The Traklight Blog

This post was originally featured on Above the Law.

This article was originally featured on Above the Law.

This article was originally featured on Law Practice Today.

This article was originally featured on ABA Journal.

This article was originally featured on the ABA Journal.

In our final installment of a five-part series, we close by interviewing Mark Oblad, around contract on automaton plus a look to the future. Blockchain and cryptocurrency law are opportunities for attorneys, not threats. Lawyers must embrace technology, although not all need to become as expert as Mark or other programmers in order to leverage technology.

Much has been written on blockchain recently, even in legal. We continue our series with Mark Oblad, VP, Legal and Finance at JW Player, who has coded a number of tools for automating transactions. Last time we talked about open source and industry source of information for contracts here.  This time, we look first at smart contracts. The concept of the “smart contract” has taken hold and is becoming increasingly the focus of legal technology groups, such as the Computable Contracts Initiative at Stanford Law School’s CodeX, Cardozo Law School’s Tech Startup Clinic, New York Law School’s Center for Business and Financial Law, law.MIT.edu, and Computational Legal Studies.

In our third installment with Mark Oblad, we take a step away from contracts to discuss open source and industry source. If you missed either Part 1 or Part 2 of this five-part series, we suggest reviewing both before diving into this background on the substantive creation of the forms.

We continue our discussion with Mark Oblad on his work within the contracts, smart contracts, and blockchain space in the second of a five-part weekly series. Not all types of contractual relationships have been reduced to fill-in-the-blank documents as discussed in Part I of this series.

Artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and chat bots are all hot topics these days. At a spring Seattle legal technology event, computable contracts were recommended as a focus for a future event. Mark Oblad, who I have interviewed previously here has done a deep dive into this space over the past eighteen months and below is part one in a series of five pieces on contracts, smart contracts, and blockchain.

While in law school, I came up with the idea for Traklight when I saw the errors made by small business owners during my time in the Tech Ventures clinic. For one company, the lack of a business entity and co-founder agreements created such havoc that it set them back a year. I distinctly remember thinking, "if only these entrepreneurs knew about some simple first steps, they could have avoided wasting time and money." Our mission at Traklight is to remove the guesswork from starting up and running a small business. We provide a roadmap to success using software to identify issues and provide education and resources.

Last May I successfully ran for the GLSA Board because my personal mission is to support legal plans to  address our access to justice challenge. Further, I believe that technology within the plans is the leverage needed to serve more Americans. Join us in Scottsdale next month on May 18^th to hear from some legal luminaries as we gather for the GLSA Annual Education conference in conjunction with GP Solo, more information here.

Last month, I moderated a panel at the third annual Phoenix Startup Week. The event has exploded since 2015 and the session on raising capital was packed. I wrote on the challenges with fundraising in Arizona here based on my own 2013 experience. What a difference three years has made! Arizona founders are now benefiting from an evolved and mature funding ecosystem.

Growing your business is difficult, particularly when you need money to fund your plans. Many entrepreneurs use personal savings or the revenue from the company to “bootstrap” their way to success. But sometimes that’s not possible because either you lack the personal wealth or the company needs too much upfront investment prior to revenue generation. Traditional fundraising from professional investors can be daunting both in terms of time and money. However, over the past few years, some additional small business funding avenues have become available.

Title III of the JOBS Act went into effect last year, and many entrepreneurs and small businesses are curious about if it works and how. I had the pleasure of interviewing several companies that have gone through “equity crowdfunding.” In the first installment of a three-part series showcasing those interviews, three companies detailed their successes with Title III.

This article originally featured on the GoDaddy blog

Starting a new business venture is exciting. Whether you’re joining the ranks of the startup CEO, creating new products and services, or becoming your own boss in a more traditional business, you’ll most likely feel a mixture of thrill and fear. Don’t get too overwhelmed, though, or you’ll skip over important steps in the first several months that are critical to ensuring the best foundation for your new business. Let’s first look at the top three startup mistakes early-stage companies make:

In her latest Forbes article, Mary speaks with Ray Young of RightsIn. RightsIn is a startup seeking to help artists monetize their creations by providing an avenue for licensing their films and music through an online marketplace. Ray talks about how the RightsIn marketplace offers creators more control of the licensing and monetization of their work, the process of how the product was developed, and his experience with IP in the entertainment industry.

I attended the fourth of the five Global Crowdfunding Convention (GCC) hosted by Ruth Hedges in Las Vegas. Due to Traklight, Evolve Law, and family commitments, I was only able to attend for Monday, October 17^th.  

In Part VI, our final blog in the series based on attending David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016, we analyze step nine and ten. The necessary contracts are identified with Traklight’s free Business Risk Assessment,  which you can access here. To identify, track, and protect valuable IP, you can upgrade to our Full ID your IP product for a special price of $99 with this code: BMBPC16.  The Risk Chart and IP Diagnostic link you to Paychex partners who can help both address your issues and protect your IP.

The fifth part in our series  based on David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016, examines step seven and eight of the ten critical steps to building and protecting your business. If you are not sure which administrative tasks apply to you, please join Traklight here and take the free Business Risk Assessment. The Risk Chart on your dashboard will help by linking to Paychex partners who can minimize your risks and increase your chances of successfully launching your business. You can save time and money on some of these tasks by downloading and reviewing your Strategy Report located on your dashboard as indicated below.