In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis chat with Jeremy Streten, CEO at Business Legal Lifecycle.
Jeremy is a returning guest to the podcast as he was also featured on the 54th episode of the DevReady Podcast and talked about legal agility in developing tech.
In this episode, he brings to the listeners, information on an educational platform where he helps businesses assess where they stand and how they can grow by educating them on thirteen business phases (conception, startup, initial clients, bringing on employees, protecting intellectual property, maximizing business and bringing in investors, expansion, estate planning, investing in property, litigation and dispute resolution, sale of whole or part of the business or listing on the stock exchange, retirement, and insolvency and winding up)
As Jeremy shares, people often get frustrated and intimidated by the complicated jargon and phrases that lawyers use and all he wanted for business owners was to be able to have the knowledge of what legal steps meant and why they needed to take those steps. The idea, as Jeremy aptly puts it is, “We wanted to educate the business owners on the WHY and the WHAT so that they could then work with their lawyer on the HOW and get the work done.” This empowers the client with information that they can then use to make the right decision moving forward.
Furthering his point, Jeremy says that most people take the reactive approach to legal risks and problems: they only think about wanting to solve the problem after it arises. Instead, when people are proactive and have learned about the necessary legal actions, they can mitigate the risk before it becomes an all-engulfing problem. Such an approach will save millions!
Talking about the people who take the course, he shares how most who do it are the ones who look to exit the business. People want to mitigate the legal risks and ensure that it is a sellable asset. The target audience, ideally, is people who have been in the business for 1-2 years. Though there is a bit of a gap between who’s getting on there are who they want to get on there, Jeremy believes that it is part of the journey.
Most people go into a business thinking that they’d do it for the rest of their lives, Jeremy has some truth to share:
- That could change very easily
- At some point, you’ll exit your business (whether it is by choice or happens to you)
Because exit is inevitable, it pays to be proactive when it comes to legal matters in a business. Moving on to the major thing that businesses get wrong, Jeremy talks about how most businesses just use downloaded-off-the-internet or poorly copied contracts, if any. The exit becomes challenging in the lack of proper documentation aka agreements/contracts with suppliers, clients and employees. His advice: get a legal assessment done and solidify those agreements; spell out the elements of the agreement and protect yourself.
Topics Covered
- Legal education for business owners
- Business Legal Lifecycle (BLL) Course
- Lack of agreements as a major concern
- Free Business legal lifecycle assessment
Key Quotes (Time Stamps)
- “What we’ve put together is an education course and platform for business owners to really understand what it is they need to do in their business from a legal perspective, why they need to do it and really give them the knowledge.” (1:04 – 1:17)
- “We wanted to educate the business owners on the WHY and the WHAT so that they could then work with their lawyer on the HOW and get the work done.” (1:51 – 1:59)
- “It’s really around that, debunking the myth that law is a complicated pursuit where we have to, you, know, have our lawyer explain everything to us. Well, no. We can understand what we need to do first and then we can be empowered to get the right decision and make that decision going forward.” (3:21 – 3:38)
- “I want to sell my business in 2-5 years. What do I need to do to really build up my business?” (6:07 – 6:11)
- “It’s really built for that person who has been in business for a couple of years, wants to know more, wants to educate themselves so they have a better conversation with their legal advisors.” (6:45 – 6:54)
- “The clients are the assets of your business. Clients are the ones who pay your bills so that you can pay your team. They are the real value of the business” (13:05 – 13:12)
- “A saying that you hear often, you know, the agreement is not worth the paper it is written on. Ah, that’s true if you just get any old sort of agreement and you download it off the internet or if you copy someone else’s agreement. If you actually do it properly, it is 100% worth the paper it’s written on and it’s 100% worthwhile doing.” (13:27 – 13:43)
- “The person who writes the code actually owns the code. Even though you pay them, if you don’t sign it over, they technically own it. That happens. I have seen it happen with providers providing to other clients—they don’t actually have the code base.” (16:13 – 16:25) – Andrew Romeo
Social Media Clips (Time Stamps)
- The course of Business Legal Lifecycle (1:04 – 1:59)
- The need for businesses to understand legal requirements (2:31 – 4:12)
- The target group for BLL Course (4:55 – 8:44)
- Solidify the agreements with suppliers, clients, and employees (9:35 – 14:24)
Useful Links
Connect with Andrew Romeo
Connect with Anthony Sapountzis
Don’t Miss Out: Free Business Legal Lifecycle Risk Assessment
Business Legal Lifecycle | Website
