Avantia Law Case Study
Avantia Law, a pre-seed legal AI start-up with an experienced team, had developed a clear vision and a partially trained AI model. Despite their strong legal and business expertise, they faced competition from well-funded players and companies in adjacent niches.
Their initial focus was helping paralegals quickly appraise documents, but they needed support to evaluate their product, identify improvement areas, and develop a future roadmap.
I provided various outcomes:
- Evaluate the current product state and identify areas for improvement
- Create service maps of both existing and future "to-be" versions
- Help define the product more clearly, addressing target users and interface questions
- Provide strategic direction on product definition and positioning
- Support product development with lean methodologies
Combining deep research insights, strategic analysis, and practical implementation guidance, I helped Avantia Law pivot toward sustainable growth.
Hannah Thompson
Chief Operating Officer
Spencer's experience across product, engineering, customer, commercial and design was the perfect combination for a scale up like ours. His versatility and blend of questioning, coaching, advising and proactivity quickly won the trust of the CEO and senior team and added value from the start across a range of disciplines. After 6 month's of work we think of Spencer as one of our own.
I delivered a combination of strategic guidance, hands-on work, and implementation support:
User Research:
- Conducted interviews to gather insights about users and their needs
- Employed active listening to uncover unstated problems and requirements
- Discovered that the originally targeted market (paralegals) was too low-margin to justify development costs
Strategic Discovery:
- Highlighted an under recognised area of the business that already had product-market fit
- Designed and ran bespoke workshops tailored for the CEO to efficiently communicate discoveries
- Identified strategic opportunities for immediate revenue generation
Implementation Guidance:
- Coached the team on applying lean approaches to product development and scaling
- Provided frameworks for incremental development of physical and digital systems
Product Definition:
- Refined product positioning to capitalise on existing strengths
- Aligned product strategy with business goals and market realities
- Established clear metrics for evaluating success
Delivering substantial benefits to Avantia:
- Strategic refocus on areas with demonstrated product-market fit
- Increased short-term revenue potential to support broader AI development efforts
- Expanded client opportunities and created pathways for cross-selling AI solutions
- Practical scaling strategies using lean methodology for sustainable growth
- Identification of 24-hour service prototype through "shift" approach
- Instilled an approach to assess long-term sustainability before major investments
