StartUP
Mobile App Concept: Legal Innovation (2020)
My Role
I was the lead designer and product developer for this project, working to take our identified legal domain and translate that into a workable product and high fidelity mockups using Google's design system (circa 2020).
A Problem Worth Solving
17k - 23k
approximate cost of legal services for start-ups
55%
of the legal issues encountered were unidentifiable by those start-ups.
Our question:
How can we get early stage technology companies accessible and affordable legal services?
StartUP was designed as a tool for early-stage tech companies to use to build their legal infrastructure. We sought to develop a product that would make important legal milestones visible to company founders, saving them time and money down the road- and as a bonus, show investors that a company is serious about their growth.
StartUP: Features
Key Features:
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Organizational and educational tools
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One on one legal assistance with complex legal documents
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Gamification system to reinforce good habits and showcase company progress
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Investor side access for diligence and information gathering
Organizational and Educational Tools
With the incorporation of organizational and educational tools, we sought to make StartUP a unified platform for document management.
When startups theoretically sign up for this service, they complete an entrance assessment to see the company's current status. This would sync with the document planner functions, basing document priority on the legal milestones uncovered as a result of the assessment.
By having the checklist and document planner included in one location, we sought to reinforce positive habits while allowing founders to sync business and legal deadlines with a built-in Calendar function.
One of our high-value features we proposed is an in-app live document editor. This allows users to fill our legal document templates, and ask an in-house lawyer for advice if they are unsure about the meaning of certain terms.
Users could potentially link specific fields, attach photos and additional documents to the chat with a lawyer or legal expert on the other side. This would allow startups to save time and money by filling out the more simple documentation themselves- with the ability to ask for help if needed.
Gamification
Badges are a large part of the gamification aspect.
Badges would be given based on goals being met, checkpoints being reached, and participation with educational tools such as webinars and videos.
Badges would appear differently depending on the difficulty of achieving them, with high-difficulty having the most visual impact to further advertise the startups that go the extra mile to potential investors.
Investor Access
While we primarily focused on providing startups with a way to build their legal infrastructure, we also kept in mind the potential for various features to hold value for potential investors.
With the public profile and a startup feed containing companies enrolled in the app, investors could conduct due diligence and legal housekeeping on potential investments, as well as check in on the status of companies that might catch their interest.
As during our research, many investors reported knowing about a startup's management team was important to their investment decision, elements such as badges would help signify that a startup is serious about their business and willing to take the necessary steps towards success.
By allowing investors to access StartUP, there is potential to capitalize on the ability for this app to connect investors with startups- further encouraging startup participation.
