Goodlawyer’s 2020 Year in Review: Emerging from Obscurity

Our purpose at Goodlawyer is to empower our fellow entrepreneurs with affordable legal help — no matter where you are or what stage you are at on your entrepreneurial journey.

The challenges of 2020 brought the importance of this work into even sharper focus and left us more determined than ever to help Canadian entrepreneurs succeed.

A rocky start.

Our year began with a moment of transition or, in startup terms, a pivot. We lost one of our co-founders who returned to legal practice, and prepared to relaunch Goodlawyer with an emphasis on micro legal services. We brought on new stakeholders who bolstered our resolve, including the former Dean of a Canadian law school as our first strategic advisor.

Despite the chaos, we felt ready for 2020.

CEO thoughts: Losing a co-founder is scary. Bringing in talented friends, former colleagues, my mom and a former Dean of Law, instilled the belief I needed to go into 2020 with confidence.

January arrived and it felt like a bit of a blank canvas. 

Together, with my co-founders, Parker and Tom, my trusted advisor, Broc, and our part-time marketing manager, Alix, we launched Goodlawyer 2.0 on January 1st. We booked seven jobs that month. Seven strangers bought $300 of legal advice through our new website.

We were delighted.

In February we marched on and booked 15 jobs. Twice as many new customers. Where did they come from? How did they find us?

Fortunately, a growth-obsessed, ex-Uber, budding MBA started buying Google ads for us as his little side hustle. It was Valentine’s day (or perhaps it just felt like it) when Grant started.

We had found our missing piece: the growth engine.

CEO thoughts: We also launched a podcast. Matt (our host) and I would go on to interview legal and business experts, discuss the future of law and listen to inspiring startup stories. I was a bit skeptical about starting a podcast at the time, but it has paid dividends in more ways than one.

Wash your hands.

When the pandemic arrived in March, like so many businesses, Goodlawyer had to adjust to new realities, work remotely, and focus even more closely on the immediate legal needs of Canadians. With this in mind, we devised a campaign to help more business owners and individuals across the country and launched #washyourhands.

Individuals and businesses could use the hashtag to access free legal advice over the Goodlawyer platform — whether they needed to talk with an employment lawyer about their recent layoff or what to do about next month’s rent.

We also launched a Covid-19 resources page to organize and explain the rapidly changing rules, as our governments attempted to respond to ever-changing realities. With a small army of lawyers and legal interns, we were able to provide a trusted resource for critical, up-to-date information.

CEO thoughts: In retrospect this campaign was obvious. But at the time, it felt risky to offer free legal advice, as a startup with limited resources ourselves. Lesson learned: do good and good things will happen to you.

Pick a lane.

In the spring, we continued to help more Canadians. Monthly jobs hit 63 in April and nearly 120 in May; a sign that our pandemic response was helping us to build trust with Canadians.

We also began to shift our focus exclusively towards entrepreneurs. This was a significant milestone because it meant abandoning some of the most common legal challenges, like divorce and home purchases. It also meant saying “no” to potential customers.

CEO thoughts: We launched an outreach program that involved calling every single customer, thanking them, and listening to their feedback. This kicked off a rapid series of product upgrades, including the implementation of a company phone line, easier booking, and closing the feedback loop with the lawyer community.

Test, fail, learn. 

In an effort to further help our customers uncover known and unknown legal issues, we designed the Legal Health Check. For $99 entrepreneurs could get a 40-point inspection of their business and the key legal areas every business owner encounters.

It was an epic failure!

We didn’t sell a single one, not even at half price. This failure fueled our motivation and we learned an important lesson: even more talking to customers before launching products.

In the summer, and in stark contrast to the failed Legal Health Check, our next product experiment emerged out of a clear customer need: people were nervous to talk to lawyers. With this insight we implemented the Legal Concierge as an intermediary step for any of our customers who were looking for a little extra direction — before talking to a lawyer.

Taylor turned this simple idea into a safe place, and possibly the greatest customer service experience my industry has ever seen. He’s a great listener.

CEO thoughts: We started tracking our Net Promoter Score, a popular indicator of growth potential in the startup world. Our 2020 NPS was 82 (Netflix’s NPS was 75). We also moved into a new and improved startup house and Zak added de facto office manager to his existing role of maximizing government funding and support.

Falling into place.

We entered September with vigour, keen to maximize our growth in the remaining months of the year. We continued honing in on our target customers and expanded our service offerings to include more legal services Canadian business owners need — and our prices were a fraction of the national average. By this time, our weekly webinars, partnership program, legal concierge, social media channels and podcasts were running like a well-oiled machine. A small, one-stroke engine perhaps, but a well-oiled machine nonetheless.

CEO thoughts: Our Good Lawyers were approaching capacity so we did our first lawyer casting call and on-boarded a dozen new Good Lawyers from across Canada. We also brought on three dynamite interns (Miller, Casandra, Kenyah) whose roles continue to grow by the day. More rock stars.

October was another month of optimization and refinement. We were selected for Alberta Innovates LeanStack Accelerator Program and had the opportunity to work with a renowned startup guru, Ash Maurya. Tom was also accepted into Product Calgary’s highly regarded APM program with instructors from product-led giants like Amazon, Clio and Benevity.

CEO thoughts: There were no major product launches that month, but the wheels were set in motion for a feature that would change the game — our Pro subscription.

Ready for launch.  

On November 17th we were named Alumni’s Choice at Startup Calgary’s Launch Party and selected as the top startup by Chris Simair (SkipTheDishes), Muni Boga (Kudos) and Bobbie Racette (Virtual Gurus). The team was elated to win the award and more motivated than ever to close out the year with record months. Goodlawyer had emerged from obscurity.

Launch Party also provided the perfect stage to announce the launch of our new subscription service, Goodlawyer Pro! We signed up a dozen companies that night and were over half subscribed for early access users before the end of the month. Beyond the launch of Pro and winning Launch Party, we booked almost 200 legal services to the tune of $50,000.

We were thrilled.

CEO thoughts: If someone had told me on Jan.1, 2020, that we’d win Launch Party and increase our monthly transactions by 100x within the year, I would have told them to pinch me. 

December was busier than expected and nothing seemed to slow down. We exceeded our Pro subscription targets and continued to book services on the marketplace across Canada. We listened to our Pros and built their feedback into the product. We provided proactive support, a clearer value proposition, and more of everything they needed.

2020 was a good year for Goodlawyer — and we are just getting started.

CEO thoughts: As a small thanks to our customers and team, I ended the year with my first foray into the world of poetry with “It Takes an Army”. Tom accompanied my heartfelt words with an illustrated holiday card. It was well-received, but I've been advised to keep my day job as Goodlawyer's CEO. I think I will. 

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