Raymond Blijd “helps companies connect to capital and customers by providing them with market data and automation.” His data analytics are well known for helping better understand key markets and which sectors and companies are growing, who is investing them, and why.
What prompted your interest in data and data analysis?
I bought into the idea early that legal should be data-driven, so we started looking to answer questions like: is the legal industry growing? Spoiler, it isn't when you consider the following metrics, new tech companies, or new patents filed. It did grow if you look at the number of legal professionals, earning power, or seed or series funding of legal tech companies. This last metric isn't just legal tech but all tech companies, so perhaps doesn't count. Uncovering these insights is why we do market data analysis.
Tell me a little about the purposes for Legalcomplex and Legalpioneer.
Legalcomplex was my notebook chronicling the history of legal technology, starting in 2011. In 2014, I started experimenting with new concepts, and the most popular was Legalpioneer.org. In 2019, I decided to quit my job and go full in on market research for the legal industry. In 2023, we're launching a new brand to usher in the next stage of market analysis.
How would you describe the evolution of the legal tech market based on your analysis, and why would you describe it that way?
It sounds cliché, but there are a couple of misconceptions like we pointed out in why we do data analysis. Are legal professional anti- or ignorant to tech? Quite the opposite, lawyers did legal research online before the internet was invented with dail-up. They were early adopters of the pager, blackberry, and the iPad. However, after collecting about $63 billion plus in venture capital in the last decade, no traditional legal tech company has been able to become a profitable publicly traded company like the big three traditional legal publishers.
How has your approach to data and data analysis evolved since you first started?
We received the most important insight during the pandemic and discovered a 'Holy Trinity' of market data. During that time, the world time-traveled to the future and showed us the possibilities and outcomes derived from 3 key pillars:
Supply: number of companies
Demand: number of customers
Behaviors: actions based on key events e.g. lockdowns.
Designing metrics, around these three key pillars, provide us with the most precise picture yet of what's happening.