Leveraging Founder-Market Fit to Win Over Risk-Averse Buyers

What happens when a team of legal veterans decides to rebuild the dispute resolution process from the ground up?  To find out, I interviewed Rich Lee, co-founder and CEO of New Era ADR, a platform designed to resolve legal disputes faster, at lower cost, and with less friction for both companies and individuals.  We talked about building a team that had enough credibility to sell into one of the most risk-averse industries, how they approached trust-building with both customers and investors, and how they're scaling a capital-efficient business in a category that’s been largely unchanged for decades. Thanks for listening! – Walter. RUNTIME 39:46 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (2:59) “ I'm an early adopter of, you know, anything.” (10:03) “ The core problem: why does it cost so damn much to resolve a legal dispute in this country?” (13:05) How Rich and his co-founders divided roles and responsibilities (17:15) Hurdle #1: “ Challenging the underlying assumption that litigation and a legal dispute doesn't have to be two-plus years.” (22:32) In the early days, New Era ADR developed multiple personas to overcome customer objections (25:50) “ Fortunately, we didn't have to do a lot of POCs.” (29:40) “ Our market's comically big.” (30:03) Finding your SAM and SOM when the TAM is $350 billion (32:22) Which came first: the pitch deck, or the revenue model? (35:50)  One question Rich would have to ask the CEO if he were interviewing for a role with an early-stage startup. LINKS Rich Lee New Era ADR The Future of ADR? New Era Bags $6.3m While Still at Seed Stage, Artificial Lawyer, 3/16/2022 SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/