Podcasts about pactsafe

The journey to building and scaling a successful business is messy, challenging, and full of lessons. In this special episode of After the First Million, we reflect on the most impactful conversations from the past year, highlighting the key themes that define the entrepreneurial journey.A special thanks to our guests who joined us this year:Tiffany Sauder, CEO of Element ThreeDagan Xavier, founder of Label InsightDevin Bramhall, former CEO of AnimalzRich Hagberg, founder of Hagberg Consulting GroupAdam Weber, co-founder of Bluebridge and EmplifySims Foster, co-founder of Foster Supply HospitalityKevin Bailey, co-founder of DreamfuelLindsay Roselle, COO of BossBabeJeremy Reymer, founder of DriverReach Lindsay Tjepkema, co-founder of CastedNick Smarrelli, former CEO of GadellNetLee Rubin, founder of ConfettiMichael King, founder of KFE Solutions and The CFO AcceleratorBrian Powers, founder of PactSafe (now Ironclad)Mark Caswell, former CEO of ResultantSharon Rechter, co-founder of First MediaSteven Plappert, co-founder of ForecastrChad Peterman, president and CEO of Peterman BrothersJoin us as we reflect on these lessons and carry them into the year ahead.In this episode, you'll learn:Risk and resilience in entrepreneurship: Success comes from embracing failure as part of the journey. Building resilience allows entrepreneurs to push through challenges and keep their vision alive.Leadership and personal growth: Great leadership starts with personal growth. By understanding their strengths and areas for improvement, leaders can evolve alongside their businesses.Balancing work with personal life and mental health: Sustainable success requires balance. Prioritizing wellness enables leaders to show up more effectively for their teams and families.Building and maintaining company culture: Culture is what makes a business thrive. Align your team with core values to create stronger connections and long-term success.Navigating growth and scaling challenges: Scaling is about adaptability. Leaders who stay agile and focus on repeatable processes are better prepared to overcome the complexities of growth.Jump into the conversation:(00:00) Reflecting on a year of business lessons (04:38) Risk and resilience in entrepreneurship(07:29) Leadership and personal growth(11:03) Balancing work, personal life, and mental health(16:28) Building and maintaining company culture(21:34) Navigating growth and scaling challenges(25:45) Here's to the next million

Scaling is simple: it's about doing what works, over and over again. In this episode, Brian Powers shares how he applied this strategy to scale his company, PactSafe (now Ironclad), a tech startup that became a $15 billion market leader. He talks about the challenge of transitioning from a structured legal career to the unpredictable world of tech entrepreneurship. Thankfully, he wasn't alone and found other team members with complementary experiences and skill sets that would help PactSafe grow. Brian also talks about the Ironclad acquisition, and what it was like navigating his new role as general manager of the brand. In this episode, you'll learn:Find Your Repeatable Wins: Scaling your business is about doing the right things over and over. Focusing on what works and cutting out what doesn't is the key to sustainable growth.Embrace the Uncertainty of Entrepreneurship: Unlike the structured world of law, building a business requires adapting to constant change and making decisions with limited information.Build a Smarter Team: Success isn't a solo act. Hire people who are smarter and more experienced than you in key areas, ensuring your business can grow beyond your own expertise.Jump into the conversation:(00:00) Meet Brian(06:24) Starting a solo law practice(08:59) How PactSafe was conceived(12:43) Creating a new software category(17:20) Repeatability is how companies scale(21:23) Hire people smarter than you(27:56) Different people for different phases of growth(30:12) Ironclad's acquisition of PactSafe(38:34) Brian's exit from Ironclad

In this Talking Tech episode Alex and Elliot speak with Jason Boehmig, co-founder and CEO of Ironclad. Ironclad aims to transform contract management from a low-value administrative task to a core business activity which provides valuable data and insights to the c-suite and other organisational leaders. Central to this mission is the development of the "digital business contract", a truly digital version of the analogue agreements we have worked with for centuries. LINKS Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jboehmig/ IronClad homepage: https://ironcladapp.com/ Shipping container article: https://ironcladapp.com/blog/announcing-ironclads-series-d/ Pactsafe acquisition article: https://ironcladapp.com/blog/ironclad-pactsafe/?hellobar

Possibly the hottest market in legal tech today is contract lifecycle management, and one of the most talked-about companies in that market is Ironclad, a six-year-old startup that recently raised a $100 million Series D – at a reported valuation of $1 billion – and that just made its first acquisition, of the clickwrap transaction platform PactSafe.  What makes Ironclad different than other CLM companies, says cofounder and CEO Jason Boehmig, is that it is not just building incrementally better workflows, but is creating a new standard of digital contracting that will drive the businesses of the future.  Boehmig is today’s guest on LawNext. In 2014, he left his job as a corporate at law firm Fenwick & West to co-found Ironclad with CTO Cai GoGwilt after realizing that contracting was still mired in the analog age. He built Ironclad one log at a time, he tells host Bob Ambrogi, and is now looking ahead to eventually taking the company public.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.  Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Everlaw, the cloud-based ediscovery platform for law firms, corporations, and government agencies.  Law Insider, producer of the show Contract Teardown, where they analyze the contracts that others are talking about.  A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.

In the latest episode of the Platform Podcast, Marketplace Risk’s Elle Tucker talks to Nicole Dobias, Product Counsel at Pactsafe, about her role. In this in-depth conversation, Nicole shares how she combined her passion for all things legal and technology-focused to become immersed in the world of clickwrap litigation. During 2020, there was a huge shift towards online business, and Nicole talks about the increasing need for marketplaces to protect themselves by making sure their online terms are enforceable in court - and what that means for her in her day-to-day job.

Field has spent over a decade in Singapore investing across South East Asia. Field is the Head of Venture and Impact Investing at Vulpes Investment Management. In April 2020, in the heart of the ‘first wave’ of COVID-19, Field quickly raised a Special Opportunities Fund to invest in venture backed companies as valuations came off and venture investing slowed, while other venture investors contemplated how COVID-19 would affect their ability to invest and their current portfolio companies’ performances. He joined Vulpes in 2015 and in addition to his investing responsibilities, he has served as the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of the fund manager licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Field serves on the Board of Patamar Capital, the largest impact investment fund in South East Asia, and is the founding partner of Seed Myanmar, both of which are managed by Vulpes. Field is also a Board member of PactSafe, an Indianapolis based SaaS business and the global leading platform for clickwrap agreement management and e-signatures. Field graduated from the University of Colorado-Boulder and the University of San Francisco School of Law. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/field-pickering-2767b34/

The need for a secure, simple way to complete online legal agreements is growing. Whether it's for eCommerce businesses selling product terms, merchant services agreements, or something else entirely, old eSignatures may not cut it anymore. Eric Prugh of PactSafe joins the show to cover the new Clickwrap technology and its payments applications. Find show notes and more at: https://www.soarpay.com/podcast/

Any online marketplace hoping to scale will face litigation risk. The first line of defense: a strategy that mitigates that risk leveraging your terms of use/service. In this episode, Elle Tucker talks with PactSafe Founder and CEO about creating and deploying bullet-proof terms of use/service to protect your marketplace by limiting liability and exposure, eliminating class action lawsuits, reducing litigation costs, and even avoiding nuisance claims, among other things. She also discusses common mistakes startups make and how to avoid them!

Although accepting a contract these days is as simple as clicking “yes,” there are data privacy and legal implications when accepting a contract. In 2020, every company had to rapidly change how to do business, and contracts between vendors, clients and employees are no exception. Sabrina Serafin interviews Brian Powers, Founder of Pactsafe regarding the need for contract acceptance technology in a remote workplace.

We sat down with Eric Prugh to walk through his philosophy and practices in product management.Eric is the co-founder & Chief Product Officer at PactSafe in Indianapolis and has spoken on the subject of Product Management. He believes Product Managers need to have the ability to lead with vision for the long-view while understanding what their teams need for the day-to-day. Eric also knows how critical it is for PMs to be able to bring people together to solve problems.We discuss how Eric’s team has recently adopted the Shape Up framework and what their early experience has been like. Eric also shares some advice for aspiring Product Managers and how his career has shown him that there isn’t a set path to get there.Thank you Eric for joining us! You can find Eric on LinkedIn at: linkedin.com/in/prugh and PactSafe at: pactsafe.com.You can find out more information about this podcast at sep.com/podcast and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you!

Eric Prugh oversees product, design and solutions engineering at PactSafe. PactSafe is a SaaS company that securely powers clickwrap agreements & eSignatures for businesses like Dell, Wayfair, Door Dash, Extra Space Storage, Upwork, HomeAdvisor, and more. Prior to his current rule, Eric spent 7 years at ExactTarget and Salesforce in enterprise pre-sales as well as the product organization. He is a proud Purdue grad and lives in Meridian-Kessler with his wife Liz, their 2 daughters and 2 dogs.   Questions Could you share with us a little bit about your background, how it is that you got into product design and solutions engineering? Share with us a little bit about PactSafe. How does it help to basically envelop the customer experience for your clients and of course, meet the user experience better for their customers? In terms of customer experience and its level of priority for your organization and even you, just as a consumer, you know what the importance of it for you as an individual. How do you think it has changed in the last maybe 3 to 5 years? And do you foresee greater change in that spectrum over the next 3 to 5 years? How do you stay motivated everyday? Could you share with us maybe one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? Could you think of maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? Can you share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now - either something that you're really excited about, something that you're probably either working on to develop yourself or your people? Where can listeners find you online? Is there's a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenging, they would revert to these particular quote or saying to help them navigate through those rough waters or those rough times to kind of get them refocused. Do you have one of those? Highlights Eric shared that he has been writing code and working and design since he was 13 years old. So, it's really kind of a nerd early on and he has always been fascinated with the power of technology and the power of the internet.   And so, at a pretty early age when he was 16, 17 years old, he decided it was something he was really passionate about pursuing both in his college degree and his career and so he went to school for that type of stuff, web development, graphic design, became a developer out of school and just realized he’s not a very good developer and didn't have the level of detail, the attention span for it.   He certainly has a massive respect for software engineers and engineers of all types because it requires a ton of hard work and got into consulting. And that's when he moved into software as a service and found a really interesting consulting job at a company called ExactTarget based in Indianapolis. And that took him on an amazing journey around the world and a big acquisition by Salesforce and got to join the product team from there.   And the reason he joined the product team is that he became fascinated with the problems that a single cloud based product could solve for such a myriad of people and how a lot of different companies can make products their own and solve their own specific problems that ultimately become broadly applicable problems for many companies, whether it's within the same vertical or within the same size of organization.   And so, he really just became enamoured with building products that solve problems for people. When he was in sales engineering, it was all about being the catalysts to solve the problem, being the person that was helping customers realize the value of the product.   And then he really got excited about how can he build products that are going to enable people to solve problems at a little bit higher level. So, that's how he moved into it. And then obviously the opportunity impacts that came along. One of his really good friends of a very long time had this amazing idea. He was a lawyer and he (Eric) had a lot of experience in SaaS. And so it's really a very good combination of skills, complimentary set of skills that they were able to come together and start the business and certainly been a roller coaster since.   Eric shared that PactSafe has a little bit of a unique perspective and when we talk about contracts and accepting contracts, generally, you're thinking about a very arduous, multi-step approval workflow, trying to get a contract signed or a contract logged or you're managing contracts for vendors. They've really created a very disruptive product that is designed from the very beginning to serve all the companies that have to do contracts at a massive scale. So, if you think about Wayfair, who is an amazing customer of theirs, doing amazing things in the market, they've completely disrupted the way people buy furniture.   They don't talk to their customers and have each of them go through a contract workflow to sign something. You're going through an e-commerce flow, you're buying furniture, you're buying a really nice light fixture or whatever for your home.   The contract is just a seamless part of the experience of checking out and Amazon, Facebook, early tech companies really pioneered that as a legally enforceable way to enter into a contract with customers. But legal teams at these big companies that were doing business in this way didn't have a way to manage the terms that were being presented to ultimately present those contracts as part of the customer experience.   And there were technology teams that were designing these experiences without really knowing what's the right, legal, best practice for doing so. And so, it creates all sorts of issues in the process and the bigger the company, the bigger the problem.   And so, that's really where the business came from in the initial problem that they solved. But what they found is that they became consultants for how a lot of larger, more don't want to say old school, but businesses that had done business in a more traditional way. They had salespeople going door to door, calling on businesses. They were doing larger contracts. Now that everything is moving online, software as a service has really kind of pioneered the way people expect to buy; e-commerce has changed the way people expect to buy.   And so, you have companies like Dell that are trying to figure out how best to implement the right customer experiences for doing more business, doing it faster, helping to recognize revenue for their business faster.   But then they have an army of lawyers that are concerned about doing business in this way because there still needs to be contracts as part of a workflow where customer engages. So, they really bring those two people together, the product person that's designing the experience and the legal person that's ensuring the right level of compliance is there. And they allow them to work in harmony and design the best experience and not worry about all the legal controls or compliance measures because they offer that out of the box.   And so, the product is great, it does amazing things. But, it's their people, it's their team that's helping working with these big companies to navigate how best to do these experiences in a way that everybody benefits, the customer, the end user, and the business.   Me: So basically, your integrated platform with a lot of these large organizations that require these contracts from a legal perspective makes the process that much easier for the end user.   Eric shared that you see in the largest businesses in quarterly earnings calls and annual reports in the last 3 or 5 years, you've started to see this transition of what CEOs are talking about.   Customer experience has always been important, but now it's talking about introducing new ways of doing business, new business models, companies are talking about. You've got Cisco, who's a huge business that's traditionally been selling hardware for networking and routers and all that sort of stuff.   They're trying to move towards more of a digital model where they're buying companies like Duo Security that are primarily SaaS and they're trying to bake that into their overall go to market strategy. So you're seeing a lot of big companies trying to lean into the subscription model. And companies like Zuora have been evangelizing that transition for quite some time but you're really starting to see it from even the world's biggest companies. And he thinks a lot of that centers around the way people expect to access the products that they buy, whether it's B2B or B2C.   They wrote a big e-book on how a lot of these big companies are trying to transition to self-service and one of the interesting stats from a future commerce report was that “72% of buyers now want self-service access to their accounts, to their orders, to their transaction history and even the ability to buy products online and that's at the enterprise or B2B level.”   And he thinks it's a big thing that's driving that is, as a consumer, you can do so much from your phone. Even in the last 3 to 5 months, like, wow, he really doesn't need to go to a grocery store, he doesn't need to go anywhere, really. He doesn't have to go anywhere because there's so much at his fingertips on his phone to be able to get delivered to his door, whether it's alcohol, groceries, you name it.   And so, that shift is like the second a B2B buyer wants to engage, a B2B brand, usually there's a gated form where they have to talk to somebody and it feels so heavy. And he thinks in the next 3 to 5 years, you're going to see a lot of companies and it's already starting. A lot of SaaS companies are moving towards self service, enabling their customers to find what they need to buy online.   They're being more transparent in how they're pricing going to market. You're seeing a lot of B2C companies that have traditionally done business through grocery stores, through Wal-Mart. Even PepsiCo, for example, is a great example. They just recently announced they're launching all these direct consumer sites for all their brands where people can go and order products online. And Pepsi is able this to start a direct relationship with their customer as opposed to having to work through the grocery stores of a Wal-Mart or Costco or whoever.   So, the whole business model is shifting, whether it's offering more subscription based products, if you've been a traditional, more on premise or hardware type company. And then you've got these direct consumer brands or these big B2C brands moving into a direct consumer model.   And you've seen a lot of companies like Warby Parker and you got like Casper, you got Harry's Razors. There are all sorts of companies that have established that that's a great way to do business. And primarily serving the customer directly online, being great, easy to do business with and even offering a subscription type model is a great way to go to market and people love buying in that way, reducing his upfront cost, make it something that's recurring and then add recurring value over time through a great customer experience.   Me: Your phone is definitely a very powerful device. I totally agree. I mean, I've seen so many changes, as you indicated, just from this pandemic. It's actually forced a lot of businesses to do things that maybe they may have had on their radar before, but they've definitely bumped it up as priority because of the time that we're going through.   When asked how he stays motivated, Eric shared that it depends on the day; it's definitely had its challenges. He has 2 very young kids and which has been so amazing in some aspects and so challenging in others. He thinks what has helped him to stay motivated is laser focus on priority and ultimately trying to keep his own sanity by starting his week, he just started a process where on Sunday he’s making his to do list for the week. He’s not doing it on Monday morning, that way on Monday morning he’s just going through and starting to execute on what he needs to get done for the week.   He hasn't hit a week yet where he’s actually gotten everything done, he’s always too ambitious, so, a good way to stay motivated, you knock out your to do list and you check everything off the list, that feels awesome. But he also thinks for him, it's about being realistic and honest with himself and okay with the fact that he’s not going to get everything done, there are going to be some things that don't move quite as fast as he'd like.   But ultimately, it's about managing, trying to manage what he can control and ultimately holding everybody on the team accountable and in a very similar way and understand that we all need time to go and hang out with our kids and know that ultimately there are people in our lives that we're doing this for. Whether it's a spouse, partner, family, friends, what have you, that's helped kind of bring him back to normal when things do get a little out of control.   But really, one thing he’s most excited about is the speed at which things are happening in all markets right now, it's a pretty inspiring kind of action, amount of action being driven in healthcare, in manufacturing, in all sorts of fields and industries that have needed that, whether it's digital transformation, whether it's innovation, whether it's collaboration around the world on a cure, on a vaccine, it's really been amazing to watch and he tries to balance the news that he intake with that sort of mentality and information and news stories, as well as like trying to stay up to date on the data on what's happening. What a long winded answer to your question.   Me: That's okay, it would be of great influence as a representation because people deal with things in different ways. And it's a question that we ask all our guests. It's interesting to see how different people stay motivated because what may work for you may not work for someone else, so at some point, I'm sure that maybe a blended approach or a little bit of this or a little bit of that will work for some of our audience that is listening to the different episodes. So, we are grateful for all that you shared.   Eric shared that they have a couple online resources. One thing that has helped him stay sane is he uses an email app called Superhuman, which he knows is an up and coming solution or product. It basically just helps people maintain their inbox and state inbox zero, it's amazing. It has a lot of keyboard shortcuts and stuff like that that helps you pound through email, which is super important to him because obviously it's more important than ever to stay on top of things, but not letting email be a huge distraction.   They also use Quip to help collaborate and not the toothbrush. It is actually a product by Salesforce. It's a great collaboration tool that their whole team has access to and you can build spreadsheets and kind of manage projects and collaborate really well and all that sort of stuff. So, that's been really great.   And then other tools that have been immensely helpful to him, they also use a project management tool for both their product design and development and his entire product and design teams use it. It's called Clubhouse and it's great for just managing, knocking out reporting on tasks across the team, so he’s not having to constantly hammer people with questions about what they're doing, it just gives me really good visibility and gives the whole team visibility into what people are working on, how we're tracking towards goals and all that sort of stuff.   Me: So, the clubhouse is very much like a productivity app as well for you to ensure that people are actually doing work.   Eric shared that he tries not to read too many startup kind of books, but there's a book he read right as they're starting the business, there are two books he read that he really liked.   One, for those considering starting a business, there's a book by a guy named Peter Thiel. If you've seen Silicon Valley, he's represented as Peter Gregory on the show. And he wrote a book called Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, which is an amazing book. A lot of people probably talked about this, but it talks a lot about how to build a big business when you're considering starting a company, how to think about the market, how best to carve out your niche in the space, how to expand all that sort of stuff. It's really good. Peter Thiel, he's a little bit controversial, the character but it's good.   And then he also read The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz, which is a really good one and definitely in times like this has been very good to go back to and really kind of think about how to work through tough times, which we've been very fortunate right now.   But certainly it hasn’t been easy. He’s reading a book right now called Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner. It's about the guys who created IDSoftware, which is the firm that actually created the game Doom. So it's about their story and it's super interesting and kind of a nice, crazy story, but lots of cautionary tales about building a business the right and wrong way. That's for sure.   Me: Storytelling and experiences is so important because a lot of us learn from other people's stories and their own experiences.   Eric shared that one thing they're really excited about at PactSafe that they're working on as a team is one of the things that has been not a challenge, but really trying to carve out a space is the combination of building a new product and having to explain and educate people on it, as well as really quantifying what the market is? How big is it? What types of customers can they serve? What's the story? That's challenging when you're really building something new.   There's no competitive set for what they do, which is a good and bad thing at times because you're not coming up against people that have bought this type of product before. So, they need help understanding how to buy it, what the value is, all that sort of stuff. They've recently partnered with a third party research firm that's going to help them kind of understand and carve out what the space looks like for them and  engaging analysts or research firms like this is a big bet.   It's a long, expensive endeavor to kind of help understand how best to build the company and product that's going to be unique and build a new market and help establish where they fit and all that sort of stuff. But overall, the prospects have been really good and he thinks for them, it's giving them a good perspective at a high level on how to think about their role in the customer experience, which is a huge part of what they do.   But they haven't done the best job of capturing the highest level of value for what they do. And then secondly, what the space really looks like. So, they've been working in startup world, you kind of work hyper focus at a very low level for what your product can do, because they don't have 5 or 10 years of research and development of a bunch of engineers building this thing out. They've got a limited set of engineers that have been hard at work for 5 years.   They have been very in the weeds on the problems that they solve and what these analyst firms help with. And for those that don't know Aragon Research, Forrester,Gartner. These types of firms, you're trying to look at high level macro trends and understand what's happening and what markets exist and what people are trying to do. They're really helpful in shaping what's really happening and articulating it in a clear way that speaks to the real trends in the market.   And so, he doesn’t advise it for everybody, but he thinks for people that have similar problems as them, they believe it's going to be transformational. So, super excited about the opportunity and it's something that his whole team is helping them sort out all the way from the CEO down to some of the product marketing folks on his team who are hard at work trying to cast the vision, if you will.   Me: Data is king, so the more capitalized you can get on your data to understand specifically what the pain points of your customer avatar is then I'm sure you'll be able to add value to those people if you get extremely granular about it, so the research approach is definitely an excellent technique to get specific on it.   Eric shared listeners can find him at –             Twitter – @eprugh             LinkedIn –Eric Prugh   When asked about a quote or saying that helps him refocus, Eric shared that as product person, he has always subscribed to Henry Ford's quote of, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” Because you take customer feedback on how you're building your product or your experience as a very key, important input and data point as you build out your company and product. But ultimately, as the business owner, entrepreneur, you've got all this experience and tribal knowledge and vision for where things could go. And you've been thinking about it every day, 10 times more than any of your customers really would. So ultimately, he has learned a lot by relying on that quote over the years. Links Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel The Hard Things About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answer by Ben Horowitz Maters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!   Listen to past episodes of Navigating the Customer Experience | Join Our Mailing List for future articles, podcasts and videos on Customer Experience  

What would happen to your product if you could shift your roadmap from growth-oriented features to making those improvements you know are needed? Eric Prugh, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of PactSafe share with us how they’ve looked at their product roadmap in light of the recent pandemic. While the business objectives for the company haven’t changed, they’ve made it a priority to focus on retention and serving existing customers. For them, that means slowing down growth and making improvements to the product.  As always we invite you to connect with us at Innovatemap and other product leaders. You can reach out directly to Anna and Christian on Linkedin or join our growing product community:  https://betterproduct.community

Why Your Contracts Are Not Working and How To Fix Them!    Ever ask yourself why your contracts are not working and wondered how to fix them? Jason Kren is the man with the answer to that frequently asked question.  Sales people want nothing more than to see their contracts and deals turn into a close. Unfortunately, there are times when the inefficiency of getting contracts signed can delay income or prevent a closing all together.  How can you make this process more streamlined so this doesn't occur? Jason Kren's company PactSafe could be the solution you're looking for. PactSafe is a company that was built from the ground up. They manage clickwrap contract acceptance at scale. This means they have the ability to manage millions of clickwrap contracts at a super high velocity.  An example of this type of contract is illustrated by Disney+.  The company recently launched its video streaming service and opened with 10 million subscribers in the first 24 hours of launch. At the end of the sign-up process is a contract that states the terms and conditions of the service that users are getting. These contracts are often the highest valued contracts that a company's legal department manages on an annual basis.  Jason's company takes this type of contract and utilizes the PactSafe platform. It's a quick wrap embedded contract and once it's accepted, the platform will track the version that's accepted. Using the platform, they can track the time when the contract was accepted and who accepted it. PactSafe can also reproduce what the contract looks like on an individual screen and know whether the contract is downloaded on a mobile device, computer, or  tablet.  In terms of sales contracts, this platform makes things run smoothly. With just one click, users have signed a legally binding agreement. In the sales application, this same type of contract and platform can be used to speed up the process for sales.  Making contracts easier to understand Sales people and legal departments can partner together to make a contract more user friendly and understandable to the customer so closing is easier. The first step is for sales leaders to talk to the legal department about contract design.  This includes the language used in the contract, down to the words and phrases, so the contract is easier to accept and lessens the points of negotiation. Ultimately, this removes friction from every step. Moving toward a standardized contract in the contract design includes multiple components that should have the end result in mind. Efficiency and speed of acceptance by the customer is the goal. These contracts are often in order forms for upsells and cross-sells within the organization.  Adopt a standardized language  A key area to review when moving toward a standardized system for contracts is reviewing the areas that don't need to be negotiated each time. These areas can already be written and in place each time. Contracts such as these are better for the customers and for the salesperson. While the legal team handles the design of the contract, it's the sales team's job to change the language used in presenting the contract to the customer.  Most salespeople today are still using archaic language when talking about contracts. An example is “I'm going to send you the contract and once you're done reviewing it and signing it, we can start.” You want to streamline the process. Sending the contract over for a potential client to dictate the turnaround time can lead to a delay in closing and waste time. With a new design the approach changes to “The contract is ready to go. I'm going to send you its link so you can click on it and we'll get started.”  It eliminates having to talk about the contract and you're sending the terms they just have to accept. That little shift in your language can increase velocity and reduce the friction of the contract process.    Moving away from PDFs Another key change that salespeople can make is to move away from cumbersome PDFs.  When you try to close a deal using this archaic method of sending over the contract via signature platform it is costing you money. If your prospect is traveling and they're on the road with only their phone available, they won't be able to move through the contract because they still have to go through a PDF process to sign off on certain points. This delays the closing by 48 hours or more.  The better alternative is to standardize and minimize your contracts by moving to a clickwrap, one-button acceptance system. By doing that, you increase your customer experience and your deals. When running a particularly high-velocity business, you should know the components that make up your sales velocity equation. If you can tweak these areas then the results can reflect a massive increase in your business and customer satisfaction.   Reducing the friction  When you can speed up your contract process by one or even two days, that will  increase your overall sales velocity. Embedding an email with a link to the contract and sending them as a ClickWap eliminates the unnecessary process of opening a PDF format and having it digitally signed. The clickwrap is more efficient for the salesperson and the client. Removing these delays will greatly improve your overall revenue.  It's true some businesses can't  let go of the signature contracts altogether because there are some transactions that still require negotiation, such as large enterprise deals. However, smaller deals such as non-negotiable customer agreements, can use standardized contracts to reduce friction in the sales process.  In the sales spotlight - DoorDash and BMC DoorDash is one of the companies using PactSafe's services. DoorDash has three primary groups who enter into contractual relationships with dashers, the people who deliver food.  One group includes the restaurants who provide the food. DoorDash has a massive sales division to call the managers of restaurants so they can be enrolled as dash merchants. These restaurants can then have their food delivered by DoorDash and expands what can be offered to the consumer. These end users are the people who download the app.  Restaurant managers don't have time to review a contract in the traditional PDF format.  They're often on their feet and checking that everything in the restaurant is in order. There is no time to check their computers and respond to an email containing a PDF they have to read through in order to sign off.  Jason's company worked with DoorDash and their sales team is now sending contracts through a clickwrap which is so simple and efficient. It eliminated the whole e-signature workflow.    The massive enterprise software company, BMC, didn't have centralized control of the contract acceptance process across dozens of their product lines. They needed a third-party to control and enhance their contracting process. Enter PactSafe.  They eliminated more than 10,000 different forms for BMS's 14 products. This gave BMC's legal department the ability to regain control over any changes to agreements that didn't require code changes and it provided them the visualization and analytics they needed.   When you think about efficiency for your own business, you're not only transforming your legal team but you're also transforming your sales team.  This creates a frictionless digital transformation across the organization.    Creating the pilot program Changing how an organization works requires effort. Jason suggests that before making any permanent changes, create a pilot program. It's important to test a new launch with a subset of your sales team so they can help refine the process by making sure it works before you roll it out to the whole organization. In sales, you only have one shot to launch well so  make sure the new system is ready to go. Having a smaller section of the sales team try the new system can offer valuable feedback and once it's ready to launch, they can be your greatest cheerleaders in moving the entire team forward.   Updating the process of closing a contract can lead to massive increases in efficiency, revenue and turnaround. For any companies who have high volume contracts, one-clicks are the way to go. #SalesContract   “Why Your Contracts Are Not Working and How To Fix Them!” episode resources Catch Jason Kren via his LinkedIn. He is also on Twitter with the username @jasonkren. Visit their website PactSafe as well  You can also catch up with Donald via LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for any sales concerns.  This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It's a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can also call us at (561) 570-5077.  We have a new semester beginning in January and we would love to have you and your team join us. Follow this link to apply to the program.  We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to.  You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

In this episode of Legal Departments of the Future, host and PactSafe founder and CEO Brian Powers features guest Jeremy Gottschalk, former General Councel of Sittercity and the founder and CEO of Marketplace Risk. Tune in as Brian chats with Jeremy about his successful tenure at Sittercity and how it inspired him to launch the Marketplace Risk platform, which is pioneering the collaboration and best practice sharing among in-house lawyers across the entire online marketplace vertical.

In Episode 24 we talk litigation finance with Justin Barker, an investment manager and the head of the Chicago office for litigation funding firm Validity Finance, and Bartlit Beck litigator Steven Nachtwey. Justin and Steve discuss the process of securing litigation funding, deal structure and explain that a good litigation finance relationship is built on trust. We close out the interview discussing the non-monetary benefits of litigation funding (another “set of eyes” to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a claim and the ability to see a claim all the way through to the end). The guys also dispel some myths about litigation finance (such as that it encourages litigation of bad claims). In the legal tech founder segment we talk to lawyer and legal tech founder, Brian Powers of PactSafe. Founded in 2015 PactSafe is software enabling users to create, monitor and track high volume contracts (like clickwrap agreements) at massive scale.   Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Are you making product assumptions that are misguided?    When you launch a product startup, making assumptions is par for the course. These assumptions often come in the form of who your end user is, what they want and that they want it bad enough to pay for it to be fixed.    Today, Christian and Anna are talking with Eric Prugh, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of PactSafe, about the assumptions he made that paid off - and the ones that didn’t.   You’ll hear how Eric was able to determine the best way to describe the product and position the company for growth and how, at the end of the day, assumptions can quickly be validated(ornegated) through one simple task. What is it? Take a listen.  Connect with Eric Learn more about PactSafe Connect with Christian Connect with Anna Learn more about Innovatemap   Past Episodes Referenced:  What to Do When the Product Doesn’t Sell Itself | Jon Gilman  What's in a (Digital)Product Name? | Cara Wagner    

PactSafe’s “Legal Departments of the Future” podcast is hosted by PactSafe founder and CEO Brian Powers. As an attorney who’s ventured into the tech business, Brian is always looking for ways to fuse the legal and tech spaces together. In the fourth episode of our podcast, Brian sat down with Vanessa Davis, Vice President, Research and Product Development at Legal Zoom. Tune in as Vanessa and Brian chat about what happens when a legal department has too many technology resources that aren’t integrated across departments, and how you streamline these silos into a single solution that works for every team. Vanessa also dives into her experience working in technology-driven legal environments, and how they have scaled growth and evaluated software solutions that improve workflows and productivity.

One of the best things about the legal industry is that there are multiple pathways to success. We are all trained issue spotters, and our guest on this episode identified an issue and founded a new company to fix that issue. Brian Powers is the CEO and co-founder of PactSafe, a high-velocity contract acceptance platform used by such major companies like Angie's List, UpWork, BMC, TIVO, and others to handle large volumes of clickthrough agreements. We talk with Brian about what motivated him to take on this challenge, and how he sought out to change the way businesses approach these types of contacts, and bring efficiency to the market place, and the legal industry through technology and process improvements. Brian is just one more example of those in the legal field who has found an alternative path through identifying inefficiencies, and finding ways to correct them. Hat tip to Kristin Hodgins for her tweet this week when she saw that someone said that if law firms are going to us AI, we need ways to collect structured data. Hodgins tweet reply was spot on when she said “Guess who are experts at structured data? Librarians. Google didn't destroy us; it help us by reducing low-value work like rote retrieval from our duties & allowed us to focus on high-order skills. AI will do the same.” Well said! Information Inspirations: We're doing AI Wrong Zach Warren interviewed Brad Blickstein in a law.com article this week about how law firms are looking at AI the wrong way. When it comes to AI and law firms, Blickstein says that “[AI has] become a top-down thing: What are we doing about AI? It's like asking, what are we doing about databases? It's a crazy question. The question should be, what problems do we have, how do we solve them, and is AI or some semblance of AI a potential solution for that?” Brad's company, Blickstein Group, is producing a Legal AI Efficacy report that is due out this summer. We're Communicating Wrong This will come as a surprise to no one, but there can often be communications issues between executives and technologists. In a Harvard Business Review article, a scenario is set up between executives and data scientists, and we are walked through some examples on how to improve the communications between the two personalities. The article suggests you have a variety of projects and you build a team based on a variety of skill sets (and goes on to list them-data wrangling, data analysis, project management, subject expertise, storytelling, design)- so that the team can focus on what they do well but you have all the skills needed for a strong data science team. (We have a little fun with the data wrangling job.) We're Podcasting Wrong Check out Jared Corriea's latest episode of the Legal Toolkit podcast. Former law librarian, and podcast enthusiast, Tim Baran, has a number of suggestions for those of you who might be considering starting your own podcast. It turns out that Marlene and Greg are violating a few of the suggestions. more...

"Change is hard, so establishing a mindset is very important in terms of embracing innovation.” PactSafe’s “Legal Departments of the Future” podcast is hosted by PactSafe founder and CEO Brian Powers. As an attorney who’s ventured into the tech business, Brian is always looking for ways to fuse the legal and tech spaces together. In this podcast, Brian sat down with Debbie Petillo, Senior Director of Legal Operations at TIBCO Software. TIBCO fuels digital business by enabling better decisions and faster, smarter actions through the TIBCO Connected Intelligence Cloud. From APIs and systems to devices and people, TIBCO interconnects everything, capturing data in real time wherever it is, and augmenting the intelligence of businesses through analytical insights. Tune in as Brian and Debbie discuss how tech offers the potential to solve problems, and how Debbie has championed tech-driven initiatives to improve efficiencies and productivity at TIBCO.

PactSafe’s “Legal Department of the Future” podcast is hosted by PactSafe founder and CEO Brian Powers. As an attorney who’s ventured into the tech business, Brian is always looking for ways to fuse the legal and tech spaces together. In this podcast, Brian sat down with TiVo’s Senior Legal Counsel, Roy Zemlicka. Tune in as Brian chats with Roy on how his background as an architect and UX designer led him to his career in tech at TiVo and why it’s his goal to make complex legal issues as simple as possible.

In this episode, we sit down with Brian Powers from PactSafe. You can learn more about PactSafe at: https://www.pactsafe.com/

In this episode, I sit down with Eric Prugh (https://www.linkedin.com/in/prugh), COO, at PactSafe (https://www.pactsafe.com), and talk why product, customer success, and marketing should openly talk to help the customer. We dive deeper on how PactSafe helps companies make legal transactions quicker and more effective. Eric talks about the challenges and successes of working in a SaaS startup and offers advice staying true to your customers, finding the right product fit, and how each team should communicate with one another. Special Guest: Eric Prugh.

Summary Welcome to the thirty third episode of the Evolve Law Podcast! Today our host, Mary Juetten, sits down with Brian Powers, founder and president of PactSafe. Pact Safe is a legal system of record for anyone’s who’s conducting business in a cloud based service. They give in house legal teams control and assistance with editing and maintaining cloud based service agreements. Tune in to find out more about the latest technological innovations happening in the legal industry! For the latest topics, trends and tech in the legal industry, subscribe to Evolve Law Podcast: A Catalyst for Legal Innovation. Listen as legal experts and leaders share insights about the legal industry. For more information, questions, or suggestions about our podcast feel free to email us at info@evolvelawnow.com!   Show Notes 0:00 Intro 0:19 Introducing Brian Powers from PactSafe 1:42 How Did You Discover This Legal Tech Problem? 3:12 Who Are Your Primary Customers? 5:00 How Did You Assemble Your Tech Team? 6:52 Do You Have Any Feedback or Case Studies from Your Customers 8:28 Outro

I spoke with Brian Powers, an attorney and the creator of PactSafe, a new cloud-based application launching today that allows companies and their lawyers to manage, track, deploy and enforce online legal agreements. We discussed the genesis of PactSafe, the benefits of managing online legal agreements in the cloud, including a reduction in legal spend, and the pitfalls of operating without such a tool.

I spoke with Brian Powers, an attorney and the creator of PactSafe, a new cloud-based application launching today that allows companies and their lawyers to manage, track, deploy and enforce online legal agreements. We discussed the genesis of PactSafe, the benefits of managing online legal agreements in the cloud, including a reduction in legal spend, and the pitfalls of operating without such a tool.

I spoke with Brian Powers, an attorney and the creator of PactSafe, a new cloud-based application launching today that allows companies and their lawyers to manage, track, deploy and enforce online legal agreements. We discussed the genesis of PactSafe, the benefits of managing online legal agreements in the cloud, including a reduction in legal spend, and the pitfalls of operating without such a tool.

I spoke with Brian Powers, an attorney and the creator of PactSafe, a new cloud-based application launching today that allows companies and their lawyers to manage, track, deploy and enforce online legal agreements. We discussed the genesis of PactSafe, the benefits of managing online legal agreements in the cloud, including a reduction in legal spend, and the pitfalls of operating without such a tool.

I spoke with Brian Powers, an attorney and the creator of PactSafe, a new cloud-based application launching today that allows companies and their lawyers to manage, track, deploy and enforce online legal agreements. We discussed the genesis of PactSafe, the benefits of managing online legal agreements in the cloud, including a reduction in legal spend, and the pitfalls of operating without such a tool.