From Idea to Decision: How Sprint Studio Helped This Legal Tech Entrepreneur Validate Their Business Model & Identify If Their Solution Was Market-Ready

Are you a legal tech entrepreneur looking to validate your business idea and bring your solution to market?

From product and customer development to crafting effective marketing strategies, Sprint Studio will take you through all the crucial steps in launching your legal tech startup. Is Sprint Studio right for you? How can it help you move forward with your business idea? Hear from a past Sprint Studio grad to learn how Sprint Studio can support you on your entrepreneurial journey. 

Uliana Khmel (external link)  participated in our 4th cohort of Sprint Studio in 2023 with her company, DreamProIT (external link) . Uliana and her team discovered an opportunity to transform the way laws and regulations are written. However, they needed support in validating their business idea before moving forward to develop a market-ready product. Throughout the 12-week duration of the program, Uliana took what she learned each session to work towards validating her business model. By the end of the program, she and her team discovered that their product would need major adjustments to meet the market demand. The DreamProIT team recognized they did not have the capacity to make the appropriate changes. Due to this, they made the informed decision to stop the development of their product before putting in too much more time and resources.

We connected with Uliana to learn more about her, DreamProIT, and her personal experience through our Sprint Studio program. Here are her insights:

Tell us a little bit about you and your company.

I am a technology professional focused on business operations and project management. Before working in IT, I got a Master’s degree in linguistics, with a particular interest in the challenges of the language-intensive technologies applicable to law. For the last two years, I have acted as COO and CX Lead at DreamProIT. My role involves overseeing comprehensive business operations for a geographically distributed remote-first team, from tactical planning to policy development and implementation.

DreamProIT is a Silicon Valley-based outsourcing partner with an engineering team from Ukraine. We offer full-service AI consulting for legal tech, test and CI/CD automation services, and cloud migration for US and European businesses. Our company has deep legal domain expertise built on our founder’s experience working on modernization projects in the US Congress and with legislatures worldwide.

My work at DreamProIT has allowed me to serve as an intermediary between business demands and implementing projects that bring tangible benefits to people. It also gives me the opportunity to advocate for socially meaningful projects and make sure the company promotes the responsible use of technology.

What led you to apply for Sprint Studio? What drew you to the program?

We support the world's experts in legislatures and regulatory agencies, and we identified an opportunity to transform the way laws and regulations are written. However, we lacked the skills to validate the idea and move it forward to develop a market-ready product. Excited about an opportunity to bring the project to life, we decided to reach out for help, so I applied for Sprint Studio. Their offering was clear – focus on initial customer development and building a marketable minimum viable product – and it was exactly what we needed. 

Also, start-up support programs like Sprint Studio present an excellent networking opportunity. I got to know and connect with leading legal industry experts, product, marketing, and sales leaders, business and growth strategists, serial entrepreneurs, and start-up founders through Sprint Studio or events presented by the Sprint Studio team.

How did your startup evolve from where it was before the program to where it is now? In what ways did the program influence your direction moving forward?

When I applied for the Sprint Studio program, our product was still in the ideation stage. Over 12 weeks of sessions and mentorship, our team made significant strides in validating the business model we aimed to pursue. I held customer interviews and analyzed feedback to validate our assumptions, explored the market we were to target, and developed a customer persona. I also learned a lot about feature planning and MVP development from a software perspective. Moreover, a session on potential funding opportunities and sales possibilities was a real gem. 

I particularly enjoyed listening to the invited start-up entrepreneurs, who openly shared the pitfalls and challenges they faced on their way and explained how first-time founders can avoid making common mistakes. When you read start-up success stories, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that being a founder is easy. The speakers made it clear that it takes much resilience and tons of hard work to succeed, and if something seems easy, it is because they make it seem easy.

When applying, I saw two possible outcomes: either we will develop an MVP and bring our product to the intended end users, or we will understand that our product idea needs modification. From what we learned in the Sprint Studio, we decided to take the second path. We concluded that we’d need to make a major pivot in the product to meet the market demand. Our team was not ready to do that, so the development stopped before taking too much time and resources.

What key insights or lessons from the program did you find the most impactful?

I am a linguist by education and a manager by trade. I have learned by solving challenges that I faced along the way. The most valuable lesson I’ve gained so far is that there is no kind of knowledge that will not be useful to you. It doesn’t matter whether you are a start-up owner or work on a client’s project. Product development knowledge is universal. 

Sprint Studio helped me better understand the customer development process and how important it is to keep in touch with your clients to validate the product assumptions you make before you jump to developing something. If you can truly relate to the pain your users experience, you will be able to find the best way to help them. I always strongly advocate for user needs and experience when working with clients at DreamProIT.

Talking about insights, I would love to highlight one that I found particularly useful and practical. The best way to overcome resistance when introducing new ideas is to innovate inside your users’ comfort zone. Now that I know this hack, it seems obvious, but I’ve never thought about it until I heard someone else saying this.

Who would you recommend the program to? 

I strongly recommend Sprint Studio to early-stage founders with a technology-focused idea who value practical, hands-on learning and want to build a strong network within the startup ecosystem. One of the things I truly enjoy, even one year after the program, is following the start-up journeys of other Sprint Studio participants. Seeing their progress always gives me surges of motivation. What’s more, I keep receiving practical advice as many speakers and mentors regularly share their knowledge on social media.

If you want to turn your legal tech idea into a reality and don't know where and how to start, Sprint Studio is your chance!

Thank you for sharing your insights with us, Uliana! 

If you're ready to take your startup to the next level, we encourage you to apply for our free Sprint Studio program for early-stage legal tech startups, where you'll gain invaluable mentorship, resources, and support to further develop your marketing strategy, product development, and customer development. Don't miss this opportunity to accelerate your journey towards success. Learn more and apply now to transform, take the next step, and launch your legal tech startup!