Choosing Hard Things
Why Hard Problems Are Actually Easier to Build a Company Around
There is a common misconception in the startup world that you should start with "low-hanging fruit." The logic goes that you should pick an easy problem, solve it quickly, get a win, and then move upmarket.
We took the opposite approach. We chose a problem—automating high-stakes legal workflows—that most people consider terrifyingly difficult.
We didn't do this because we are masochists. We did it because, counter-intuitively, hard problems are often easier to solve than easy ones.
The Competition for Distribution
If you choose an easy problem, the technical barrier to entry is low. If the problem is easy to solve, ten other startups will solve it next week.
When the technology is easy, the moat isn't the product; the moat is sales. You end up in a war for distribution. You are not competing on who has the best solution; you are competing on who can scream the loudest, buy the most ads, or hack the best SEO strategy.
We aren't interested in building a marketing company that happens to sell software. We are interested in building a technology company.
When you choose a hard problem—like building a system where attorneys rely on AI to draft petitions they haven't written manually in a decade —the competition thins out immediately. The "tourists" go home. You aren't fighting for attention; you are fighting for the solution.
The "Context Window" of Talent
The second reason to choose hard things is talent.
In AI, we talk about "context windows"—the amount of information a model can hold in its immediate memory to make a coherent decision.
Engineers have context windows, too.
There is a specific type of elite engineer who has a massive mental context window. They can hold a complex, distributed system in their head all at once. They can see how a database query in the backend affects the trust of a paralegal using the frontend.
If you give an engineer like that an easy problem—like building a CRUD app or a simple to-do list—they will get bored. They will leave.
But if you give them a problem that requires that massive context window, they come alive. Hard problems act as a filter. They repel the people who want a 9-to-5 job, and they attract the people who want to do the best work of their lives.
Elegance is the Only Option
Finally, hard problems force elegance.
When a problem is messy—like the "gray area" of law vs. the binary nature of code —you cannot solve it with a messy solution. If you add complex code to a complex problem, the system breaks.
To survive a hard problem, you have to distill it down to its absolute essence. You have to find the simple, elegant truth underneath the noise.
The Glade Bet
We are betting that the future of Legal Tech won't be won by the company with the loudest sales team. It will be won by the company that solves the hardest engineering challenges.
We are looking for people who want to expand their context window. If you are tired of solving easy problems, we have plenty of hard ones left.