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Bootstrap an MVP in the financial field, how to comply with financial regulators without paying huge on legal?

Say you would want to build an MVP for a site similar to covestor.com or wealthfront.com. How could you do this without paying huge legal fees?

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Khuram Malik

Digital and Marketing Strategist

The only way that I can think of is to get a legal adviser on the management/board team and give them an equity stake in the company.
Long-term, it's likely to cost you more in real terms though.

Answered over 11 years ago

Tom Williams

Clarity's top expert on all things startup

I think the true definition of MVP in this case is not a fully functional site but rather strong indications of customer intent, which based on specific regulatory issues might only be able to be "sign-up to learn more" at which point you could do some customer interviews. Depending on what exactly is the nature of the site, you might be able to test some other key behaviors and assumptions without tripping-up into regulatory issues.

I've seen companies in this space spend their entire $1m+ initial funding almost entirely on lawyers.

Another answer I wrote on Clarity advised a SaaS entrepreneur to spend as little on legal fees as possible. While the same advice applies here during your MVP, once you want to start building a real service, it's likely that you will have to spend significantly on legal. Ideally, you, a co-founder or a close adviser have a background that reduces some of your legal outlay.

Happy to talk through MVP experiments with you that can maximize your learning.

Answered over 11 years ago

Clay Hebert

I help people and brands tell their best story.

By definition, an MVP exists to prove some assumptions you have. It may not even need to be fully functional. Depends what assumptions you're trying to validate. A lot of MVPs (including my original one) were just clickable prototypes using Photoshop, HTML, CSS, etc. with not much more behind it.

Answered about 11 years ago