09/24/2021 – Tokeportal’s own content

Our next mentor, who answers our questions is Karola Kassai, who you may have seen on our previous Kanapé Pitch video. Karola is an international startup lawyer, who has lots of experiences in the field of law, business strategy and innovation technology.

We are lawyers who understand what it takes to get a startup started up and make it grow. I have built my firm, KassaiLaw, from the ground up, wanting to do something different in the legal field. Having been through it all ourselves, we are in fact one of the entrepreneurs, having faced the same challenges and working with the same skillset: a mixture of creativity, forward-thinking, innovative problem solving and a complex business-oriented mindset. We bring our legal lens to help clients solve the issues at hand with business acumen and awareness of the commercial context. These are the aspects that make entrepreneurial lawyers different.

The number one thing would be the Scandinavian business and corporate culture which we – unconsciously at that time – apply at KassaiLaw since its foundation. The Scandinavian model embraces the idea of everyone in the workplace being equal, therefore everyone’s opinion matters and is taken into account. There is mutual trust, respect and tolerance towards each other and old-fashioned hierarchies do not play a role anymore. Furthermore, as Swedes are really conscious about their well-being and their work-life balance, maximum consideration is given to the colleagues’ life outside of work and the personal space is respected – which takes us back to the mutual trust. It’s all an amazing circle that leads to a more pleasant and open working environment, with less conflicts and motivated coworkers cooperating for the common goal.

Startups definitely took a big hit at the start of the pandemic, being financially less stable than big corporations. On the other hand, being a startup is exactly what helped them come out stronger: they are agile and able to quickly adapt to new circumstances. We have experienced up-close that after the shock of the first few months, startups were the quickest to recover by pivoting if needed and even show growth in the past year. This is probably one of the big lessons learned: that pivoting is not a sign of failure but rather one of recognizing reality, a reaction to the market needs, and if done right, the key to success.

As for the entrepreneurial spirit, it has definitely increased: there was a 24% increase in business startups in the United States alone, and the situation is no different globally. I wouldn’t say it’s because of the need to stand on more feet, rather than the fact that economic crises are in fact periods of “creative destruction”: there are new problems to solve and these new challenges bring forward new ideas and create new entrepreneurs. In fact, many successful innovative start-ups or businesses emerged from periods of crisis. Think about Dropbox, Uber, Airbnb, or WhatsApp, to name a few, all founded during or just after the global financial crisis in 2008. We will see who are going to be the next big players growing out of the covid era.

The pandemic has certainly disrupted, amongst many things, the traditional financing options: VC funding, the immediate go-to for most startups, has significantly decreased during the first months of Covid-19, making it necessary for startups to look for other ways of funding. This led to a pandemic-fueled boom in crowdfunding, with crowdfunding platforms breaking record after record. These platforms can take advantage of a large, diverse network of investors and are not dependent on person-to-person meetings, making them the perfect alternative in the post-covid world. Even though VCs have by now reentered the game, with records by Q4 2020, the pandemic shift has certainly opened the eyes of founders to other opportunities and it is most likely here to stay: the global crowdfunding market is expected to grow by $196.36 billion during 2021-2025.

We could see some small shifts happening already before the pandemic with more and more niche and boutique law firms opening, and even traditional law firms opening towards new methods and, for example, legal tech.

However, to highlight one major skill for the future lawyer, it would be what I like to call “global legal literacy.” Companies do not consider borders as obstacles anymore: they aim to go international, attract investments, resources, and customers globally, and the legal industry needs to serve these companies’ needs – globally. It is no longer enough to be a great lawyer locally, you need to think globally, be always aware of the international aspects, understand the characteristics of foreign legal systems and cultures. That is how the lawyers of the future can serve their clients’ needs to the fullest and keep them satisfied.

If you want to know more about Karola, visit her mentor profile.