Giri Devanur
Hello everyone today we are joined by William Scott Goldman R Goldman, a founder friendly lawyer to our podcast. He is a venture builder and investor he is probably one of the most prolific trademark filers currently ranked among the top 5 in the USPTO. Filing 15000 plus applications and registrations, he has even written a book on branding law and he has been a frequent lecturer, speaker, media contributor and an author on various legal subjects. Hello William, thank you for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background how you came to this stage?
William Goldman
Absolutely thanks for having me Giri, It was quite the introduction. I appreciate that. I am the managing attorney and founder of Global Law Group. We are one of a kind business and branding IT law firm based in Washington DC and we represent mostly entrepreneurs and start ups throughout the US and worldwide.
Giri Devanur
That’s great, what are some of the challenges that are being phased in the business as well as start up work today.
William Goldman
Aside from personal experience inconsistent messaging, a lack of effective branding strategies and failure to properly secure or one ‘s intellectual property rights those rank highest on the list.
Giri Devanur
Very interesting and you know like if you look at it all of them are pretty much longer focused challenges your founder and focused lawyer, what do you mean by that you know how does law firms achieve being founder friendly.
William Goldman
Good question, well our firm’s disruptive business model is designed for entrepreneurs and startups as where how the entrepreneurial ourselves offering expert legal advice along with strategic business council a predictable flat fee billing and 24*7*365 availability which is virtually unheard of in the industry.
Giri Devanur
All, That that’s what you know you even I need I guess
William Goldman
Ya always available. Like I said we have clients worldwide like I said and so you have to be on for them at all times
Giri Devanur
and no wonder you have filed 15000 applications
William Goldman
It’s actually well over 16000 now as a matter of fact
Giri Devanur
Wow that’s a lot. So does the thesis of our podcast William, started you know when we were debating “How to Who” you know like see all entrepreneurs all managers do you know you are an entrepreneur yourself right. We all believe that whenever an opportunity or a challenge comes to us how do I solve it and we believe that you know that I comes from the ego part that we are the most qualified person to solve that challenge and once you know you go away from that and bring in experts like you let’s say I had a legal challenge I shouldn’t be trying to solve that problem myself I should be talking to William right. We believe that you know when people founders switch from how to who the magic starts. what’s your take on this
William Goldman
I totally agree you need to have the best team in place everybody is expert in their own field and I would say in order to provide effective legal counsel and relevant strategic advice one must take self completely out of the equation focusing instead on the unique needs of each client and their own particular business challenges I think that’s the most important thing and that’s why we have specific teams in place in order to meet those goals again that’s playing into everybody’s specific specialty.
Giri Devanur
That’s great. so lot of companies and I’ve been an entrepreneur you know like I’ve made the mistake of not filing new patents, trademark etcetera on time. This can lead to litigation lawsuits etc, etc. typical legal challenges that come, what is advised that you would have for entrepreneurs like me or everybody else who is watching this.
William Goldman
A very good question. Failure to properly clear and to register one side T. could expose businesses to infringement liability while also hindering their own efforts to block competitors from capitalizing on their lunch in local property so yeah I would say that’s pretty much. The crux of the matter and actually I getting back to what we said before if we can do a retake on that I’ll provide my answer again as we discussed earlier failure to properly clear and register one ‘s IP rights could expose businesses to professional liability while hindering their own efforts to block competitors from capitalizing on their own intellectual property.
Giri Devanur
That’s great a couple of weeks back I was interviewing another guest on this podcast we were discussing about unicorns in India and you know like legal challenges in India and when I look at it from both US and India perspective start up founders are you know like missing that legal adviser at an early stage, especially your brought in the IP rights future litigations etc, and the lawsuits that come. How do you help in like start ups and early stage companies in this aspect?
William Goldman
Well sure sure well first we always make sure to provide proper clearance we want to search to make sure no conflicts exist and if I. P. protection seems available the more formulate effective step by step strategy in order to secure this vital intellectual property rights is very methodical approach based on years of experience and it’s a lot of it comes down to identifying the right issues asking the right questions from the very beginning.
Giri Devanur
All right you know we talked a lot about that part let’s change the gear let’s make it fun as part of our podcast in each episode we pick a movie and talk about it and your favorite movies as you mentioned Jerry McGuire I love that film by the way, what part of that movie yeah do you like
William Goldman
I would say that really touches on many of your own the scary putting aside once you ego for the sake of the greater good leadership key performance and yeah I would say early in the movie the Cuba Gooding junior character he likes to say show me the money that became a catch phrase back in the day when the movie was popular and is Jerry McGuire responds that he has help me help you that was his little cash for is there and as the Jerry Maguire character is his leadership skills developed during the course of the movie he’s able to inspire his client to achieve success on the football field placing team over self and once that’s accomplished the monetary awards or rewards should I say I’m no longer the primary focus at a fellow will be adequately so it’s kind of the old adage in business do what you love to do the best job you can and the money just follows and so once the player realize that once the McGuire carriage inspired him to realize that. Then everything just flowed from their head he cheapskate performance he did the best he could on the field and he was rewarded quite handsomely and that.
Giri Devanur
All right I I remember that you know help me help you. The most powerful scene in the entire movie.
William Goldman
Indeed
Giri Devanur
what do you like probably like 20, 25 years of you practicing IP law you know like you have seen many lawsuits you know startups and you know early stage companies go through what eventual outcome will come if a founder that doesn’t have a Jerry Maguire like you protecting the IP right, especially in you know Biotech and tech that’s very like IP battles happen. I’d be back in stock but, We don’t have a Jerry Maguire like you know what is the outcome.
William Goldman
Without effective. Inspirational leadership without effective legal counsel on the team so to speak entrepreneurs and startups often fail to see the big picture so representing innovation and that’s our firm’s motto and our primary goal is to properly secure intellectual property rights for innovative business clients from the very beginning and in so doing everything else just flows from there and as the movie says show me the money and clients will be able to orofit and prosper from their innovation and legal protection.
Giri Devanur
That’s great William, I really appreciate that so you know when you are taking new clients what kind of companies are you taking more Silicon Valley type you know redo companies are more New York type fintech kind of companies as your clients.
William Goldman
Right. A little of each I’m originally from New York myself and our firm is based in DC but most of our clients in the US are actually located in California so I can’t really say is a preference one way or the other but I would say mostly we do gravitate or vice versa so in the clients based out in California actually.
Giri Devanur
All right, one fun question for you, you know, changing the gear, if you had to hire one person one last person to your team, who would it be in the past? People are bored. I want to hire Elon Musk. who would that be for you
William Goldman
Yes, maybe have to save almost myself. That’s a good one. Yeah popular choice he’s one of the true business visionaries of our time and I’m sure he provide endless inspiration and amuse men around here not to mention our clients whenever lack of venture capital that’s for sure
Giri Devanur
yeah and you know you can buy a 9.2 percent of Twitter.
William Goldman
Indeed
Giri Devanur
All right one other question you know like can you please suggest 1cool person that you would want us to interview you know you would recommend for this podcast
William Goldman
Sure that would be my trusted colleague of mine, Francisco he’s quite the entrepreneur and visionary and stuff. As a matter of fact I think you’d be a very excellent choice for the MRI.
Giri Devanur
Alright and thanks for your time any final advice for our audience. You know, like we have a large number of young entrepreneurs who are following up on the “how to who” podcast. Infact like we have had some major success in our podcast I have better than what I had originally thought of so for these entrepreneurs we’re trying to build the next generation of great companies do you have any you know specific advice
William Goldman
Ya sure I would say assembling the best possible team the business advisors is key, and that includes one ‘s choice of legal counsel of course you take away in the field of intellectual property in order to proactively and effectively secure this vital business assets.
Giri Devanur
All right thank you very much William I appreciate it you know like god this was very useful we are now dealing with a bunch of trademark etc etc and I want to avoid litigations as much as possible and am sure all the entrepreneurs would want to do that we are very thankful for joining us you known this was great fun thank you everybody.
William Goldman
Thank you for having me on the program Giri have a great week ahead.
Giri Devanur
Thank you very much William. Thank you everybody you know like these, watch it, like it, share it. This is a great conversation till the end. Thank you all.
