How DocPro is democratizing the legal industry with affordable services

This inspiring story is of a rising startup called DocPro started by Kim Chan in the Legal technology space to “provide accessible legal protection for everyone”. Here is the story of DocPro in Kim’s own words.

DocPro’s mission is to “Democratise Documents”. We hope to make a difference by providing quality and affordable legal documents to businesses and individuals around the world through cutting-edge technology.

Introduce us to your idea. What is DocPro all about?

DocPro is known specifically for its document generation tool that helps users quickly and efficiently create automated documents and contracts. Users can choose from over 1,500 templates through DocPro’s advance search function, complete a questionnaire to customise the template, and a legal document is generated automatically.

DocPro helps simplify contracting and free up time and resources from document generation. So that users can focus on strategic decisions to improve their businesses.

1. Extensive Database of 1500+ Documents. Comprehensive database for businesses and individuals. Most of our competitors have documents in their hundreds.
2. Smart Customisation. Automated solutions through smart customization and provides variations of document favoring different parties instead of a one size fits all approach.
3. Jurisdiction Engine. Proprietary jurisdiction engine to select the right governing law and jurisdiction for users from different common law countries.
4. Sharing Community. Members can share documents to be reviewed by our experienced lawyers. We are also open to document requests from our members.
5. Democratize Documentation. DocPro is priced at 90% lower than most other options without compromising on quality, making legal documents affordable and accessible for the masses.

What’s your strategy story? What led you to start DocPro?

I graduated in the late 90s, when the internet was just taking off, and I have always believed in bringing law online. At that time, I have been offered a job at a top international law firm and it would be an enormous opportunity cost to give up a highly paid job as a lawyer to pursue something uncertain.

In the end, I opted for the safer route – I worked for top law firms and major international banks. It took me 20 years to gain sufficient financial security to start DocPro.

LegalTech has not really taken off in any big way in the past 20 years. Unlike other sectors, there is no household name like Amazon, Airbnb, or Uber that people will instinctively recognize when talking about LegalTech. I believe the legal industry is ripped for disruptions as there has been no major change in the industry since the advent of internet 25 years ago.

Now is the right time for the disruptions of the legal industry with the maturity of AI and Blockchain technologies. It is now possible to prepare simple documentation through AI.

Blockchain technology will also make it easy for document authentication and management. With the advent of smart contracts, contracts can be automatically negotiated, executed, and settled. In 10 years’ time, many things currently done by lawyers will be automated, at the same time driving up efficiency and driving down legal costs for the clients.

What marketing, operation strategies are you adopting? 

Marketing – We do not have a lot of budget for marketing. You can spend a lot of money on Google and Facebook ads, but this would not be economical for DocPro as we are offering our documents at a minimal price and the costs would almost certainly outweigh the benefits.

So we have mainly based our efforts around SEOs, with the help of online media such as yourselves to get our brand out to people. We have also been listed on deal sites such as Appsumo and Product Launch. Like all other online businesses, we have been active on Social Media but it takes time to bring in the traffic from there. So far SEO is the most effective.

Operation – Our biggest cost is remuneration. As a legal tech SaaS company, we are using the hybrid talent model of a mix of freelancers and full-time workers to create legal documents and resources for us. We would hire freelance legal contributors qualified in different jurisdictions to contribute documents or other resources to our site. These contributors might be retired lawyers, in-between jobs lawyers or simply want to promote their practices. Instead of paying them a salary, we would pay them on a per-document basis. We would also have full-time legal professionals to vet the documents to ensure that they are up to DocPro’s standard and upload them on our system as templates.

Any strategy mistakes you have made and what were your learning? 

The motto was “Build it and they will come” is not true on the internet. DocPro was initially built on this premise with the creation of more than 1,000+ commonly used document templates, but the traffic never came. The motto certainly does not work for the internet with billions of webpages competing for visitors.

I then consulted an online digital marketing consultant on SEO, who guided me through the SEO process. Since then, we have been trying to produce the best document templates possible focusing on less competitive keywords, and it is working like magic! Since the launch of our revamped site in April 2020, traffic has been doubling every month, and our COVID related documents have been doing spectacularly well.

Finally what advice you have for your fellow entrepreneur readers?

It takes a long time to build traffic and traction on the internet. You should either start your internet venture part-time or have 2 years of living expenses in reserve if you want to start out as an online entrepreneur.

Disclaimer: The information in the above story is provided by the startup and The Strategy Story takes no responsibility for the authenticity of the product and services offered by the startup. Reader’s discretion is advised.

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