How Lawmatics Reached $1M+ Monthly Revenue with 2,000 Law Firm Customers (Interview with CEO Matt Spiegel)

Opening: Revenue and customer snapshot

Nathan Latka

00:00Are you more than 1,000,000 a month in revenue?

Matt Spiegel

00:01>> Just a bit more than that.

Nathan Latka

00:02If Clio or someone similar comes and offers you 20 x all cash upfront, so $240,000,000 to sell lawmatics, do you take the deal? How little have you raised all in?

Matt Spiegel

00:11>> I mean, we've still raised a fair amount. We're not quite at 30,000,000, but I think we're pretty close to that amount all in.

Nathan Latka

00:17How much have you been able to hold onto the company considering that amount of raising?

Matt Spiegel

00:20>> So I'm still in a pretty good position on, you know, 20% ballpark.

Nathan Latka

00:23How many customers are you serving now today?

Matt Spiegel

00:25>> We have about 2,000 law firms.

Nathan Latka

00:27True or false? The extension you did in past this past year in 2025, higher valuation or lower valuation?

Matt Spiegel

00:32>> Higher. Higher.

Nathan Latka

00:33We were a little

Matt Spiegel

00:34>> bit of a victim of the times because we raised our a at a really, really aggressive valuation time.

Nathan Latka

00:39I'm gonna make you an offer. We would do a $5,000,000 line of credit with somebody like you.

Introduction to Matt Spiegel and Lawmatics

Nathan Latka

00:45Hey, folks. My guest today is Matt Spiegel. He's a serial entrepreneur and former criminal defense attorney, which means I have to be careful on this interview. Okay? Before lawmatics, he founded my case, a legal practice management SaaS that was later acquired by AppFolio. Lawmatics today is a legal CRM for marketing automation, data reporting it reporting, you name it, law firms use it. Matt, you ready to take us to the top?

Matt Spiegel

01:06>> Absolutely.

From criminal defense attorney to serial founder

Nathan Latka

01:07Alright. Now did you start building this when you were still a criminal defense attorney for your like, inside of your own law firm?

Matt Spiegel

01:12>> No. I started building my case, my first company, when I was at my law firm. Once my case sort of took off and and then I ended up selling to AppFolio, that was the end of my legal career, at least up to this point. So no, lawmatics was more built out of the experience at my case and just, you know, spending years selling to lawyers and understanding what they wanted and where the industry was going. And

01:40>> so that that's really what ended up leading to lawmatics.

The MyCase exit and life-changing outcome

Nathan Latka

01:43And did you get super wealthy on the my case exit or was it an aqua hire? Can you maybe just talk about dollars there if you can?

Matt Spiegel

01:49>> Yeah. I mean, I can't talk specifics on dollars, but it was it was a life changing event for me. I mean, you know, my my perspective on it was and it's a really interesting, I think, thought exercise because my case was just recently valued at about $2,500,000,000 Yep. And so I sold it in 2012. I did not sell it for $2,500,000,000

Nathan Latka

02:13What was my case ARR back when you sold it in 2012? Do you remember?

Matt Spiegel

02:17>> Yeah. Yeah. I do. Because the multiple was pretty extraordinary. We were only at about 500,000 or 600,000 of ARR.

Nathan Latka

02:26Okay. And what do you know what it's doing now today?

Matt Spiegel

02:29>> I don't know what the specific MyCase piece because it's part of a much, you know, it it's the biggest property in a bigger company. There are other pieces there, but I gotta believe that it's somewhere around 150 or 200,000,000 of ARR.

Nathan Latka

02:41Wild. Wild. And do you remember what multiple you traded for back then?

Matt Spiegel

02:45>> It was a lot. I will tell you it was much more than, like, 25 x.

Nathan Latka

02:49Wow. Okay. Yeah. And so just to be clear, the reason I was going down this line of questioning, you were not like, you sold it to to to AppFolio back in 2012, and then AppFolio sold it for 193,000,000 in 2020. You didn't get any bite at that apple. You were a 100% out at that point.

Matt Spiegel

03:02>> That is correct. I was a 100% out.

Founding Lawmatics in 2017 and first customers

Nathan Latka

03:05Yeah. Wild. Okay. Alright. Let's go to lawmatics. When did you launch the business?

Matt Spiegel

03:08>> 2017, very end of twenty seventeen. Okay. Took about a year, year and a half to really build, and so we really started selling in Ernst at the end of twenty eighteen, beginning of twenty nineteen.

Nathan Latka

03:19Okay. So 2018 first customer, is that fair to say?

Matt Spiegel

03:21>> Yeah. It was end of twenty I think end of twenty eighteen that we had first

Nathan Latka

03:25Okay. And how long and you were working on it just basically for a year prior coding it?

Matt Spiegel

03:29>> Yeah. That's right.

Nathan Latka

03:31Okay. Are you the engineering founder? Did you hire a dev shop to do it? How'd that work?

Matt Spiegel

03:35>> No. So I'm not the engineering founder. I had another co founder then a couple people who were just there from day one who were on the engineering side. We had we had really proper a really strong founding engineering team. My cofounder is out of the business. He left the business about a year and a half, two years ago, but the other original engineers that were with us then are still with us now.

Nathan Latka

04:00Okay. So going back to the beginning, it was you and a co founder. Do you guys just split it fifty fifty at the start or were you bringing a of extra money so you had more?

Matt Spiegel

04:08>> Yeah. I know. It was really my my deal. He took a smaller a smaller split, significantly smaller. I really you know, it was one of those things where I was going to build this company, kind of build it no matter what. I thought that he would be and he was a great person to start it with on the technical side. Very young, very, you know, first kind of first entrepreneurial experience. And so it was definitely not

04:37>> an even split,

Nathan Latka

04:40>> but a very

04:40We're talking we're talking more like a you keep 80%, he gets 20% kind of split.

Matt Spiegel

04:44>> In that in that range, yeah.

Nathan Latka

04:45Okay. Cool. So you

04:46guys get coding together, You get first customer in 2018. How did you get your first five or 10 customers? Do you remember the growth tactics?

Early growth tactics: press and paid search

Matt Spiegel

04:53>> Yeah. So I think it was a lot of thankfully for us, I had done this before in the space. Right? And my case at that point was a pretty big company. So the idea of me starting another company was just something that I got a little bit of press and got a little bit of it was relatively easy for us to get out there when we launched. So it was a lot of inbound kind of right

05:12>> away, right? Just making a couple press releases about me launching a new company, about lawmatics being ready, going to some partners, going to some people I knew in the space who had clients that they worked with in a tangential arena and bringing them into us. We went to to Google advertising very quickly.

Nathan Latka

05:32Like how much were you spending on those early months? Do you remember?

Matt Spiegel

05:34>> In early months, it was very, very small. We were probably maybe we were spending, you know, $5,000 a month or something like that. It was it was we raised money very, very early. I mean, we raised money right away. So we

Nathan Latka

05:47had How did you raise?

Matt Spiegel

05:49>> In the first year or two, it was probably $3,000,000.

Nathan Latka

05:53Okay. Okay. So you raised 3,000,000 between 2018 and 2019?

Matt Spiegel

05:56>> Yeah. Or 2020, probably. So we did our first like true seed round at the end of twenty twenty.

Nathan Latka

06:03So

Matt Spiegel

06:04>> we had raised about $3.2.5 or 3,000,000 before that because we knew what it would take. We knew we were going to have an opportunity to step on the gas pretty quickly, and so when we had the product ready for launch, it was all systems go, and we had we had a go to market strategy, mar you know, a strategy that we had already deployed at great scale at my case, and so we knew what playbook to

Nathan Latka

06:27>> run.

06:27Guys, remember, I am not just a YouTuber. I'm investing into my third fund. We've deployed $250,000,000 into five fifty software companies so far, again, at founderpath.com. If you're interested in capital, I would love to cut you a check because I know you're investing in your education. You watch my show. So sign up at founderpath.com and when you get the onboarding email, I reply and I see all those. Just reply and say, Nathan, I found you through

06:50YouTube and I'll make sure to prioritize you. I would love to cut you a check. Check out founderpath.com. Sounds like the I mean, I'm trying to identify the most successful growth tactic for your first 100 customers. Was it Google Ads?

Legal tech conferences as an acquisition channel

Matt Spiegel

07:02>> Yeah. It was. It was online. I mean, I wouldn't say specifically Google Ads. I would just say it was it was paid search and paid social. I think those were those were the things that really got us going. Now for us in legal, we also went to conferences right off the bat. And though that is a very good growth tactic in our space, lawyers are required to do continuing education. So they tend to get those hours

07:25>> at these conferences that are put on all over the country. They're very well attended, and they're very great opportunities for sponsors. So we went to those straight away as well.

Nathan Latka

07:35Name one or two of those conferences.

Matt Spiegel

07:37>> So ABA Tech Show is one of the biggest ones that's in Chicago every year. You now have Clio Con. Clio, one of the bigger companies in the space, my old competitor at my case, they have a fantastic fantastic user conference, it's probably the best in the industry. And then personal injury has a lot of each practice area have they have their own

07:59>> they have their own trade shows, their own conferences that are very well attended for those practice areas, and we attended those as well.

Nathan Latka

08:05And so if someone else is listening right now launching in your same shoes and thinking about spending money on these events, what would be too much to spend to sponsor some of these events earlier on in a founder's career?

Matt Spiegel

08:14>> So if you can spend between $5,000 and $10,000 and get in there, it's usually a pretty good opportunity.

Nathan Latka

08:20And what were those first customers paying you on average per month or per year?

Pricing evolution from $60 to $400 per month

Matt Spiegel

08:25>> Oh, man, that's a good question. Very, very little. I know that because they are still paying that. And I just have a I have a personal belief of not really raising prices on people for the foundational platform. People who come to you early, early adopters, they should be rewarded. I don't, you know, see the need to increase their prices. So we still have people that are paying like 60 to 80 bucks a month for lawmatics when when now

08:51>> it's really costing people 4 or $500 a month. So, yeah, it was it was in that range.

Nathan Latka

08:58Yeah. Okay. So just to be clear, new customers today, average ARPU is 4 or $500 a month.

Matt Spiegel

09:04>> Yeah. I think our average our average revenue annualized is is in that $5,000 to $6,000 range. Maybe it's going up a little bit more than that.

Nathan Latka

09:14Yep. Is that intentional? You're intentionally moving up market?

Matt Spiegel

09:17>> So I don't necessarily see it as moving up market necessarily. I just think it's intentional in terms of our pricing strategy and and extracting the the, you know, matching their value to the value that our customers see. We are definitely seeing more up market trends, but the pricing is not necessarily intentionalized for that.

Nathan Latka

09:38Okay, interesting. Let's keep going back to 2018. So first customers, conferences, paid ads, five ks on Google, earlier customers paying $60 a month. You this is sounds like it's working because you didn't did a seed round, sounds like in 2020. What was the size of that seed round?

Seed round in 2020 and Series A timing

Matt Spiegel

09:51>> We did. That round was 2,500,000.

Nathan Latka

09:54Okay. Did you remember about how much you I mean, back then folks were selling between 15 and 20% of equity in their seed rounds. Were you in that same range?

Matt Spiegel

10:01>> In that same range. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

10:03Okay. Okay. Interesting. Do you any ruts about that now or no? That was the right move?

Matt Spiegel

10:07>> No. Right move. 100%. Yep. We've probably raised more than I want because I would like to raise very little. But I have no regrets. I mean, we needed that money. It it it allowed us to do things. It allowed us to hire. It allowed us to grow faster. And I think we we absolutely needed it. And I think the valuation was fair at the time. I mean, I think, you know, maybe we'll get to it. But

10:27>> on in our series a or you know, that was probably worse timing because it was at the end of it was December 2021, so it was literally right as we were falling off the cliff, right before we fell off the cliff. And so we got an an amazing valuation at that. And then the few years after, it was very hard to maintain that. So as we had to add money, it was more of, like, very small

10:49>> up rounds, not anything significant. So at the seed though, no regrets about that.

Nathan Latka

10:552,500,000 selling 15 to 20% that puts you at that call around a 10,000,000 valuation.

Matt Spiegel

11:00>> Said Somewhere in that ballpark.

Nathan Latka

11:02Yeah. Yeah. You said series A was quote an amazing valuation. I mean, you quantify that at all? Maybe a multiple or an actual number if you're comfortable sharing?

Matt Spiegel

11:09>> Yeah. I mean, was, especially at the time, it was a really good multiple. I I wanna say that it was in the, I mean, more than 15x.

11:18>> More than 15x.

Nathan Latka

11:19Okay. And had you broken a million of ARR at that point?

Matt Spiegel

11:21>> Oh, yeah. Okay.

Nathan Latka

11:22What was the first million year? Do you remember?

Matt Spiegel

11:25>> We hit a million of ARR. I, you know, I don't remember exactly. I I I wanna say it was probably in 2020, 2021. Yeah. I I don't remember.

Nathan Latka

11:34Investing a seed round.

Matt Spiegel

11:36>> Somewhere around there, it had to have been. Just thinking about where we were at generally when we did our a round. But but the a round was a really good valuation, and valuations were frothy then. Like, that was the last, that was literally the last couple weeks of these frothy valuations.

Nathan Latka

11:52Yep. And when you I mean, if you're doing around a million to 2 or 2,000,000 in 2021 at 15 x, that means they pre money were, like, 30,000,000 ish. Is that sort of the right range?

Matt Spiegel

12:01>> More than that. Yeah. It was more than that.

Nathan Latka

12:03Oh, more than that. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well, take us forward. Take us into 2024. Your cofounder left. Everyone listening, people deal with cofounder problems all the time, and no one wants to talk about it. I'm see if can get you to talk about it. Right?

Co-founder departure and engineering leadership transition

Matt Spiegel

12:15>> Oh, happy to talk about it.

Nathan Latka

12:16Okay. Why do you leave? I mean, did you buy them out? Was there a conflict? What happened?

Matt Spiegel

12:20>> No. I think I think it's natural evolution sometimes. So as founder roles evolve, I think sometimes you get into a point where a person who's really good at being a founder might not be good at being an executive leader, right, as the company grows. So my co founder is one of the best engineers I've ever worked with, period. We could not have built lawmatics without his capability. But leading a a big engineering organization as a CTO

12:50>> is maybe not the strongest fit for him, at least at that moment.

Nathan Latka

12:55Where were you at that point, team size wise?

Matt Spiegel

12:57>> Team size, I mean, our engineering team was is yeah. At that point was probably 23 people or something like that. So it required real structure, and it needed a real CTO, I think, at that point, someone with real CTO experience, and it just wasn't the right fit. And sometimes that misaligns, right, where a founder wants to be that role, but, you know, as a CEO can't does that role doesn't fit. And so, you know, there's no

13:31>> real space for them at that point. Right. And that just happens. And so it was a mutual it was a mutual split. Right. It was it was an understanding that like, okay, this isn't I can't be in that role here. And the role that would be for me is I don't really want to do. I want to pursue more of a leadership thing. So I need to go somewhere where I can get that leadership experience and

13:52>> and add that to my resume, which would be really, really good for for him in this case. And and it ran its course, and we we we brought in a much more senior CTO, someone with, you know, fifteen plus years of experience in order to to kind of lead that organization.

Nathan Latka

14:10The advice to startups today is, listen, even if you love your founder on day one, still put everyone on a one year cliff and a four year vest. Were you guys both on that? Like, what actually happened to us? 100%. Buy it out?

Matt Spiegel

14:20>> No. I mean, so at that point, he he had fully vested his founder shares.

Nathan Latka

14:24Okay.

Matt Spiegel

14:25>> Because it was, you know, it was in 2000 and and it was just, yeah, 02/2024 that he left. So, yeah, we're we're all of our vesting schedules are always, like you said, four year vesting, twelve month cliff. That's just standard with everybody. So he's still in the business today. He still has upside. He's still in the business. Yeah. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm being very honest. Like, he deserves the equity that he

14:49>> has.

Nathan Latka

14:50And his story checks out. He had great things to say about you when he announced his exit on on on LinkedIn. So it's nice to see that kind of these splits can happen in an amicable way, I think, the lesson from this part of the story. So

Matt Spiegel

15:01>> It's funny. He it's it's it's it's funny, Nathan. He sent me a text message out of the blue, like, a few weeks ago, just sort of thanking me for for everything and also saying something which I believe in very strongly. So like I always I'm always a Monday guy. Like, I hate the weekends as a founder entrepreneur. I hate the weekends because work isn't getting done. And I love Mondays because that's the first day that everyone's

15:29>> back and and and actually working on things, especially on an engineering side. Like, I love when product gets developed. And so I always I love Mondays. I think that's, like, important as a founder. You gotta love Mondays. And he sent me a text message that says, like, I I now understand what you always meant by loving Mondays.

Nathan Latka

15:47That's awesome. I love that. I love that. Well, that's great that you have a good relationship with him, so that's awesome. Let's go past that. So that was 2024, '23 engineers. 2025 was obviously last year. Give us an update on the business today. How many folks are full time?

Team size, total funding, and founder equity today

Matt Spiegel

16:00>> So we are somewhere in the ballpark of about 70 people. We have not the the team has grown a bit over the last year and a half, but it hasn't grown a lot. And that's all again, I like bragging about that. Yeah. So I should have said

Nathan Latka

16:13how small is your team and how little have you raised?

Matt Spiegel

16:15>> Exactly. How little have you raised all in?

16:18>> I mean, we've still raised a fair amount. We're we're not quite at 30,000,000, but I think we're probably closing in pretty close to that amount all in. But but but hopefully, we don't need to raise anymore.

Nathan Latka

16:30How much have

16:31you been able to hold on to the company considering that amount of raising?

Matt Spiegel

16:34>> So I'm still in a pretty good position myself in that, you know, 20% ballpark.

Nathan Latka

16:42Okay. So you feel good about Like, that's that's a reality to everybody. Right?

Matt Spiegel

16:46>> It is. And I think, like, at this stage, if you're, you know, kind of in series b range and as a founder, it may it depends on if you have a cofounder who's kind of an even split. But I think, like, being having the founding team be in that 20 to 25% range or thereabouts at a B is like a really strong position. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

17:04One of my my research team, I think, missed something because we only saw a seed for 2.5 and a series A for 10,000,000. I'm missing like like 15,000,000 of money raised. Where was that?

Matt Spiegel

17:13>> So we did a we did a few there's just a few things that were kinda quiet that we didn't feel the need to Announce. To announce, but we had a few series a extensions, some small increases, and then we just did a smaller, you can call it a series B, we don't call it a series B, and we weren't public about it, but we did put an extra $5,000,000 on the balance sheet just at the end

17:39>> of last year at a pretty good valuation and designed to kind of get us to this next milestone. The business is growing at a really steady rate, gonna become profitable if that's what we wanna do. And so we decided to do a smaller round, not put a not do a big round because we may not need it and we wanna keep our options open. And I think that's an important thing for founders, like optionality is key.

Customer count and crossing $1M per month

Nathan Latka

18:04Yep. And how many customers are you serving now today?

Matt Spiegel

18:07>> We have about 2,000 law firms.

18:09>> Oh, wow. Wow.

Nathan Latka

18:10Can multiply I that times that 400 a month number? That would put you at, like, what? $800,000 a month of revenue?

Matt Spiegel

18:15>> We're a lot more than that. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

18:16You're more than that.

18:17You're more are you more than 1,000,000 a month in revenue?

Matt Spiegel

18:19>> We are right at about.

Nathan Latka

18:20Yeah. That's okay.

Matt Spiegel

18:21>> That's a great more than that.

2025 extension round and up-round mechanics

Nathan Latka

18:23Yeah. The reason I asked that question, Matt, is because I'm also gonna ask you a tough I'm gonna ask you a tough question to answer because you've been really transparent and I'm hoping you stick that way. It's really hard for people that raised at mass evaluations in series a to keep raising because like most people, you can't get the valuation again. So like true or false, the extension you did in past this past year in 2025,

18:41higher valuation or lower valuation on a dollar basis than what you got?

Matt Spiegel

18:44>> Higher. Higher. Higher. Oh yeah, definitely. I wouldn't have done it. I think, look, that's when I mentioned our Series A. We were a little bit of a victim of the times because we raised our A at a really, really aggressive valuation time. And so you fast forward the years and evaluations have changed really hard to maintain that value. So we were very strategic about how we raised money over the last few years. And then and then

19:06>> this is like the business is doing really, really well. And so there was just no way that I'm that I'm going to be like, okay, well, we raised in 2021 at this valuation. The business is now significantly bigger than it was then. We're not going to accept anything less than than an up round.

Nathan Latka

19:23Yep.

Matt Spiegel

19:24>> And so we did. So so we raised at a at a higher valuation, kind of reset Tighter

19:29>> tighter multiple, but higher dollar valuation.

Nathan Latka

19:31Definitely tighter multiple.

Matt Spiegel

19:33>> But I'll be honest with you.

19:35>> Like, I think, you know, as we look to 2026, 2027 and we might, you know, maybe there's some type of transaction we look to do, whether it's a really, really significant raise or a recap or something like that, there are opportunities that always present itself. And given where we are in the market now and especially with some of the stuff with AI, I think we actually will get back to or we have the opportunity to get

19:57>> back to a 12 or 13 x multiple on the business if we look to do something.

Nathan Latka

20:02Hey, give me this is a selfish question, but whatever. It's my show, so I'm gonna ask it anyway. Right? We actually talked back in 2020. You were at, like, $50,000 of MRR back at the time. You ultimately had too much money because you you raised a bunch of money. Let's say you're now at, like, it 12,000,000 of ARR. You know, we're doing 5 to $10,000,000 debt checks and a company's doing 10 to $50,000,000 of ARR. How

20:20would you think about, over the next twelve months, funding the business with more equity versus considering debt?

Venture debt vs equity: the board debate

Matt Spiegel

20:26>> So we have this conversation a lot,

20:30>> and I've been very transparent. I'll continue to be very transparent. I've always been somewhat debt averse because well, for a lot of reasons.

Nathan Latka

20:38Well, tell me, what scares you about it?

Matt Spiegel

20:40>> I think the idea that, like, well, like, if things go really bad, that debt is still out there. And, you know, being an entrepreneur, you're taking a lot of risks. I've seen people get you know, I I think in in venture debt and and this type of debt situation, it's not as you're not there's not a lot of personal guarantee. There's not a lot of of individual responsibility

21:06>> that's getting put on some of the debt. But it's it's also there's a cost, right? There's the debt service. It's going to increase, you know, it adds to the balance sheet. And so,

21:16>> you know, I've always been of the mindset that I'm going to give up equity. My equity is really, really valuable, but that's how it goes. I'm going to do I'm going have strategies to keep myself in a reasonable range, kind of the range I want to be in for equity. And that might mean being re upped at rounds, you know, having options given to me, earning those options, you know, through equity plans. My board is generally

21:39>> debt averse as well. There are a couple of people on my board who want debt. And so we've had this conversation at every step of the way. In fact, just had at the end of last year with this money that we raised. There was a voice on our board who wanted us to add a few million dollars of debt as an option. And I'm not opposed to it, but my thought there was I'm not willing to

21:57>> pay for debt that I'm not going to use. I don't want to just add a cost under the balance sheet for debt that I'm not going to access. And so ultimately, you know, we we have a board meeting next week and we're going to be really kind of hammering it out. But ultimately, my thought was that we don't need it at this point. We have so much cushion. We're going to get profitable. I think as we

22:16>> got as we get bigger, I think debt becomes more attractive. As we get profitable, debt becomes more attractive.

Nathan Latka

22:23Yeah. Well, listen, I'm gonna make you an offer because I'm allowed to, but it's my show so you can take it with you. My offer, just so you have in the back of your head, we would do a $5,000,000 line credit with somebody like you that's under 60% leverage against your ARR, 50% leverage against your ARR. It's a line of credit, so it can sit there and you pay nothing, right? So to your point, you don't

22:43wanna take it if you don't need it. But if you take it, then we'll do no warrants, there is no personal guarantee. The interest rate would be something like 14% paid back over four years with a two year extension, and we could even do like a one to three year IOP interest only period. So take that $5,000,000 offer with you, and if you wanna engage after the board meeting, like let me know. I'd love to bounce

Matt Spiegel

23:01back.

23:01>> So you will get an email from my finance director, Brett, probably by the end of the day today.

Nathan Latka

23:07Okay. Yeah. I love getting creative from a financing perspective with firms like yours. I hate that you're already down at 20% but, you know, you're not down to 1%. So let's keep as much for you and the team as possible.

Matt Spiegel

23:20>> Yeah. Yeah. It's true.

AI strategy and the QualifyAI agentic product

Nathan Latka

23:22I love that. Alright, Matt. Well, you were you were like so transparent. This is amazing. I gotta give you a little time just to opine on the future of your space. We see Harvey raising crazy valuations. We see Spellbook, these sort of, hey, automatically redline your legal documents in Word using AI. What are you, what is lawmatics doing related to AI to help folks, you know, do marketing automation better, do data reporting better, etcetera?

Matt Spiegel

23:42>> Yeah. So, I mean, look, my general thought on this is SaaS is dead. So if if you're just SaaS, your revenue is going go to zero in the next couple of years. You've got SaaS plus AI, which is kind of table stakes now. Right? And then you've got SaaS with agentic AI. And that's where I think, you know, the real future is in our space. I think, you know, it's again, you got to have the AI

24:05>> in there that's going to be table stakes, you know, generative AI copilot experience, that type of thing. The agentic is where I'm really excited and where I think we're going. Yeah, QualifyAI is our first agentic AI product. You can create agents, as many agents as you want, who can, you know, who will learn about your data, learn about your practice area, learn about what makes really valuable cases for you and qualify them. But not just qualify

24:35>> them with a score. It will actually give you an action, right? Like tell you what to do with this lead. Like you should refer this lead. You should chase this lead. We're very, very transparent with our and this is what I think is really important about our space. Too many solutions in our space are like the data goes into a black box and just something comes out and you don't know what's happening in there. We pull

24:55>> back the curtain on everything happening with our AI model, giving you feedback, giving you the why the AI is making this decision, allowing you to give really, really detailed feedback on those decisions and then take that feedback into account for the model and help it learn. So, you know, the world is going to the Sogentic. You've got platforms like Harvey, which are amazing, using the wealth of of data that's out there. I think you're seeing so

25:20>> many of these inflated valuations for companies that ultimately are just doing what someone could do in ChatGPT by themselves. And so I do think we're gonna see my my guess is that we see a little bit of a reckoning on some of these crazy valuations on some of these companies that are, again, just glorified ChatGPT wrappers. So I think we'll see a little bit of a of a crash on some of those companies. But the companies

25:43>> like Harvey, like what Clio is doing with I think it's called Vincent is is really extraordinary. It's using the data. It's using every case that's ever been decided in The U. S. Right and beyond to help you make decisions, to help you, you know, analyze how valuable your cases might be and what success rate you might have or what to do as a lawyer in order to get the case ready. Those are things that are really,

26:07>> really interesting. From our perspective, we're on the front end. We're on the lead management side. We're on the get more clients. We're on the marketing automation side. So for us, using our data of like, this is what makes a good client. This is what works to convert a lead to a client. We have done like over 11,000,000 intakes. We have an incredible insight into what works, what messaging works to a client, what email gets them to

26:33>> come back to your office for a consultation, like all that sort of data. And that's where we want to really build these agents that can help you maximize your own lead efforts.

Nathan Latka

26:43Matt, I want to get a sense in dollars of how excited you are about the future. Here's the right way to ask this question. If Clio or someone similar comes and offers you 20x all cash up front, so $240,000,000 to sell lawmatics, do you take the deal?

Exit philosophy and the bites at the apple model

Matt Spiegel

26:56>> No, not all cash.

Nathan Latka

26:57That was a quick answer.

Matt Spiegel

26:59>> Yeah. No, I mean, that's the answer. There's there's there's the number is really, really big if it was going to be all cash. 20x, I'm doing it, but it's got to be at least 40% roll.

Nathan Latka

27:09Interesting. So you learn the lesson with my case. You don't want all cash up front 100%. You want to do maybe like a 60% majority recap, hold 40%, roll into the next thing.

Matt Spiegel

27:19>> Or the opposite, maybe 40% and hold 60. I mean,

27:24>> our motto here now, and actually we've been, one of my big investors who's a close friend is kind of putting this up, he kind of coined it and he's putting it up in his office as like a mantra, but it's bites at the apple. I think that's our strategy now is like, you can run a, you can kind of strategically get a company set up to have multiple bites at the apple by, you know, doing recaps

27:46>> and then continuing to build the value and keep, you know, getting more and more and more. And I think that that's a really valuable approach. And from my perspective, someone who never wants to leave the business, I'm having too much fun. It's a really attractive way to do it.

Nathan Latka

27:59Yeah, Matt, all right. It's a great story, great vision. If people want to follow along, where can they find you online?

Where to find Matt Spiegel online

Matt Spiegel

28:04>> Yeah. So easy to find me. I'm on Twitter. I think I'm Matt Spiegel, ESQ, something like that on Twitter, on on on all the socials. But our website, lawmatics.com. You can also I'm always around. Email me, mattlawmatics dot com. If any listeners, if they have thoughts, questions, feedback, advice for me, want advice, email me. I love I love chatting.

Nathan Latka

28:28Guys, Matt's doing about $12,000,000 of revenue today, but didn't start that way. He sold his first company, MyCase, back in 2012 after he scaled it to $500,000 of revenue. Was a big win at the time, but now that company's been bought and sold many times. It's doing hundreds of millions of revenue, and Matt goes, wow. Maybe I should've stayed on a little bit. One or 2% kept it. But anyways, in 2017, he moved on, got a

28:48co founder, kept about 80% of the new business, lawmatics. In 2018, got his first customer. Those first 100 customers really came from, you know, 5 k a month on Google Ads, a couple key conferences that they went to spending 5 to 10 k, ultimately doubled down in 2020 with a $2,500,000 seed round where he sold, caught between 15 and 20% of the business, broke a million of ARR around this time, then did a $10,000,000 series A at, quote,

29:09a really good valuation, higher than a 30,000,000 valuation. In 2024, the company Al Grew as co founder who left is about 23 engineers, but he scaled nicely today, increasing ARPU from about $60 a month from earlier customers to $400 a month today, serving thousands of customers, 12 million of ARR that continue to scale with their team of 70 in the world of lawyers. Lawmatics.com, check it out. Matt, thanks for taking us to the talk.

Matt Spiegel

29:32>> Thank you, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

29:33Alright, guys. You won't believe this CEO's revenue. Click here to watch the next episode right now.