Editor’s note: Adam Breakey is the chief marketing officer at vTestify.
DURHAM — The Triangle is filled with tech accelerator programs aimed at helping start-ups get their businesses up and running. With the latest cohort of companies joining the LexisNexis Legal Tech Accelerator along with the Duke Law Tech Lab Demo Day, there has been a lot of focus lately on legal tech innovation and early-stage companies, pumping up the startup community both in and around the Triangle.
One local legal technology startup had the unique opportunity to participate in both of these high-profile programs – vTestify.
vTestify is an AI-enabled deposition platform for court reporter agencies, law firms, and general counsel. Our firm participated in the inaugural year for the Duke Law Tech Lab (DLTL) and was later accepted into the LexisNexis Legal Tech Accelerator.
But the question many startups founders ask is, “why participate in an accelerator program?”
Mike Hewitt, CEO of vTestify, says there is much to gain. “We believe that having the great fortune to participate in both programs, basically back-to-back, definitely gave us an advantage in the industry. We were able to learn from industry veterans, connect with influencers and decision-makers, and validate our hypothesis in a much more rapid time frame than we ever could have imagined.”
vTestify CEO Mike Hewitt attends LexisNexis Accelerator.
The two programs are designed to help startups at different phases of their growth and maturity. DLTL focuses on early-stage startups in a “pre-accelerator” while LexisNexis focuses on companies ready for market launch or in their market already. Of the 26 companies that completed the Duke Law Tech Lab, six went on to participate in the LexisNexis program. Here’s how they work:
The Duke Law Tech Lab program offers start-ups opportunities to expand their networks, learn to navigate the legal tech market, and move their business plans forward through weekly sessions led by respected industry experts.
“As we settled into the Duke Law Tech Lab, we instantly began to appreciate the level of dedication the Duke team showed vTestify. Bringing in high-level industry experts to provide insight was invaluable in our early development. They really had the legal tech ecosystem mapped out and they helped us learn it quickly,” Hewitt said.
For example, a leader from a top law firm told us that they definitely seek out and cultivate large advanced AI systems. However, even smaller software tools that improve overall efficiency can make a big difference in a firm’s business. Sometimes they might be looking for something that saves them a small amount of time and/or money, while other times they are looking for major systems that change their business in a large way. What got us excited was that vTestify has a platform that enables the firm to take advantage of advanced AI, but that is small, efficient and easy to implement.
With Duke Law Tech Lab’s structure of weekly sessions run by industry experts, participants received a crash course on the industry, culminating with “Demo Day” presentations. Demo Day is the opportunity to showcase your company’s offering in front of other legal tech leaders. After all of the companies in the cohort give their presentations, the awards are given out. vTestify won the audience favorite award for its presentation. “After winning the audience favorite award and speaking with the alumni in attendance, it was clear just how far our team had come in just a few months,” Hewitt said.
The LexisNexis’ Legal Tech Accelerator is a little different. It is designed to give start-ups a leg-up in the rapidly expanding legal tech industry by leveraging the company’s deep industry experience and market position to provide insights and feedback into product-market fit and business plan validation.
Much like DLTL, where vTestify wore different hats each week exploring legal industry topics and business practices, vTestify found a similar approach in the LexisNexis Legal Tech Accelerator. During each weekly session, LexisNexis brought in top-level experts from within the company, as well as outside industry experts to coach, validate and encourage the participants of the program.
“There was a moment where the program felt familiar, but there were significant differences between the two programs,” said Hewitt. “We quickly realized that the LexisNexis program was offering real insights into product-market fit and the business of running a legal technology company. The DLTL program was primarily focused on the industry knowledge side of the equation.”
One LexisNexis executive brought up that, for an early phase legal tech company, getting to an MVP (minimum viable product) as fast as possible is necessary to get “hands-on keyboards” using your product, so you can get the feedback cycle started quickly. This greatly improves the platform’s user interface due to real-world end-user experience. The UX in the legal tech world is essential, so fine-tuning that early and often is of great benefit.
These subtle differences meant that vTestify could springboard to the next level by quickly learning via the intensive sessions about how to make sure the product you are offering has a good market fit, how to get your message to the right person, and how and when to grow your team.
“Completing both programs was a great experience for us at vTestify. We have been able to accomplish so much more based on the knowledge and the connections we gained during our time in these accelerators,” added Hewitt.
The time we spent in these two programs was fast and intense. We learned essential lessons and gained critical insights. Most important, we gained validation for our work and made significant advances in moving our business forward. That’s what accelerators are all about.
