty cool. um And I think think that might have like piqued your interest a little bit around that time. Just like, hey, that like you know what what are you doing? and you know and And I was kind of at that point pretty checked out from law school. like I went through 1L.
00:07:41
Speaker
that was fine and then the second year just felt a little repetitive and then by the time I was finishing out my second year I was like I want to like I'm ready to do something else like I've kind of like conquered that or about to conquer it but like what what other sort of big thing could I sort of work on so that did well and then around that time I think we started sort of Talking a little bit more yeah and and and the site did well the app did well But it also fizzled out like I didn't treat it like a real company or real business So I didn't like there's all these copycats that came out they like outranked me on SEO and just kind of like went from like making a bunch of money to like slowly sort of dying and dwindling away, but at the time I was like all I want to work on something bigger and How could I still like use my education from from law school, ah from whatever insights I had like working you know very briefly at like a few law firms and different sort of public service of service
Early Challenges and 500 Startups Experience
00:08:34
Speaker
organizations? And I was just like, OK, there has to be a better model that we can sort of build that can make
00:08:38
Speaker
Legal services a little bit more affordable a little bit more accessible and um and then you know towards the end I think you were what one year Below me and I was like one year ahead. Yeah one or two something like that. I just remember you for me I basically remember I was finishing my 1l year internship and it was at the Attorney General's office in Connecticut Okay, and I was just like super frustrated halfway through it because I was just like this is moving really slow and I don't feel particularly useful here. um I'm not adding much value and I just like wasn't excited about the longer term career prospects that I had thought you know going into law school. um But at the same time I was interested in business. like I worked at a really fast growing small business while I was in undergrad and and law school um doing sales.
00:09:27
Speaker
And I remember coming home from that internship one day and going onto Facebook. um That's how far back this was. And seeing Rod's post on Facebook and it was just like a teaser for law trades and it just said like legal reimagined or something like that. And it was a it was sick backdrop of like the New York City skyline. And I was just like, all right, i got I got to message him right now, find out what this is about. um Because you know I wanted to do something a little riskier, too You know and I was like all right well Let me hear more about this and if I could add value like I could just ping Rod and see if we could work together on this And and I had no idea at that time like what exactly I was doing I was just like I just bought the domain name built a really cool like really quick landing page And I was like you know use the New York City skyline come up with you know a one-liner copy and a simple way to enter your email address and I was like let me just put that out there and then kind of figure it out and I think
00:10:22
Speaker
It's one of the reasons I love the internet is you can just kind of put stuff out there and that sort of, you know, sparked the interest of my co-founder. Yeah, and back then, that's a big step, right? Like, you know, of course you always think about doing something in entrepreneurship, but like taking the leap and buying the domain name and putting it out there and saying, hey, this is like something I'm going to try. um Almost de-risked it in a lot of ways for me because I was like, all right, well, this is a good idea. Here's someone I trust. um So, you know, let me reach out and see what we could do here.
00:10:49
Speaker
I know the two of you went through 500 startups together. Was that pretty early in the law trades journey? And I'm also just curious generally, like what was your experience like with something like that? Because you talk to folks who are like, you've got to do something like 500 startups, or YC, or some accelerator. And then other people are like, you have to give up so much often when you go through. So i I'm just curious for your experience with that.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I thought it was a net positive for us. um So in the early days of law trades we were pretty much bootstrapped and we were um more or less profitable from day one. We didn't really have a product but we charged a subscription for lawyers to join and we were kind of.
00:11:27
Speaker
you know broadly doing all sorts of legal services. And the the main core idea was how do we connect people to lawyers in a more efficient way. And we kind of tinkered with that idea for a bit, made a little bit of money. Eventually we sort of narrowed in on businesses, small businesses at the time, different than what we're doing right now.
00:11:45
Speaker
um and and it and it just grew even more. I think one of the reasons it grew even more is because the the needs of a business owner is a lot more predictable than you know somebody getting hit by a car and you know looking for a personal injury lawyer or like filing for a divorce or or something like that. So when we narrowed it down, we saw a decent amount of growth and I think that's what sparked the interest of 500 and um um I remember we got rejected by them though.
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think we got in at like the first or second try. We started experimenting with law trades around like 2014 and we had gotten in um the fall of like 2015 so it was maybe a year and a half in um and I think before that we had got rejected from 500 and then We were working on this co-working space right here in New York called Alley NYC. This was an awesome co-working space back in the day. Like an underground tech movement in New York City. Yeah, like Silicon Alley. Silicon Alley, yeah, yeah. We called it that. That's what it was. Yeah, like 37th and 7th, like just a cool place and it would just give us so much energy, you know, being there and working there all the time.
00:12:56
Speaker
There were a few folks from 500 that were portfolio companies that were working in that same office. So as we started getting more traction, we were like, all right, well, it doesn't hurt to apply again. um And then, yeah, they let us in that time period. And it was just an incredible experience. We didn't have like i we didn't have a ton of growth, I think, when we or or a ton of clarity of like how we were going to attack the market and go to market and all that first time around.
00:13:21
Speaker
But I think the second time around what really helped was like getting more intros from some of the founders at Ally that were already part of 500. And that was, I think, like a lesson around just like how important like building connections and like cold, which you're really good at. You're way better at like cold emailing people and just like getting that off the ground than me, which is why you kind of are like really good at the sales side of things. um But yeah, I remember we just hustled. We got rejected and we were like, ah, crap, that sucks. like Let's try again. but this time let's get like five, six, seven, like we had a bunch of people write in on behalf of us after we applied. where like yeah they almost like it would you know They almost couldn't say no. We were just so annoying. We were just like, and we wouldn't stop. We were relentless in that way and then finally got the call.
00:14:05
Speaker
yep Yeah, it was it was incredible it was the first time that like someone in the broader tech industry took a bet on us, you know and we ended up just moving out to Mountain View for Like maybe a year or so and just living in the house working all day. that long wow Yeah. Yeah, it was it was it's like a four-month program but you know you end up staying there a little longer to work on raising money and you know but I think that was like it's such a huge inflection point because this is also like pretty far back right like like I feel like startups and accelerators they're pretty mainstream right now at the time it was still sort of like a very novel idea new concept
00:14:41
Speaker
We didn't apply to YC because there was another company at the time that was also a legal tech company that was doing like a sort of a connecting service, but
Pivoting Business Models and Legal Marketplace Dynamics
00:14:49
Speaker
for consumers at the time. So it was like, oh, well, they're automatically going to reject us. So like, why even apply to that? And I think some partners are just like, ah, like we're not like smart enough for YC or something, you know? yeah so But like ah and not not maybe like we're not smart enough. They just seemed very technical Yeah, and our vibe was like more like like we were like hustlers. We were grinders We were like, you know like the way that we grew law trades in the early days We would go door-to-door Knocking on different law firms and like have a square reader out and a presentation and be like here's why you should join our network and I feel like that vibe just resonated a lot more with 500 at the time then why see and why she's obviously great and there was another one called the angel pad that I another competitor did so it's kind of like well 500 didn't do a legal tech investment yet so like we'll have a greater shot of getting in there and then I remember we got like the 100k or 125k check and that was like the biggest deal ever like I've never so hyped in my life seen that much money like hit my bank account or of the business bank account and it was just like and it was like you said it was incredibly validating but it's also just kind of like whoa like there's yeah
00:15:50
Speaker
random people out there that believe in us so much to actually write us that big of a check and I think that just like was super motivating for the next couple of years. Yeah we were you know it it was such a big break and the funny thing is about all this is uh there's this one accelerator in New York that I'm not going to name um but we were so desperate at this time because we were running on fumes and you know Luckily, our overhead was low, right? Our personal overhead was low. So it allowed us to take more risks, but there was like this one accelerator where we made like a music video for us to try getting into. Because we were like, this is- As part of our application stand out. This, do you still have this? And can we include it in the show notes? Honestly, that accelerator probably does. And I think they're just like waiting until like maybe we go public and they're just going to release it. And then our stock will just get shorted like crazy once it gets released. But I don't know. I don't know. We were just like, we just want to stand out.
00:16:41
Speaker
And we literally one weekend went to Ali and like lip-synced a music video as to why we should get in and sent them that video. We made a rap over Nicki Minaj's Anaconda song. I hope you remember that song. Amazing. And the entire rap was like on that beat and it was all about like what law trades does and like why this accelerator should invest in us. Like we've never never heard from from them you. ever again. I think they just blocked us. They're probably gonna tell your team about this and they're gonna make you sing this at the company holiday party next year. We might get canceled when that video comes out. At some point it'll hopefully come out. Overall though, 500 was an incredible experience. They've been great partners for us and when we made this switch to start working with legal departments, 500 was one of the first companies to use us. So they started telling other legal teams. They're also super helpful.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, they invest in our series a yeah still have connections to a lot of the folks that were still there Yeah, their current general counsel Brenda who is awesome was a freelancer on law trades and then they eventually hired her directly That's pretty cool with her. So yeah, so she started as a freelancer and then what became the GC Yeah, she became the GC over as a client and then now uses law trades like hire a bunch of people. Yeah, I When you were, say, pivoting the sort of business model to what you have today, which is matching fractional talent. I mean, sometimes people are full time, but most of the time sort of like fractional talent with legal departments who have a need. What was harder, the demand side of that, right? Like getting the legal teams to sign up or the supply side, like finding the right people out there or growing that sort of network that's on the platform? Or did they both sort of like just perfectly grow in tandem?
00:18:27
Speaker
oh It's always perfect yeah yeah you want you on take that one Yeah, I mean I thought it's a I think both were equally as hard to be honest Because making that pivot really required us to like rebuild the supply side from the ground up So this is the third pivot just to be clear so yeah started off originally like we'll help you find a personal injury lawyer divorce lawyer or whatever and Then we were like, well you know, if you're an early-stage startup or small business, we'll help you find a small business lawyer. And then now the third pivot is like, oh, like, actually, this is really useful for legal departments. Corporate legal. Corporate legal. They have, you know, bigger budgets, better LTV, better CAC, um you know, more longevity on the platform. So we had to then, like, kind of differentiate the supply side. So I think that's what you're probably referring to, where we just have to
00:19:14
Speaker
We had to keep like reshuffling the base, and I think that like made it somewhat tricky. But I think that once we landed on um on the on on the current model that's kind of focused on mid-market enterprise companies selling to legal departments, then everything kind of clicked because we had that clarity.
00:19:30
Speaker
Whereas before it was just sort of like we just were one foot in one foot out wasn't really sure um But I mean at least for me from my perspective I think it's always easier to get the supply side once you have the demand side down because the value proposition to somebody that is a freelancer looking to join is is very compelling. Like, hey, do you want to create a free profile and potentially make six figures for free for with no addition? you know and like Who's going to really say no to that, right? um So I've always viewed it as like a demand-led business. I know a lot of other companies can be different, whether it's Uber Eats, you probably need like a decent amount of like
00:20:08
Speaker
coiers and delivery people to sort of and you know launch into restaurants. But for us, it's like, we'll get the demand, and then because it's the work is remote in nature, it's fairly easy for us to like find the supply side, onboard them, do it all digitally, and like you know within the same day, get them to like start logging their work like from from from the from like an hour from when they create
New Work Models and Legal Workforce Transformation
00:20:29
Speaker
a profile. So, I don't know, that's that's how i'd I'd kind of view it.
00:20:33
Speaker
I mean this isn't really like gig work because it's a little I think a little more white collar and and what but you've set up is longer term engagements right we're not talking usually about like an hour or two here or there it's a sort of someone comes in and serves as a part-time product counsel to a business for six months while someone else is out on maternity or paternity leave or um But I'm i'm just um i'm curious sort of for your your thoughts, like do you think this is really good for workers? right um if If companies use this, and I want to talk about that too, if companies start to use marketplaces like this more and more and more, and maybe like view their structure of their legal team differently than they were able to 10 years ago, 15 years ago, is this a good thing for workers, do you think?
00:21:20
Speaker
I'd like to think think it is. yeah I might be a little bit biased there. I'm a little bit biased, but like i mean look, the the way I view it is like what we're building is kind of the evolution of the gig economy. right So the gig economy started with like you know finding someone on TaskRabbit to like you know ah build your IKEA shell for getting a ride from point A to point B. But I think the next sort of like revolution that combines like the internet, marketplace platforms, AI, whatever,
00:21:47
Speaker
is really disrupting these large institutional professional services verticals. So whether that's legal, finance, accounting, management consulting, the McKinsey's, the Cooley's, they're all going to get at some point and disrupted by this model because um it's very appealing for workers, right? You get to you know create a profile, set your own hours, say how much you want to work or how little you want to work.
00:22:10
Speaker
make as much money as you want or as little money as you want push a button go on snooze go on vacation come back have like more work lined up so it's like insanely flexible around the way i think like people in the future and people currently would view work instead of this very you know I'm a W2, I'm gonna be at this company for 10 plus years doing the same thing and kind of you know maybe retire early, but like with law trades, like you get to like experiment with like different clients, different industries, different skill sets, and it's just kind of viewed differently. right like I feel like maybe,
00:22:44
Speaker
maybe a couple of years ago, switching jobs every like two years would like kind of be looked down upon, whereas like on launch rates, you can you can like work with like several clients or several engagement engagements at the same time, and some of them maybe last six months, some of them last like two years, some of them could be you know a one-month project, but you gather that skill set and you're at the frontier of the nature of work as it's evolving today, not like you know just kind of like being siloed and kind of doing the same thing. so I think that it just like levels up people and gives you that broad base experience. and like We're at the front lines of like knowing like what GCs actually want and actually need and what tools, whether that's learning how to be really good at AI prompting or learning how to use the newest best CLM or like you know being able to negotiate, whatever it it is. like
00:23:34
Speaker
We have a lot of really good data on that. And I think like upscaling and doing all that is ah is a large component to it. So it was something that I would have wanted yeah when I graduated in law school. And I think that was the original, kind of to come back to like the beginning of the story, like I wanted to graduate law school and travel and work remotely and still make like a decent amount of money, but like not do it from like the confines of a law firm in New York City you know at a desk job. and um And I was just kind of like, well, like All this work is like transmitted over email and digitally anyway Like why do I physically need to be at this place and clock in from like nine to five? And it's like that's just not how like knowledge workers really work, right? It's I forgot I forgot like there was like the Naval Comparison to how like knowledge workers work which is like kind of he makes that comparison to like a lion where like you sort of go through these bursts of energy where you just work a lot and then you like rest and then you like You know you go full stream ahead and you just work like crazy and then you kind of stop and I think mr. Beast has a similar sort of
00:24:31
Speaker
ah theory as well to how he works. He just goes crazy for like two or three days and then he just kind of like sleeps for like two days. And I think that's just how like knowledge workers and creative people like really get their best work done. It's not just like clocking in every day nine to five doing the same thing. And I think the world is just like moving closer and closer to this like you know like like the famous Elon, like what did you get done you know last week. And it's like it's all like output focus and that's really what we kind of like focus on is just like what value Are you really delivering? like Who cares about the hourly rate? Who cares about 2,000 minimum billable hours or like whether you were in the office on nights and weekends? like Did you get the job done? I think that we're doing a good job of kind of like crafting the platform to be like outcome-focused rather than just sort of like I put in the hours.
00:25:17
Speaker
Right. I am curious about ah the talent pool that you have. One of the interesting I don't know if this is still the case, but I think I saw at one point a sort of stat that more than 50 percent of the people in the talent pool are women. um I guess like any sort of surprising or interesting ah things that you've learned about the makeup of people who are on law trades. Yeah, now I think it's closer to 60%. And you know I think that there's a lot of folks who necessarily don't want to work at law firms, or maybe they're burned out at bigger law firms. Perhaps they don't want to be a partner. um Or maybe they don't want to work in-house for their entire career, right? And you know they end up coming to law trades as almost that like third path, where like they can test the waters and be entrepreneurial. They could use us as a in-between state in their career, where they try us out. And maybe they go back in-house later on.
00:26:08
Speaker
But yeah, most of the folks that are on the platform are um you know incredibly entrepreneurial. They are using us as a way to just kind of explore the waters of of going independent. I would say one of the surprising things, though, is just really seeing how the changes in the like macro environment really impact like the level the amount of people that sign up on the platform. so like you know, if you look back just recently, like during COVID, we experienced such a huge demand in both client and talent, right? Because a lot of folks were laid off or, you know, wanted to work remotely, um you know, just recently with like all the tech layoffs, right? Like many folks, especially that worked in legal were laid off, right? And and need that, you know, alternative option, right? Or maybe they were just fed up of working at
00:26:55
Speaker
You know some of these overfunded companies that just weren't a good bet for them in the first place So yeah, it's been interesting to see how that dynamic kind of changes the marketplace yeah, and I would say like I think one thing we do really well is we Remove the barrier of entry to work at really good companies ah in the sense that the The traditional path and the the existing path is like you know to get a really great job, you need to go to a top 14 law school and be top 5% in your class and have an uncle that's a partner, a scat in, to you know to sort of get you in. And it's like with law trades, we remove all of that. right You create a profile, you do great work, like you're gonna be rewarded. You collect reviews, um you're able to really like show what you can do, and that's why we have
00:27:41
Speaker
way more minorities in our platform than any of the big law firms, way more women in our platform than any other legal platform and law firm. um And it's because we're sort of like removing that barrier to entry and just kind of focus on like good work and I think People appreciate that and you just get more diversity like we don't yeah need to like go, you know, really out of your way It's not like we've kind of went out there and just like we you know We want our platform to be diverse or we want more women. It just kind of naturally happened because ah The platform just democratizes really great opportunities and I think that's that's that's that's a net positive for for society
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, and I hadn't really thought about it before. We're talking about it now. But, you know, maybe you're a big time GC and you decide, okay, um I don't want to be doing a full time job. So I'm going to go out and sort of hang my own shingle. And I have four clients already and like you can make ends meet that way. But for a lot of folks, the sort of like.
00:28:34
Speaker
administrative burden of doing that or having to have a reputation or a network. I mean like you provide all of that actually like don't end basically.
Financial Challenges and Strategic Profitability Shifts
00:28:43
Speaker
Payments, insurance, time tracking like all the administrative things that would normally cost you thousands of dollars maybe a decade ago um are basically given to them for free you know to join the platform and um it's true it really makes it much easier to to just you know give it a try. It's very much de-risk. The way I look at it, it's kind of similar to what like Shopify has done for e-commerce sellers. We're essentially doing that for white collar professionals. Give you everything you need to deliver legal services digitally online. And what does that do? That dramatically reduces the cost of legal services. because
00:29:19
Speaker
You don't have you know partners in the middle um making millions of dollars. You don't have a fancy office in Park Avenue. right you know It's just like it's you, the person that we're connecting to, and like all the software needed to give you the same infrastructure of a law firm, but like it's all software enabled and it's all basically given for free. so um you know It's not really rocket science. I don't think we're particularly like insanely smart people. who just sort of like you know why does why does Why does legal services cost so much? and it's like Someone has to pay for the horse paintings on the wall. really nice yeah yeah We might have NFT horse paintings. yeah
00:29:55
Speaker
yeah and k clientin's found it super valuable you know like they Trusted us very early on and took a bet and you know if you find one really good lawyer or paralegal on law trades It makes it much easier to hire you know a whole team around around the platform I want to ask you both about ah sort of another inflection point in your business, which I think you've been very open about. You post about this a lot, Rod, on on LinkedIn and on YouTube, and I find it super interesting. and it It mirrors a sort of change in how investors have been thinking about the companies that they want to invest in, or what valuations should be, or how companies should be pursuing sort of like burn versus profitability.
00:30:36
Speaker
In 2013, you made a pretty you know significant shift in course and I think you laid off some folks and decided that you had to, because your monthly burn was just too much and you were going to be flat year over year on revenue. You didn't see a path to profitability. like You needed to sort of really change course and make that the priority. um Tell us about how you reached that conclusion. you know like Why not just go out and raise more money? or and And why you're really happy with where the business is today, even if it was not necessarily like a super easy path to get there. yeah
00:31:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a lot of PTSD, I would say, that's a that's a good sort of starting point. um yeah ah you know I think when you're when you're in business for a while, you you you kind of come to this realization that nobody's coming to save you and you really, truly are on out on your own.
00:31:34
Speaker
um Nobody's really, really coming to save you, especially when you're in a down market and the economy is down and you're in a bad macro cycle. And we've gone through two of those, two or three of those already, aside from even the pivots with you know COVID ended up being really good for us. But in the beginning, like every company sort of like stopped operations and shut down and we had to pause our salaries and you know kind of figure out like where we were going to go. But you know because we were able to survive that, um you know we're still here today. And similarly, ah during the SVB collapse, like after the sort of like you know tech bubble burst, um there you know we ended up raising a round right before that. That was our last round, our Series A.
00:32:12
Speaker
But you know we, again, entered a really bad cycle. And I think sort of just the takeaway for us and probably to you know anyone anyone else that's like running a company is you know your your costs are really the only thing that truly matter at the end of the day and your profits that are coming in. And it's very simple. And it's kind of it's it's it's a little it's a little crazy that more people don't talk about that or more people more people don't share about that. It's usually just sort of like You raise a big round, you do ah you know a press piece on it, everyone kind of pats you on the back, but no one really kind of talks about like the business fundamentals anymore. and um you know we we We tried the high growth route, we're VC backed, um but for us, you know I think part of the journey of starting a company is like what comes really naturally to you and like what are you really good at. and
00:33:01
Speaker
and And for us it's always been frugality, hustling, grinding, and you know that ultimately led to us having our first profitable year this year and and growing um with like half the team size that we had just just over a year ago. So obviously layoffs and all that sucks and you know I don't think anyone wants to go through that or wants that repeated, but um you know it had to be done, right? it's It's a tough sort of thing I think that um It was either that or the company goes under so like you know we had to make that hard decision But we did that and I you know we're kind of on the sustainable path now And I think everything is just like laser sharp focused in from everyone that we hire to like you know every contractor we hire to every software expense like I literally have meetings and with our head of ops, like every two weeks, we just open up a spreadsheet, we list out every single expense in the company and we go line by line, I'm like, do we actually need this or do we not? you know And we just eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. and And that's a totally different frame of thinking and frame of operating compared to like, all right, like when are we raising our next round and how much are we raising and like are we gonna grow 300, 400%?
00:34:11
Speaker
And that's fine. And there's companies that do that, and they thrive, and there's clearly validation for that. You look at Meta, Amazon, and all that. But for us, that just wasn't our thing. And we're trying to build something for the long term. We're trying to build a generational company. you know If we were to shut down, that would be really bad for a lot of workers on the platform that would not and be able to rely on us anymore as a source of income. So we take that you know we take that to heart and just optimize for that. It was just a choice. I don't i don't know if Yeah, it was such a mindset change. and you know it wasn't even like The layoffs were tough, but we had a small team, so it wasn't as if we laid off like dozens and dozens of people or anything like that. yeah um But the real change was you know getting buy-in across the entire company, across our investors, across our um you know supply side as well, right and and really letting them know that, hey there's a sort of
00:34:58
Speaker
Change in the company and how we want to run it and you know I think the best part about it is just like being able to have that optionality Right um a lot of times with like the traditional VC growth route right it really excludes the amount of options you have it's either like go public or you know deal with a, or or get a massive acquisition, anything below that is like really not you know considered a successful outcome, right? And um for us, this path we're on just feels like just so much more authentic to us and you know and and it benefits everyone.
00:35:30
Speaker
Can you talk to me, you talked about communicating this to both sort of like your team and getting the team really aligned around this new vision, and then also your investors, right? And it's no surprise, like lots of VCs want 100X, 1000X, whatever X exits. um i'm I'm just curious to hear more about both of those. like How did you go about getting the team to really buy in, and how did you go about getting your investors to say, like yeah, we think this is this is right for law trades. yeah I'll go on the team. and The team was, I feel like, you know, received it really well. I think it's probably a sigh of relief for them in a lot of ways, right? Because in 2023, you know, every day you would see another company laying off 20 or 30 or 50 percent of their staff. and
00:36:16
Speaker
We all knew friends that were impacted, right, and laid off and stuff. So I think our employees and and our team, you know, took it with a lot of excitement that like, hey, we're going to focus on being profitable and being sustainable and be here for the long term. And it's something within their control, right? If you're an employee and it's like, hey, like for us to get profitable, we need to hit X number in revenue clients, you know, what whatever it basically is. And like, they can see that. That's very different than just kind of like, you know, trust me, bro, I'm going to raise a Series B. you know like yeah It'll happen. you just just just It'll happen eventually. We'll we'll we'll do it. you know there's not There's not that much control they have over that outcome. They would have to obviously really trust the founders, and I think that they they do trust us, but like I couldn't guarantee there was going to be like another fundraise at like a higher valuation than what we raised at. like
00:37:05
Speaker
That just wasn't guaranteed, but i could you know we could all work our asses off and you know generate 12 million in revenue in a year with like half the team size and like you know half the marketing spend because we were just like hyper-focused on that. um and you know for for For the investors, I think it's really important to get really good long-term minded investors as well. I thought that was like really helpful for us like we had.
00:37:33
Speaker
Tim Draper on our iron cap table from Draper Associates we have you know Angelus and a bunch of other really great like VCs that I call them they spoke to this you know we spoke and they were just they were very supportive right I don't think anybody really wants to even if you're a VC and you want a thousand extra turn you also don't want like the the team to quit and just have your investment go to zero right so I think the not so savvy investors will um we'll kind of be like ah you know like, why don't you raise another round? And I don't blame them. They're kind of conditioned to view success as like if a company's continuously raising every year, they're on a good track. If a company isn't, then something is wrong. But like you know if you do look under the hood and you look at the revenue, if the revenue is growing, if the margins are expanding, if the customer base is growing, like those are the things that actually matter. like Whether you're out there in the market fundraising or not, like I don't know. that's like a
00:38:25
Speaker
Cherry on top, that's like a cherry on top. The TechCrunch piece is great, but the TechCrunch piece is probably not gonna make your business or something. Or make it be around next year. It's a good ego boost for sure to get on TechCrunch. And we did that, we were on TechCrunch, we were on all the tech publications when we did our Series A, and it felt good, but then it's like the reality sort of set in. No matter how much money you raise, if you go through a bad cycle, you're gonna go through a bad cycle. Sometimes no amount of money is really gonna change that.
00:38:54
Speaker
um So like I think like it's it's good to just be very cautious about that and and just be very transparent with your
Resilience and Stress Management
00:39:02
Speaker
investor. So I write a lot on LinkedIn, but i always one thing I always do is send out investor updates. I used to do it every month, now I do it every quarter.
00:39:09
Speaker
so like I haven't missed one in like i don't know how many years now, but I'm very open, I'm very transparent about it, whether our numbers are up, down, sideways, like they're all getting it. and I think that um i think that when you when you go quiet and you don't really send those updates, then the context of these conversations that you're inevitably going to have once you go silent can be not so great, but like there should be no surprises. right and The really good investors know that a company just isn't a linear path. like There are multiple pivots, there are multiple sort of you know dead ends. there it's it's it's it's like ah it's like ah it's like ah It's like a video game. you know like Sometimes you beat the level, sometimes you die, sometimes you you try again, you sort of level up, and and we're lucky to have the you know you know all the major investors be very supportive about that, so I'm i'm super grateful for that.
00:39:57
Speaker
I mean I think of you two as co-founders who are like pretty I don't know if you're in lockstep all the time right obviously but like you you get along really well you support each other well you mentioned sort of like PTSD as a part of this experience and I've also seen some YouTube videos you've done about like managing the stress of being a founder and I'm just curious going through a really big sort of pivot like that, how the two of you manage that experience personally, and if there are sort of broader lessons that you'd want to share with the listeners about managing through really stressful times in a business and how you come out the other side. and
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah, I'll say one thing then I'll pass it off to you for the details. We have one rule which is like we both can't be depressed at the same time. It's so true. Whoever kind of is depressed and they kind of call that out, the other party can't be sucked into that. Even if you have to fake it, you have to be the optimistic one. So we get that sort of natural downside, whatever, when we need it, but the other side has to fake it sometimes, I guess, or fake optimism. We do a good job at supporting each other when we know that maybe there's some level of self-doubt that one might be feeling, or feeling down about whatever issue you're dealing with at the company.
00:41:21
Speaker
I'm so that's been important and we've always still you know no matter all the different pivots and the different cycles that we've been through we've always kind of kept the same routines as well right like we. Meet up regularly we work in the office together every single day we grab coffee at the same time every single morning um you know we hang out when we're not working as well.
00:41:43
Speaker
um So, you know, I think when you just have that trust with your business partner, your co-founder, it just helps you survive the droughts much better. You know what I mean? Sure. It's just showing up. it's it's like It's like going to the gym, right? if you If you're trying to get jacked, right? Yeah. You show up even on the days you're hungover and you're tired and you're sleepy and you have the worst, like, or a sleep score, like, you're still going in there and you're, like, lifting that, you know, lifting that weight. um And for us, it was, that's that's why, you know, even though we went remote and all that, like, we've We always made it a point to have an office, and it's just it makes the biggest difference to just show up, physically show up, physically open your laptop, just sit there, even though it's it's like a terrible day, your revenue's down, yeah like people are kind of like leaving the company, whatever, just to be able to show up and sit there and kind of like be near somebody else that's also showing up. like That just goes so far, and again, it it compounds. it like
00:42:37
Speaker
The skill of showing up even when you don't want to show up and things are hard is I feel like a really underrated skill Yeah, yeah, and I think there was something on on YC that kind of talked about the power of habit I mean, I'm a big believer in that ah for sure right and I think that businesses aren't built in a day, and businesses aren't built on the back of one really good day. and yeah i don't know I look at a lot of people who I admire in the business world, and they're people who, above all else, have a lot of perseverance. yeah yeah right i mean Look at any big company you could think of, the amount of times their stock price crashed, or the amount of times that they had to go to play off.
00:43:14
Speaker
It's actually not yeah majority good. Yeah, it's literally all bad for the most part. You get these glimpses, but then if you zoom out long enough, right there is this like wobbly line that ends up going. But everyone listening, start a company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is so worth it. You're a masochist. yeah This might be for you.
Future Growth: AI Integration and Workforce Expansion
00:43:32
Speaker
yeah um What's next for law trades? Where are you guys hoping the business is going to go? And you don't have a crystal ball, but but where do you want to see it grow over the course of the next year or a couple of years, something like that?
00:43:44
Speaker
I think for me, my my number one priority is making sure it's still a fun and enjoyable experience, just very broadly speaking, that I don't like hate what we're doing. here So I think i fun is a really big component to the longevity aspect of it, where it comes naturally, you're working with great people, you're solving problems, you you're you know you're you're sitting very closely to your users.
00:44:10
Speaker
um More kind of on on on the technical side, you know, I think it is, you know, sustainably growing. I think now that we're profitable, we want to stay there and we want to grow within the bounds of that profitability. um I think there's a lot of really interesting stuff on the AI side that's happening, as in probably many companies are are working on already right now. um We're using it in a lot of cool ways, both from like,
00:44:37
Speaker
automating the process of creating a job description, using a prompt, to matching you with AI and using way more, you know, better data sets to to eventually, you know, start automating a lot of different admin workflows via AI agents. So I think that we're kind of like at this sort of You know phase where like, you know, we we kind of like conquered this mountain so to speak of like getting companies Comfortable with using freelancers and that was the big idea in 10 years from now like there's gonna be more freelancers than full-time employees and we want to get people excited about hiring freelancers and I think like the next phase of it is is, you know, how do we sort of augment freelancers with AI agents and almost like build out a marketplace around that idea, whether it is augmenting the freelancers and giving them 10x, 100x more leverage to work with more clients with keeping the cost structure roughly the same, or even, you know, starting a almost like a separate marketplace of
00:45:35
Speaker
AI agents that are trained by our freelancers that you can hire and you can review and they're very good at certain tasks and you pay per task so um I think it's very exciting. I think the future is is is is is The part I'm like most optimistic about I don't think I've been this optimistic about 2025 or a particular year um Then you know as far as I can remember But it's but it's you know, but it's cool. But yeah at the end of the day keeping it simple sticking to the basics like not deviating too much from the core path. I think that we sort of went through a lot of those changes and I think we found our footing. But yeah like yeah, like taking a couple of big swings, but more or less keep everything else like roughly the same and like sticking to the plate. We have big growth plans. You know, we obviously want to execute really well next year. We're looking to make a few key hires. So anyone's interested in checking us out. We are hiring for several roles.
00:46:27
Speaker
Sweet. But yeah, next year is really just about a continuation and a lot of ways of what we've been doing for the past 18 months.
Personal Reflections and Professional Philosophies
00:46:36
Speaker
I've got a few fun questions for you guys that I like to ask guests as we re-close the fun round. The rapid fire. This is the rapid fire fun round, yeah. OK, your favorite part of your day to day.
00:46:46
Speaker
Oh, I mean, i I really still enjoy the whole sales process. And I love talking to customers. Like, that's probably what I like enjoying the most. So sweet um even, you know, working hand in hand with our sales team, um you know, meeting all these new folks, learning about their problems, helping them solve them. That's by far my favorite part and, you know, making those connections with them.
00:47:08
Speaker
yeah i would I would say I really enjoy our coffee walks. That's a good one. There's just something about walking and the way that that first coffee just hits like the first one in the morning and you combine walking with coffee with like ideas like and you have an iPhone like you're unstoppable. yeah like like There's literally nothing you can't conquer. How long do you set aside for those? Every day.
00:47:30
Speaker
15 minutes. 15 minutes. We just know take there's the same walk to Starbucks, go outside. Two coffees and a pop cup for his dog. yeah my dogs I'm sure the coffee pays for itself, the ideas you guys come up with. ROI on those coffins. In the beginning we were just kind of like it's getting kind of expensive. yeah But but like we had i mean it's countless ideas, countless like yeah Big ideas, small ideas, small like euphoric like you know moments where things just kind of came together. And all thanks to Starbucks. Thank you, Howard. Our best ideas come from like those times outside the office, right whether you're grabbing dinner or grabbing a bite to eat, whatever it is. yeah
00:48:08
Speaker
Okay, the opposite. Do you have a professional pet peeve? Oh, I mean, I know what Rods is going to be, but I'll my guess. This should be like kind of like a founder dean. Mine overall is just like pointless meetings. Like if it can be solved on a Slack message, I'd always take that route any day. But I would guess Rods is, you know, when when we don't use Notion.
00:48:32
Speaker
Yeah, I am a big like I like async document everything um You know because I know inevitably every piece of data we create right now is gonna be searchable with AI and and like and it's almost kind of like I the more you write the more of your company brand you're able to like leave behind yeah and then kind of pass that on to like future generation and future people so like Nobody still uses notion. No, you guys are getting better. She's just the sales team oh the engineers Everyone's there. The sales team was still just kind of just it's like what's an notion? Yeah, they they won't sort of do that but yeah ah along with that I would say like my biggest pet peeve probably is
00:49:12
Speaker
is not being very direct in communicating. So just, ah you know, when and when you're not like concise, when you're not direct, when you're not just like matter of fact, it really, it really just kind of like yeah bugs me because I'm just like, just say it, say what you want. And um there should be no fear. And this is kind of like, you know, it's the best idea wins. So like, you don't need to filter out anything. um and And I want to be challenged. And then maybe that's like the second part of it is like,
00:49:40
Speaker
If I don't get challenged enough and if it feels like I'm the one that's always coming up with the ideas and guiding it and nobody's pushing back, that also makes it very unsettling because you know it's it's not. You might be wrong. i'm im Majority of the time wrong and I don't think I'm the smart the hardest person in any particular field. So sure um you know during meetings, that's why I try to make a point to go last because I don't want to like influence like you know somebody else's thing or tell me what you what what but you what you think I want to hear. So when there's not enough pushback and it's not it's not direct enough, that really just bugs me.
00:50:13
Speaker
I like to read a lot. I like to ask guests on the pod if they have a book that they'd recommend to our audience. I mean, it can be a business book, but it certainly doesn't have to be. It could also be a fun book to read on the airplane or by the beach next summer or something like that.
00:50:28
Speaker
i would say my My favorite books are all business books. but i so I would probably go with Shoe Dog. I thought that book was incredible. yeah you know Just to hear like how vulnerable Phil Knight was in that book and you know everything Nike had to go through to be the company they are now, it just you know always reinforces that like no there's no linear path straight to the top. like the best companies out there like we mentioned earlier have like gone through so many ups and downs and have battled adversity in so many different ways and it was just such a refreshing look to you know hear that story from like an iconic American company so yeah that's probably mine.
00:51:06
Speaker
Yeah, I'll give you I'll give you three so overachiever i know ah One book I I've I'm still in the process of of finishing is around AI this book called Nexus by Yuval Harari, okay, he wrote the book but it's it oh yes ahhu sapiens yeah sapiens yes sa And it it's it's it's a really good take around like you know, the the pros and cons of AI like 20, 30 years from now, like the impacts of that and like a totalitarian government system and like, you know, what, you know, like what trusting AI over everything else can actually like lead to both from positives and negatives, maybe leaning a little bit more towards the negatives, kind of becoming this new sort of godlike figure for for people and what that could look like a few years down the road. So if you're into AI,
00:52:00
Speaker
that's ah that' it's It's a great book, very very well written. um On the business side or investing side, ah my wife got me this book called The Towel of Warren Buffett, The New Towel of Warren Buffett. okay So there are just these like really short like one-pager wisdom bombs by Warren Buffett that you can kind of read in any order, just leave it on your copy table, you pick it open. and it's ah it's It's one of his quotes at the top of the page, and then I believe his daughters write like kind of an explanation for his thinking for said quote. So really great business advice, really good investing advice, and just kind of timeless wisdom. um So on the business side, I like that. And then the third book, um I'm really into like kind of like the also like spiritual stuff, ego-based sort of thinking. um Anything that this author, his name is Jed McKenna, writes.
00:52:54
Speaker
is incredible. It will sort of change your worldview or change your belief systems. It will change how you sort of just operate on a day-to-day basis, it's just really questioning a lot of the beliefs and assumptions you've sort of made, you know, either for yourself or just kind of like got molded by society to sort of think a certain way. And and yeah, on the spiritual side, anything that Jed McKenna writes is is is absolutely life-changing.
00:53:19
Speaker
Cool. My final question for the two of you, this is my traditional closing question with my guests, it's if you could look back on your days of being a young lawyer, and this could be for the two of you in law school or maybe when you were just getting started with law trades, one thing that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then that good one Yeah, I would say from a business perspective um You know probably stay patient like I was super over eager to get this thing to work um Around that time when we were in law school, but so you know staying patient having a super long-term view and on your future career and like what you're working on would have been super valuable to hear. And of course, you know, we did waste, not waste, but we spent, you know, maybe three or four years working on, you know, certain customer segments within law trades that probably weren't the best customer segments. So like, of course, I wish we would have just started with enterprise from the get go. But it was all the memory yeah memories, all the memories we had have gone doorto door to door selling the Zoc Doc for lawyers. We would have had that we literally were doing that um and yeah so it was good I like that yeah but that was literally the pitch that yeah yeah so I would say that for me yeah um I think definitely be kinder you know to myself during the journey don't be like so hard on yourself especially
00:54:46
Speaker
kind of you know all all the rejections and pain you're inevitably gonna sort of experience just sort of like you know being a little bit more neutral towards that and not kind of blaming yourself as much and maybe you know the second one um is kind of along the lines of what a she said but viewing it as a journey not just like I need to get to x point to be happy You know, it's like, I think a lot of times when you're a founder, you're on this like, you know, hedonic treadmill of like, if only we can get to a million dollars in revenue per year, we'll be happy and we'll get to a million. It's like, well, if only we can get to like five, that's it. Then we're all good. Then we get to like five. The amount of times we did that. It's so funny. And it's like, we try to catch ourselves as like we get to like 12. only we can get to 20, but I'm like, shut up. You know, like, so it's just like, I think like, I think just like knowing that, you know, the inevitable outcome, which is like revenue growth and, you know, value we create and revenue is important, but it's like, you know, like we're creating a ton of value for our workers and our freelancers on the platform. And that's often something we revisit all the time. Like we're putting millions of dollars into the pockets of internet strangers and just like, that's incredible to be able to like have that type of impact.
00:56:00
Speaker
and like you know let that be your legacy, so to speak. But um yeah, just getting just not getting off on that treadmill and knowing that if you do good work, you know the the bottom line will kind of like take care of itself. It's kind of like a little bit of a riff of the Steve Jobs quote, but like you do good work, you show up, you hire great people,
00:56:18
Speaker
you deliver great value, you respond to emails quickly, or Slack messages quickly, or text messages quickly, like 90% of the problems could be resolved by just responding quickly, then like, we'll be good, you know? And I think that's one of our quotes that we sort of like say. We'll be good, man. We'll be good, man. And no matter what, good, bad, ugly, it always just, we'll be good, man. I love that.
00:56:40
Speaker
Well, Rod and Ashish, thank you so much for joining me for for this episode of The Abstract. You guys have been really thoughtful, not surprising, and this has been a lot of fun. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. It was great to do this. yeah And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in, and we hope to see you next time. Bye-bye.