[I will not promote] Agentic AI Legal Tech Startup, feeling like at a dead end
Hey folks!
I am an ex-Amazon engineer (25M) who left his job to build something I genuinely believe is going to be the default way of law firm operations. I have been working on an agentic AI first legal tech startup for around 1.5 years now. Its got not just cool but actually useful features. It has a chrome extension for easy access, mcp, word addin, autonomous agents, indexed 17 Million Indian supreme/high court judgements (which is extensible to other countries and open to public for free) etc basically my platform has feature parity with the likes of Jurisphere, Lexlegis, legora (except the partnership with top legal Database companies which is like impossible to have unless you are at multimillion dollar valuation).
I have booked several demos (with Managing Partners of mid sized firms) in past month with law firms. Many of them confirmed that this is what they are looking for or it solves their pain of task management using AI agents. But the lead gets dropped the moment they get to know how early stage we are and we can't afford security certifications like SOC 2 yet. And there is a trust issue of us not being from law background. Many of them said they will manage with existing softwares as they are much more common in their network.
This is the story of selling legal tech in India. And I'm not able to schedule even one demo outside India as I have no presence and credibility. I have been selected for startup showcases at major events, yet it has become a chicken and egg problem for me. I need customers/investor's money to survive and keep selling and for money/investor I need customers.
I am trying to figure a way out of this situation, I am considering these two options
- Get Acquired/Acquihired and keep the startup alive and see it grow.
- Bring a senior advocate as sales cofounder who migh fill the sales gap (Which is very hard)
What do you guys suggest?