Jose Ancer of Optimal Counsel discusses legal services for startups

Jose Ancer of Optimal Counsel - Podcast Transcript

Scott:	Welcome to Founders and Friends Podcast. Before we get to our guest, special shout out to Kruze Consulting. We do all your startup accounting, startup taxes, and tons of consulting. We’re whatever comes up like financial models, budget to actuals, maybe some state registration, sales tax, VC due diligence support. Whatever comes up for your company, we’re there for you. Seven hundred and fifty clients strong now, $10 billion in capital raise by our clients, I can’t believe it, $2 billion this year. It’s been a crazy awesome year. So, check us out at kruzeconsulting.com and now onto our guest.
Singer:	So when your troubles are mountain in tax or Go Kruze, from Founders and Friends, it’s Kruze Consulting. Founders and Friends, with your host, Scotty Orn.
Scott:	Welcome to Founders of Friends podcast with Scott Orn at Kruze Consulting, and today my very special guest is Jose Ancer of Silicon Hills legal or lawyer. But also, Jose, that’s Jose’s passion project. [inaudible 00:01:04] also a lawyer, Optimal Counsel. [inaudible 00:01:07]-
Jose:	Optimal Counsel [inaudible 00:01:07]-
Scott:	Welcome to the podcast. Yeah, exactly. Welcome, Jose.
Jose:	Thanks. I appreciate it.
Scott:	And I got to say, we just met because you have this incredible blog. And I think you emailed me, or emailed you. And I was like, holy cow, this guy really knows what he is doing. And so I wanted to have you on the podcast.
Jose:	Yeah, I appreciate it. I’ve definitely seen lawyers try to blog and fail, but I think I’ve enjoyed it for 10 years now and I’ve got some great clients that have come through it. It’s been a great project.
Scott:	Yeah. Well, maybe everyone about yourself a little bit, retrace your career and tell them how you got into that.
Jose:	Yeah. I guess we’ll start with law school. I went to Harvard Law, about midway through I knew I wanted to work with startups, took some courses there. I met my wife at UT Austin, and she was with me in law school. We actually had our first daughter in law school. We moved back to Austin. I was in typical big law for two or three years. And then as many lawyers do, decided that it wasn’t for me for a number of reasons, including that I think it was just I wanted to try my hand at boutique law. Because I felt like at a boutique there’s much more flexibility to do things differently, step outside of the box. And so I joined a boutique as a third year. By then, my blog was already going. And spent about eight or nine years at this boutique building out the practice. I hired most of the partners in that practice, most of the associates. I was the legal CTO, so I was responsible for all the legal tech. Eventually became the highest originating partner in that group. And then a little under a year ago, you could call it a spinout, about 17 or 18 of us spun out of this boutique and formed Optimal, which is what we’ve wanted to have our entire careers really. And that’s where I’ve landed.
Scott:	That’s a great way of saying that, you were able to build up and then create the exact work environment and the exact client base you wanted over time.
Jose:	Yeah, yeah. It’s like spending 10 to 12 years seeing all the flaws of how law is done, and it’s finally a blank slate to try our own paintbrush at it, so to speak.
Scott:	That’s cool. That’s cool. And what kind of companies do you focus on? What stage, all that kind of stuff?
Jose:	We’re a corporate insecurities boutique, so everyone knows law. It’s like healthcare, you have all these different kinds of specialties. What I do is emerging companies, the vast majority of our lawyers our EC, VC lawyers, startup lawyers. Precede through series C, all the classic saves, convertible notes, NBCA documents, seed equity. That’s what my blog is focused on. We also have an M&A practice for when our clients exit. And then for other specialties that our clients need, because most law firms try to provide full service, we have what we call our specialist network. Which is tax, privacy, regulatory, FDA, all that stuff. There’re other lean boutiques in those specialties that we collaborate with, and that allows us to replicate the full menu of practice areas that you might get at a big firm, but under a leaner boutique model.
Scott:	It’s super smart. I know some other legal friends of mine do the exact same thing, and those specialists are often really, really good because they’re super focused. If you bring in a specialist, it’s usually someone you’ve worked with a bunch of times, you know they’re good, you know [inaudible 00:04:36]-
Jose:	Yeah. Look, there’s a number of reasons, ways we sell ourselves. Part of it is just lower rates, better responsiveness. But there’s definitely certain clients that have switched to us from big law. And what they experience is that you often get on the phone with one lawyer, and you like that lawyer, and you hire that lawyer. But when they’re at a firm that has 40 practice areas, they’re incentivized to cross-sell you. And it’s like, oh, I’ll send you to my patent lawyer, because they get origination credit by cross-selling. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But yeah, you’re right, the boutique system, we don’t get kickbacks for sending you to this specialist versus that specialist. And so we can be much more meritocratic. And I do think that results in better fit lawyers. Because we have no reason to push you to X or Y, it’s just whoever’s going to make you happy.
Scott:	And you know this, you’ve worked with this person before, and they’re vetted, which is huge.
Jose:	Absolutely.
Scott:	That’s awesome, man. Can you give the Euro URL of your blog and all that stuff out, and just talk about that a little bit?
Jose:	Siliconhillslawyer.com is the blog. Optimalcouncil.com is the website of our firm. I’m also pretty active on Twitter and LinkedIn. Twitter is AncerJ, I’ve been on Twitter for since 2L of law school or something like that. But yeah, the idea of the blog, it’s like a web MD for founders. There’s so much vocabulary and lingo that is just not worth paying a lawyer to teach you if you’re intelligent enough to read a few articles and educate yourself. And I think also, one thing that makes us pretty unique as a firm is we don’t represent tech VCs. All of our clients are tech companies. Or CPG, we l so do consumer packaged goods, food startups, because of Whole Foods in Austin. And so a lot of the stuff that I write about on my blog is things that a lot of the traditional law firms are afraid to publish themselves because it would anger about half of their clients at least. Whereas, on my blog there’s no one I care about pissing off, I can speak a little bit more candidly about here are the ways as a founder you should take care of yourself. Right?
Scott:	That’s really, really good. Silicon Hills, you actually taught me this. Maybe tell everyone what Silicon Hills actually is [inaudible 00:07:04]-
Jose:	When I first started out as a lawyer, it’s like everything wanted to be Silicon something. So Silicon Alley is New York. [inaudible 00:07:12]-
Scott:	I remember that. I remember Silicon Beach.
Jose:	Austin is the hill country of Texas, and so it’s been called Silicon Hills. And so, I created the blog Silicon Hills Lawyer. I actually now live in Colorado, so maybe I should change it to Silicon Mountain or some nonsense. But it’s like, I’ve had it for so long that I’m just running with it.
Scott:	What’s interesting is you were telling me that your client base is all over because it’s a virtual… People find you.
Jose:	We’ve been doing remote since before it was cool. Optimal is a fully remote law firm, and that’s one of our advantages. That we’re just so much leaner on overhead that we can charge so much lower. And our lawyers, our associates make as much as Gunderson’s.
Scott:	Wow.
Jose:	But they bill it three or $400 an hour lower, but because we’re so lean in how we operate.
Scott:	We’re remote too, and I love it. And we were doing it before it was cool too. Even just from a lifestyle perspective of not having to drive my rear end into San Francisco every day and back, or Menlo Park and back, it makes a big difference.
Jose:	And it’s huge for recruiting too, because you’ve got really elite law… We’re a very high-end firm, our lawyers all come from elite firms and schools and stuff. But the ability to earn what you would make living in San Francisco or New York, but not have to live there.
Scott:	Yeah.
Jose:	It’s crazy.
Scott:	It’s massive. Yeah. The other thing is, this may be you guys, but I see that we actually have a huge East Coast presence, even though the firm was founded in San Francisco.
Jose:	Oh, yeah.
Scott:	Because it’s like, there’s tons of East Coast accountants that want to work with startups that don’t live in New York, and we’re a venue for them to do that. I’m sure you guys are benefiting in the same way.
Jose:	Yeah. We have New York, DC. We used to have Boise, although our Boise lawyer is moving to Rome, he’s going to work from Italy. It’s going to be interesting.
Scott:	That sounds good.
Jose:	Austin, Colorado, everywhere. But you’re absolutely right, that the nature of a national market being fully remote is… There’s a lot of startups that they need a real EC/VC lawyer and accountant, but they may be in a location where within 100-mile radius there’s no one. And so why should they have to go with Joe Schmoe person? There’s nothing about what we do that requires us to meet in person.
Scott:	Yeah. Well, it’s also they get away… This is a bigger problem that I see them getting away from, which is using their uncle’s friend or their aunt, or getting terrible legal advice. And we see-
Jose:	Yeah, it’s exactly like healthcare. You never say, oh, I’m sick. I’m going to go to some random doctor. It’s, well, what do you need? What kind of doctor? And so corporate insecurities is itself a specialty, but emerging companies is a niche specialty. You can hire a corporate lawyer, but that corporate lawyer works with healthcare companies and oil and gas companies, and all this stuff. And you mentioned post money saved with evaluation cap, and it’s like, well, let me Google it myself.
Scott:	[inaudible 00:10:35] the same thing. And what’s interesting for us is, where I say the best lawyers want their clients to work with good accountants, and the best accountants want their clients work with good lawyers, because you’re a feedback loop in between what you’re doing and what we’re doing. And if the company has a bad lawyer, their cap table gets all screwed up or they get incorporated the wrong way and it affects their tax returns. It’s a real issue. And I’m sure we feed back into your guys’ work as well. Due diligence. Due diligence probably is so much harder with a bad accountant. You’re just trying to get this deal done and the accountant can’t do the diligence.
Jose:	I wrote a blog post years ago called Legal Technical Debt. Technical debt [inaudible 00:11:19]-
Scott:	I se that too, accounting debt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jose:	You go cheap on your programming and start accruing. Except it’s even worse with legal, because with contracts you can’t issue a version 1.3 over the air unilaterally. If there’s a bug, that bug’s permanent often.
Scott:	Yeah. I haven’t thought about it from a legal perspective, but it is to totally an accounting thing. People come to us with their accounting all screwed up. And sometimes I’ll say, “You’re going to pay for this a second time. You’re paying for the same exact work we could’ve done the first time.”
Jose:	You can pay for it upfront or you can pay five to 10X to clean it up. If at all it’s cleaned up. It can’t.
Scott:	Exactly.
Jose:	Because I’ve had clients come to me that they thought they were saving money and ended up costing them 20X in dilution.
Scott:	Especially on the legal side, oh my God. Well, when we were mapping out the conversation, we’re recording this in April 2023, so the market’s a lot tougher, but still functioning. There’s still tons of companies getting funded, and especially at the seed Series A, Series B stage.
Jose:	Yeah. It’s really the growth stage that’s taken enormous hit. I’d say the early stages are still quite active, it’s just a reset on valuations expectations.
Scott:	Yeah. Yeah, I’m seeing the same exact thing. Even some of our seeds, not a lot, but some of our seed companies raised at Series B valuations in 2021 or 2022. So, there’s-
Jose:	Look, I thought the whole market was nuts for about two years. But crypto in particular. I saw some crypto deals that were literally like, can I just wire you the $5 million and we negotiate the terms later? It reached that level.
Scott:	Yeah, it was crazy.
Jose:	It was pretty crazy.
Scott:	Funny thing about us is the crypto accounting is really difficult, and there wasn’t great tools for it. We took some crypto companies, but not a ton. And we have some huge ones, we have companies that raised $500 million a couple-
Jose:	Yeah. I wouldn’t say that we’re super active in the crypto space either, although we do have a few pretty cool companies we work with. But the actual crypto specific stuff, I sent to a specialist. I still do the corporate insecurities.
Scott:	Yeah, yeah. That’s smart. It’s Scott Orn of Kruze Consulting, taking a quick pit stop to give some of the groups at Kruze a big shout-out. First up is our tax team, amazing. They can do your federal and state income tax returns, R&D tax credits, sales tax help. Anything you need for state registrations, they do it all. We’re so grateful for all their awesome work. Also, our finance team is doing amazing work now. They build financial models, budget actuals, and help your company navigate the VC due diligence process. I guess our tax team does that too on the tax side, but the finance team is doing great work. Then I think everyone knows our accounting team is pretty awesome but want to give them a shout-out too. Thanks, and back to the guest. You’re seeing, similar to us, an active market still. But we were talking about down rounds. What are you seeing in the market? Maybe the better question is, how do you walk your clients through that decision criteria of, do they become open to a down round or pay to play? Or, how do you help them decide how to navigate that?
Jose:	I think the most important thing, I often tell clients I have a blog post called, The Best Round Structure Is The One That Closes.
Scott:	I like that.
Jose:	Founders, particularly engineers, can sometimes overthink and think about… You hear this term standard all the time. Well, I don’t want to go that something that’s not standard. It’s like, well, the standard, whatever it is, it doesn’t really exist. But the standard you’re thinking about is what’s created an environment that no longer exists. You need to be flexible. And so, I would say [inaudible 00:15:11]-
Scott:	… get your company funded. I think that’s the main thing, get the money in the door.
Jose:	Yeah. The number one thing I’m seeing is there’s this question of how… The market’s clearly reset, but the question is for how long? And have we hit bottom, or what is bottom going to look like? And so, there’s a lot of worry about, well, am I choosing the right valuation? And on both sides, the VCs don’t want to overpay. They’re certainly pushing harder. But they’re worried, are they not pushing hard enough?
Scott:	Yeah. Is there another 20% down in the public market?
Jose:	And the founders are thinking, well, what if I wait this out? Can I last? And so, I’m seeing a desire for more flexibility both on the upside and the downside. And so that desire for downside protection is leading a lot of VCs who would’ve done us an equity round to ask for a convertible note or a safe.
Scott:	So they’re embracing those. Interesting.
Jose:	Yeah. Yeah, because if you think about what evaluation cap is, it’s a cap, but if the next round ends up being lower, it’s like a ratchet, right?
Scott:	Well, there’s always a 15 or 20% discount if it’s lower than the cap. Not always, but mostly built into safe or convert.
Jose:	Yeah. We’re seeing quite a few deals that are just valuation caps and no discount. Sometimes we see-
Scott:	Oh, really?
Jose:	Yeah. And there are some card Carta Data that came out that quite a few of the new SAFEs and notes that you see are just caps, right? But yes, you’re right, there’s also combination of you get either the lower of the cap or 20% discount. But that whole idea of a cap is downside protection for an investor. Because it’s like, the founder’s always focused on the value on the cap, that’s the valuation I’m getting. A lot of founders who did SAFEs and notes in the past two years are realizing, right?
Scott:	We actually just did that analysis a couple days ago. And what we found is, there’s so much money sitting in safes and converts that’s actually going to convert way below the cap. But at the time the founders thought this was the… And by the way, I thought the same. I thought in terms of the cap too, because we were used to a market that was going up at all times. And so, if you’re going to raise again, it’s going to be above the cap. It’s not happening.
Jose:	I’ve always told founders, there’s this concept called seed equity. A lot of founders, when they think of equity, and I have a blog post that’s myths about seed equity rounds, or something like that. There’s this idea that the only way to do an equity round is to spend 40 50K on an NBCA set, and then you pay spend another 40 on your lawyers. It’s $100,000 in legal fees. But there’s a slimmed down set of equity docs that you can get them on the Cooley GO website and a few other places, and they’re a half to a third of the legal cost of a full equity round. I, for a long time, I’ve told founders, look, if you’re raising more than a million, million and a half. But below that convertibles make sense. But the founders who were told, and often told by accelerators and stuff, go ahead and raise five or $10 million in a safe, they really should have done an equity round.
Scott:	I know I have my opinions on why, but explain why.
Jose:	Because you avoid this whole… By not doing an equity round, you gave the investor downside protection.
Scott:	Yeah, yeah.
Jose:	Right? An equity round hardens the valuation. Whereas, if you raise it at this equivalent on a cap, then in a market reset, which is what we’re seeing as if the safe holders are getting a full ratchet of anti-dilution.
Scott:	Yeah. Just to put some numbers on it. Say they raised a $30 million cap on their safe, but the round comes in at 15 million pre. [inaudible 00:19:06]-
Jose:	You just gave all those safe holders twice the… One big mistake I think is founders raising way too much money on safes and notes at all. I think one of my most read posts is the one criticizing YC’s post money safe. And again, I’ve gotten a lot of flack from lots of places about it, but also, a lot of founders read it. And so, the YC’s post… The original safe, the pre-money safe was pretty company friendly, but the post money safe that YC announced three or four years ago was extremely investor favorable. Right? [inaudible 00:19:42]-
Scott:	Can you explain why? Because I, again, have a feeling on this, but…
Jose:	It basically has egregiously investor-friendly anti-dilution built into it. Normally in an equity round or a pre-money note or safe, you raise the money. And any money you raise later dilutes the whole cap table [inaudible 00:20:04]-
Scott:	Yes, that’s the thing. Yeah.
Jose:	But the post money safe… And it’s funny, because I have a blog post that tweaks the post money safe to fix this problem. But the original premise that the post money safe was sold on was the ability to promise a percentage.
Scott:	But that works against you when you stack.
Jose:	No, I actually think it’s good to have a post money as of today. Because what happens, a lot of founders will raise so many rounds of safes, and they go to an investor and offer them evaluation cap, but there’s no way to calculate what the hell I’m getting today. I’m okay with conceptually a post money valuation cap, but YC snuck in something in addition to that, that makes them a lot of money and makes a lot of investors a lot of money. Is any safe or note round you do after that post money safe doesn’t dilute the safe holder at all, it’s entirely on the common stock. And I think there are companies getting wiped out.
Scott:	Well, that’s-
Jose:	Because they didn’t realize that.
Scott:	Yeah, because people don’t do one safe, they do multiple safes. And they usually try to stair step up the valuation cap. And so that’s what I call stacking safes.
Jose:	And ironically, YC was one of the ones that promoted that. They used to call it high precision fundraising, or something like that.
Scott:	Yeah. Yeah.
Jose:	And I think it’s a good way to raise money, you hit some milestones. But it doesn’t make sense to do it if all the earliest investors aren’t getting diluted at all. Why would you do that? Actually, I have a post where I take YC safe and I add literally a sentence, and that one sentence can save you 10% of your cap too.
Scott:	Oh, my God. But the stacking the safes is a problem. And it’s coming home to roost a little bit right now. I hadn’t thought about the ratchet way of saying that. For people that don’t know, anti-dilution ratchets are basically, you have a price round and they do a deal below that. And then the investors who invested in the previous round, the price round, gets to ratchet down their price.
Jose:	And there’s good data on this. The vast majority of equity deals have what’s called broad-based weighted average anti-dilution. Which means, it only kicks in if you do a down round. If it’s an up round, anti-dilution kick in. Because why should it? A tiny, tiny minority of equity deals will have what’s called full ratchet anti-dilution, which means… Because the broad beta space to weighted average, they only get a slight adjustment. But a full ratchet anti-dilution basically says your old money is getting the exact same price your new money. And so YC’s post money safe is in many ways full ratchet.
Scott:	Is a ratchet. Yeah. My God, I hadn’t thought about it to that degree. I was thinking of it in terms of the discount. But you’re right, it’s worse than the discount. The whole thing’s getting repriced down, right?
Jose:	Yeah. If you’re substantially below the cap, which is happening with tons of companies today. And I’m hoping that out of all of this, I think founders are going to be a little bit smarter. A thing I mention often on my blog is this idea that founders have been told by certain people, “You should just sign the template. Don’t think about it.” Close as fast as possible. Don’t think about it. Don’t waste money on legal fees. It’s like, well, if you had just spent $500 talking to a lawyer-
Scott:	Yeah, five grand. Yeah.
Jose:	You could have saved millions, right?
Scott:	Yeah. That’s really interesting. Because you’re talking about, just go back a little bit, the optionality of a convertible security as a convertible debt or safe being a bridge mechanism for founders and investors in this moment of uncertainty. And I hadn’t really thought about it that way. I just think of safes and convertible debts as the fast, quicker way. But you’re right, that does bridge some of the uncertainty. And do you feel like it’s helping get deals done?
Jose:	Yes.
Scott:	Because of that optionality?
Jose:	Absolutely.
Scott:	Both sides?
Jose:	Yeah. And I also have a post on milestone valuation caps, which I don’t see super often, but I think they’re pretty helpful. Because, again, the ratchet nature of the safe and note is it’s downside protection for the investor. But milestone caps are potential upside flexibility for the company. Let’s say you’re having a conversation with an investor and you’re like, well, we totally are worth this much. And the investor’s like, no, you’re really worth this much. Well, what if I can commit to hitting a certain milestone in the next six months? If I hit it, I get the higher valuation cap. If I don’t, I get the one you want. And that’s a great way of splitting the baby and whatever happens… And that can get a deal closed. Whereas without it, the investor and the founder could not get aligned.
Scott:	The only downside to that is something I’ve seen with some funds that once that is introduced, the deal gets completely re-traded. So, you have to be careful as a founder. Because then the investor goes, great idea. And then they rejigger everything, and then all of a sudden you’ve gotten a way worse deal. [inaudible 00:25:26] got to be careful with that.
Jose:	Read the room, right? Read the room. [inaudible 00:25:30] Don’t offer something that could be used against you, for sure.
Scott:	Yes, yes, yes. I’ve seen it used against founders quite a bit. But I think what you’re coming from is, hey, we’re close to a deal and we’re just trying to split some of this risk up a little bit and share some of the upside. [inaudible 00:25:45]-
Jose:	Where I’m coming from is get over this idea that there’s a single standard way of closing the financial. And every business is unique, every situation is unique. We’re in a unique economy. If it takes a little bit of massaging of the terms to get the money in the door, shut up and do it.
Scott:	Yeah. I totally agree. Just get the deal done. Because the point I make to a lot of founders is, you’re building your dream. You are trying to change the world, and if it works, it’s going to work out really well for you. But the longer you spend on fundraising and arguing over the stuff, and not being realistic maybe, you’re just not building what you need to build. And so [inaudible 00:26:22]-
Jose:	And also, don’t over optimize just for the valuation. I think a lot of founders have forgotten that smart money really does exist. And I have a really good post, How Smart Money Competes With Accelerators, and it gets into the power games that you see in ecosystems. And that there are certain people in the startup ecosystem that want founders to believe that venture capital is commoditized. That there’s no such thing as a value-add VC. Guys, as a lawyer who represents zero VCs, let me tell you, there are some real value-add VCs.
Scott:	Yeah, yeah.
Jose:	And that value-add VC should be allowed to pay a lower valuation than the random family office that’s just [inaudible 00:27:13] technical way.
Scott:	Yeah. It’s a really, really good point. In [inaudible 00:27:18], this is an awesome discussion. I need to be respectful on time here. We’re already over, but because you’re rattling through all these mistakes that people make, is there another one that you see that we haven’t talked about that you’re like, oh my gosh, if I could throw my body in front of some of these people who are about to do X, Y, and Z, I would do it? What else do you see?
Jose:	There’s actually a really good book called Founders Dilemmas, written by-
Scott:	I haven’t read that.
Jose:	Noam Wasserman, he’s an HBS professor, I think. And it talks about the most common ways that startups die. And the number one killer of startups is actually founder conflict.
Scott:	Oh, yes. It’s a great one. Great one.
Jose:	I would just say, be as cautious… The number one source of dilution for a founder is not VCs, it’s co-founders. A sole founder ends up in a way better position cap table-wise. And yet lots of companies can’t be formed as a sole founder, you need co-founders. But be as cautious with how you’re selecting your co-founders as you would be with your spouse.
Scott:	Yeah. Because it’s a super long-term commitment. And you’re totally right, I’ve seen so much acrimony, emotional energy, people trying to get each other fired. And the boards also know the pattern matching in that. When that’s happening, odds are the company’s not going to be worth anything. It’s very hard to come back from that.
Jose:	And the reality is, the nature of startups themselves, it’s a high risk game inherently. You should be minimizing any additional risk you’re adding to situation. And when VCs detect founders who are not in… And you can detect it.
Scott:	And they know it, they can see in [inaudible 00:28:59]-
Jose:	In a 30-minute conversation this hierarchy is not set. It’s like there’s not going to work. Because there’s too high stakes, too heated, it will blow up.
Scott:	And they don’t want to have to deal with it either. Forget the financial downside, it’s also their emotional and time downsides are humongous too. Because they’re the ones who have a fiduciary duty to figure this out once they’re in the company. And so, they’re just going to be super careful about where they put their money.
Jose:	Yeah. I believe the hierarchy needs to be set. It’s like, yeah, every company’s different. Some companies are more egalitarian, some companies aren’t. But there has to be the buck stops here. And if you don’t have a clear decision-making structure, and this is ultimately how we’re going to move forward, you’ll just get inertia all over the place.
Scott:	Yeah. I love it. I love it. Dude, great advice. Well, maybe you can tell everyone… And again, I think we probably need to schedule another one of these because this is really good. But tell everyone where they can find your blog, where they can find Optimal, and how to reach out if they want to work with you.
Jose:	Siliconhillslawyer.com is a great way to just learn about VC mistakes, how to protect yourself. And optimalcouncil.com, we’re a lean boutique law firm from all the same law firms that you always hear about in Silicon Valley and such. But we’re a fully remote firm, very legal, technology oriented. And so, it allows us to take a lawyer that would be $1,100 an hour, and they’re 500 and something instead.
Scott:	Yeah, huge.
Jose:	And a lot of founders are realizing that those firms, they exist for a reason. But until you’re something like Apple, you probably would be better off with a boutique.
Scott:	Yeah. And we see those bills get paid, and they’re humongous. So, I know exactly [inaudible 00:30:45]-
Jose:	And even worse, that fear of the bill will make you not talk to the lawyer.
Scott:	Oh, that’s a great point.
Jose:	Which will end up having a larger bill later.
Scott:	That’s a really good point. Optimal Counsel.
Jose:	Yes.
Scott:	And then check out Siliconhillslawyer.com. Okay. And dude, you’re doing great work. It’s amazing. And this was a super helpful podcast, and I think people get a lot of value. Thank you so much. And I think we should schedule another one because you nailed it.
Jose:	Thank you.
Scott:	All right, buddy. Take care, Jose.
Singer:	So when your troubles are mounting, in tax or accounting, you go the Kruze, from Founders and Friends. It’s Kruze Consulting. Founders and Friends, with your host, Scotty Orn.

Jose Ancer of Optimal Counsel discusses legal services for startups

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