Stevie Ghiassi is the wonderfully engaging, intelligent and well grounded co-founder and CEO of Legaler and Legaleraid, President of ALTA, a serial entrepreneur across multiple industries, ex professional athlete and fellow podcaster.  He is a non lawyer law tech founder and in a wide ranging interview we talk about blockchain, access to legal services, entrepreneurship, ideation, innovation and technology.  He talks about his deep rooted family background as a business owner in retail and how technology started to disrupt that industry and how law is the last major trillion dollar industry to be disrupted.

 

We discuss finding his purpose, changes in education and how the younger generations are embracing learning in a different way, how it is a good thing to try lots of jobs and ideas to find out what you don't like just as much as to find out what you love. Stevie talks about his journeys back and forth to America, raising capital in Silicon Valley, living in Florida and building a strong group of mentors and advisers.          

 

 

• On founding ALTA having Macquarie Bank as a founding partner, 16 startups had 6 minutes pitches (1.40)

 

• On having Legal Geek in Sydney on their world tour (4.20)

 

• On what the startups get from the events, creating an atmosphere around the startup ecosystem (5.45)

 

• The beginning of legal angels - global event for start up funding of legal tech (8.45)

 

• Non law tech founders, VC hungry for the market in Silicon Valley, Atrium founded by ex Twitch founder - Justin Kan - shift away from the legal echo chamber and now products actually going to market (10.25)

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• Law firm incubators in the legal industry (15.45)

 

• Blockchain and Ai and just coming back form blockchain week in NYC (19.45)

 

• The benefits of legaler as a meeting tool, virtual meeting rooms - Legaler has 1000 law firms in 80 countries (22.45)

 

• Discussing blockchain and law, why you need it to access legal services - legaleraid, world's first proof of impact legal charity - profit for purpose model  (27.45) 

 

• Reasons behind using their own blockchain - verification and validation, smart contracts - proof of identity, provenance, digital certification, creating a digital identity (34.30)

 

• Criminality and using blockchain and cryptocurrency (38.45)

 

• Many of these early innovators are not in it for money but to make a difference, nature of trust is changing (39.45)   

 

• His father was a professional football player for Iran and discussing his background into business and Australia - has an outsiders perspective from retail and the dawn of technology and disrupting it - first company in Australia to have VOIP - on building tech platforms (40.45)

 

• On his purpose and giving 4 billion people access to justice (45.45)

 

• On breaking the mould of education, different types of skill sets and thinking, embrace difference and let people be happy and find what they love - doing short courses (48.45)

 

• Purpose sits at the top of everything for him, experimentation, research and validating your idea, pin your vision to the wall and have a scientific look at do people really want to use it - on being a big fan of Lean Start Up - go do the boring stuff, get your first customers, and build something they love and after that the next million fans becomes a lot easier (52.15)

 

• On mentoring with David Jacobs ex Head of APAC for Baker McKenzie, Andrew Arruda Ross Intelligence, Professor John Flood, creating The Allegiance for Justice, advisory board, similar vision and purpose, having an access to brains trust (54.45)

 

• The lessons he learned from Steve Jobs book, on what not to do and not to do as a tech founder, how personality can interact with the purpose and mission, and lasting effects good and bad, being a good person, read before meeting at Apple HQ (57.45)

 

• On keeping Australian start ups here, it is a great testing ground, doing trade shows in NYC, North America is the big market - taking risk, capital raising in North America and having  presence there (61)

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Suggested reading

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To contact Stevie please click on the links below​