53: Contracts and Knowledge-base Building with Jake Sussman (Part 1)
Jake Sussman studied law in Harvard and was all set for his career as a lawyer in one of the big law firms when he discovered that he could use artificial intelligence to solve one of the biggest pain points for lawyers, and make a lot of money at the same time. This revelation lead to his start-up, Evisort, a company that uses artificial intelligence to extract key data and legal terms from contracts.
In this episode, Jake takes us on a guided tour of business contracts including how and when to set them up, the key business and legal terms and the importance of filing and storing your contracts. He also shares his struggle of bringing his team from five employees to thirty in the past year, and the solutions he came up with to improve and speed up the onboarding process.
Teaser:
My Guest: Jake Sussman
Jake is the Co-Founder and COO of Evisort, a startup using artificial intelligence to extract key data and legal terms from contracts. Jake has previously worked at The Boston Consulting Group, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and in private equity. Jake received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his B.S. from Rutgers University. Most recently, Jake and the Evisort team were featured in the Forbes annual 30 Under 30 for Law & Policy.
More generally, my path isn’t exactly a straight line. I dropped out of high school when I was 15 and worked part-time while making some money selling items online. After a while, I decided to attend community college because the path I was on didn’t seem to be a very good one. I attended community college performed while, and ended up transferring to Rutgers and then attended Harvard Law School.
Pivotal Moments:
Studied law at Harvard Law School, with the intention of following the clear cut, easy path to becoming a lawyer at one of the big law firms.
Started talking to lawyers and realized that a big pain point for them was searching for technical language inside contracts.
Realized that he could make a lot of money if he developed an algorithm that would solve this problem.
Stopped just short of qualifying as a practising lawyer and created his start-up, Evisort, to develop artificially intelligent systems that search for data inside contracts.
Currently, Jake is in the process of huge expansion at Evisort. In the last year, he upped his employees from about five to thirty and has just secured a $4.5 million funding investment from existing investors and new ones.
Part 2 of this episode, where you can learn everything you need to know about contracts, plus Jake’s struggle and breakthrough, will be live this Thursday 14th March at estierand.com/53-2
Did you enjoy this episode? Then subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, so you can get automatic updates whenever another episode goes live (and you will be helping me get to #1 on iTunes, making us all cooler in the process!)
Create Your Own Salary (previously Business Breakthrough)
Humanizing business and businessifying humans.
We're humanizing business, and businessifying humans.
Join us as successful business owners talk about the PIVOTAL MOMENTS that got them to where they are AND what they still CURRENTLY STRUGGLE WITH.
My dream always was, and still is, to help small business owners live their dreams. I've noticed that ALL BUSINESS OWNERS STRUGGLE SOMEWHERE. Even those that look so shiny and perfect on the outside are hurting somewhere on the inside.
Many of the podcasts out there feature rags-to-riches success stories with the promise that you can do it too! Ever felt that you really can't?
That's why I've started the Business Breakthrough Podcast, FEATURING STORIES YOU CAN RELATE TO, SHARING STRUGGLES YOU CAN LEARN FROM. The show features business owners- from those just starting out to the super successful - and in addition to exploring previous TRANSFORMATIONAL BUSINESS MOMENTS, together we reach a Business Breakthrough live on air.
About your host
Estie Starr
Estie Starr is an award-winning business consultant, exceptional marketing strategist, avid speaker, and founder of Strand Consulting, a multinational business consultancy that’s focused on helping small business owners scale their businesses to make big profits. She believes very strongly that people can build professional and profitable businesses doing what they love, and she’s here to guide them so they can bring their vision to life with a lot more ease.
