MBA NEW VENTURES JOURNAL #3 TEAM 3 - LAW HAWK Interview: This interview was with Mr.

Greg Smith, local patent/intellectual property attorney who started a firm (Smith Risley Tempel Santos LLC) several years ago. Firm Website: http://www.srtslaw.com/ Is there meaning your entrepreneur is pursuing? Greg Smith of Smith, Risley, Tempel, and Santos found meaning by assisting companies (1) to know the value of their intellectual property, and (2) to protect their intellectual property. These two meanings would most likely be categorized as preventing the end of something good. The services provided help to get better products to the market place, assist in protecting the business of existing products and companies all while trying to convey the importance of getting patents and enforcing them to the general public. What would this entrepreneurs company Mantra be? Sound advice. Cost effective. Results oriented. Mr. Smith has tried to make patent law as approachable and understandable for his clients as possible. This can be difficult to do in the patent law world. He stressed the importance of show clients that getting a patent is important to the future of their business. For some of his clients, he said it was hard for them to see/justify the expense to file for a patent at the early stages of the business. However, he gave several examples to use that he used to stress how in the long run this is an important strategy for startups. What drove this entrepreneur to start a business? Prior to co-founding his law firm, Mr. Smith was a partner at a large law firm in Atlanta. The time demands that were required at the large firm were becoming overwhelming, and he wanted to be able to counsel different sorts of clients, so he decided to branch off on his own. He eventually came to Athens in an attempt to seek different clients (entrepreneurs) and be in a slower-paced environment. Additionally, he saw an niche in the IP community, so he decided to pursue that opportunity. A particular moment stands out; Mr. Smith was in the elevator with an older employee of the firm who stepped on and sighed. When Mr. Smith asked him what was wrong he just replied 20 some years with this firm and it just gets to you. That is when Mr. Smith realized he needed to get out and start his own firm. Is the business name catching? When he first went out on his own, he started the LAVA Group, which is a relatively catchy name. This group was designed to seek out corporations with large patent portfolios, evaluate the portfolio, and then if the company decided to sell some of the patents, the group would get a finders fee (or a percentage of the proceeds). Now the business is a typical intellectual property law firm (so it uses the traditional style of name). The current name is not particularly

catchy, but it is certainly in line with the industry standard in law firm naming. SRTS LAW which is comprised the initials of the founding partners. The name could be seen as a takeoff on Startups. Has the entrepreneur "cascaded" the positioning of their company? There are several attorneys within his firm, and they each have a specialty. Greg cascades the positioning of his firm by making sure that each attorney knows the message and meaning behind their work despite the fact that they all specialize in different practices. When he brings people on, I think he is able to be involved with the attorneys work more and can really make sure they understand his message. Is the entrepreneur able to pitch their business idea succinctly? While the firm is pretty established now, Greg shared some stories with us about how he initially was able to pitch his firm to entrepreneurs and companies in order to gain clientele. He would offer to go through their portfolio of patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property and let the company know what sorts of issues or potential profits they could be missing out on for free. By doing this, he was able to gain a significant amount of business and build his reputation within the community; this is evident by his involvement in FourAthens. Is the entrepreneur well positioned to "Beat the Odds"? How so? If not, how not? With Mr. Smiths second business, the traditional IP law firm, I believe he is positioned to beat the odds. He has mainly been able to do this because of the skills in the field his firm provides. He knows the law, he covers all areas of IP law, and he is straight forward with client. This provides an experience for the client in which they want to come back to Mr. Smith in the future. However, with the first business idea, although it was in a niche of the market, it did not seem he was able to beat the odds. When he approached potential clients, they were hesitant to allow Mr. Smith and others to look through their IP portfolios. Therefore, it was difficult for Mr. Smith to initially get clients, so he had to create the more traditional law firm in order to succeed in business. He also has international clients and does legal work in Texas where there is a great volume of patent litigation. He is currently expanding his firm and shifting from a contract based attorney work system to an in-house attorney system. Despite being located in Athens, he also has an office in Atlanta. Has the Entrepreneur developed a business plan? Why or why not? It seems that Mr. Smith had a business plan, but I dont know if he actually wrote something out. His first business was a real niche in the IP community, and I believe that he would need to write out a business plan in order to cover all of the requirements to be successful. However, the second business was a traditional law firm, so I do not think he needed to write everything out in order to be successful in setting up the business especially considering that he had previously started a business and he also had worked for IP firms in the past. Was there a "boot strapping" approach used by your entrepreneur? If so, how was this accomplished? Mr. Smith did boot strap for a while after leaving his large Atlanta based firm and moving to Watkinsville. For a while he had an office out of his house. The then worked in patent brokerage for a while and then launched his own patent firm with offices in Atlanta and

Watkinsville. He is now in the process of opening an office in downtown Athens. Going from a large firm with vast resources to his own firm was a shift in that fewer resources were available including support staff, catering, premier travel options, etc. He also talked with us a little about how he hires young attorneys and how it was a strategic move to have a Morpheus within the firm someone that balances out the team. After your visit, reflect on the following questions: 1. Were the entrepreneurs goals well defined? Yes, to provide patent law related legal services including business formation, patent acquisition, litigation on all aspects of patent law, and a little bit of patent brokerage on the side. He limited his business to dealing with patent law which enabled him to specialize in a growing market in the Southeast. He has an Atlanta office so that he did not lose patent law business from the nearest metro area. Additionally, he was able to provide quality patent law services at a lower cost that the large Atlanta firms due to less overhead and employee benefits (from the partner structure). He also focused his firm only on IP which allowed him to find a niche in the legal market, and provide clients with valuable services. 2. Was the entrepreneur's strategy correct? It appears to be working and he is in the process of expanding because business is booming. He has been happy with the shift from large firm big city law to starting/managing his own firm. His strategy has been correct in terms of the IP firm, but it is unclear if the strategy is correct with respect to the IP evaluation business. 3. Is the entrepreneurs/will the entrepreneur be able to execute the strategy? He appears to be successful at executing the strategy so far and is expanding the number of associates he employs. The IP firm is growing with new business and he is adding attorneys. Even if the IP evaluation business doesnt succeed, it seems that he has been able to more than offset that venture with his IP firm. View the following videos and log your insights/learning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_LurJfOSiA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA-5J0oAyDE From your above input, what five key insights do you come away with? 1) Be nice to nerds and have one in your corner scientists and engineers change the world. 2) Defy the impossible and do not be afraid of failure 3) Dont be afraid to go out on your own. The rewards for leaving a job in a corporate environment can transcend beyond financial rewards. 4) By being very selective in your hiring, it is easier to cascade your message to the employees thereby keeping your vision strong. 5) As you are working within a sector of business or law, keep your eyes open to niches that may form. By working within those areas, you will have the best chance to see the niches.