Interview with Maxwell Wulff-Legaltech/Start-up File “ANÜ”

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Coinmonks

7 min readFeb 17, 2022

Introduction

In 2020, two young entrepreneurs in the United States announced a legaltech start-up, its name is ANÜ. Thanks to artificial intelligence-supported software, this start-up functions as a bridge between entrepreneurs who have just stepped into the ecosystem and lawyers who are experts in this field. Entrepreneurs in need of legal support submit the details of their ventures and the legal issue they need to the system through a form that they can easily fill in on the anü website, and the system makes matches between the entrepreneurs and the legal expert who will best meet their needs through this data. The system performs this matching thanks to the artificial intelligence algorithm it contains. While preparing the artificial intelligence algorithm, academic data consisting of thousands of data sets were entered in order for the artificial intelligence to work in the most efficient way. In this way, artificial intelligence performs the process by minimizing the margin of error. This start-up, which provides communication between entrepreneurs and lawyers like a bridge, decided to close in the middle of 2021, one year after its establishment. Maxwell Wulff, the founding partner of ANÜ, evaluated the emergence of this idea, the potential it contains, the development process, and the difficulties encountered in this process, in my interview with him.

How did ANÜ come about, what were your goals and future goals while preparing this project with your partner?

We came up with the idea for ANU with my partner, Tiyani Majoka. She completed his law education in South Africa and is currently studying law, technology, and entrepreneurship at Cornell University, and I am studying for a master’s degree in engineering at the same university. While working on the school project with my partner, we noticed the lack in this area and started brainstorming to see what can be done. Entrepreneurs, especially those our age, are very poor in the environment. When implementing a Start-up, you need to consider all the details and create a useful business model, and the most important of these details is the legal stages. We hear a lot in our close circle that entrepreneurs who do not have a lawyer they know are having problems in this regard, and we have implemented the idea of ANÜ to find a solution to this problem. Our aim was to bring together qualified lawyers who are truly experts in this field and entrepreneurs who need legal support. We have known from the very beginning of this project that entrepreneurs do not know at what stage or in which subject they need legal support. ANÜ’s artificial intelligence analyzes the legal issue and matches the best lawyer and entrepreneur in this field, thanks to the form that entrepreneurs fill out when applying for this service. In order to match the lawyers who are experts in their fields and the entrepreneurs, we have made our partnership with corporate offices specialized in this field. Our future goals were to further develop ANÜ and make it widely available in the United States. We have known from the very beginning of this project that entrepreneurs do not know at what stage or in which subject they need legal support. ANÜ’s artificial intelligence analyzes the legal issue and matches the best lawyer and entrepreneur in this field, thanks to the form that entrepreneurs fill out when applying for this service. In order to match the lawyers who are experts in their fields and the entrepreneurs, we have made our partnership with corporate offices specialized in this field. Our future goals were to further develop ANÜ and make it widely available in the United States. We have known from the very beginning of this project that entrepreneurs do not know at what stage or in which subject they need legal support. ANÜ’s artificial intelligence analyzes the legal issue and matches the best lawyer and entrepreneur in this field, thanks to the form that entrepreneurs fill out when applying for this service. In order to match the lawyers who are experts in their fields and the entrepreneurs, we have made our partnership with corporate offices specialized in this field. Our future goals were to further develop ANU and make it widely available in the United States. Thanks to the form that entrepreneurs fill out when applying for this service, it analyzes the legal issue and matches the best lawyer in this field with the entrepreneur. In order to match the lawyers who are experts in their fields and the entrepreneurs, we have made our partnership with corporate offices specialized in this field. Our future goals were to further develop ANÜ and make it widely available in the United States. Thanks to the form that entrepreneurs fill out when applying for this service, it analyzes the legal issue and matches the best lawyer in this field with the entrepreneur. In order to match the lawyers who are experts in their fields and the entrepreneurs, we have made our partnership with corporate offices specialized in this field. Our future goals were to further develop ANÜ and make it widely available in the United States.

Can you give some information about ANÜ’s working method and artificial intelligence algorithm?

ANÜ matches the entrepreneur who applies to the system with a lawyer who is an expert in his field, thanks to the artificial intelligence algorithm with the detailed information he receives about his enterprise. The key point here is the success of the match and the secret behind this success; artificial intelligence algorithm. As we all know, the working logic of artificial intelligence algorithms lies in the deep learning method. Thanks to the data sets entered into the artificial intelligence systems algorithm, it performs deep learning and performs the operation you want from it thanks to the ability it has obtained from this learning. The more clear and accurate data set you to upload to the algorithm, the higher the success rate will be. This is the secret behind the success of ANÜ, in fact, the artificial intelligence algorithm it contains works efficiently and with the lowest error margin as possible. We have worked day and night for 8 months during the pandemic to make this system work. As a data analyst, I organized the data, my partner collected the best academic data as raw data, and our software developer programmed ANÜ.

Could you tell us about the problems and difficulties you faced while developing ANU and then making the system operational?

It was not an easy process for us to prepare the system, write the artificial intelligence algorithm, and collect the data sets, we worked day and night for 8 months to reveal ANÜ. This process was one that we enjoyed rather than a challenge, but later on, when we made the system work, we encountered some difficulties. One of them; after matching between entrepreneurs and legal experts, it was not able to keep them in the system. Because we did not plan a model for the future. In the beginning, we focused only on the idea and developing the system in the best way, and perhaps we did not create a successful business model. In order to make ANÜ work, we either needed to keep the parties in the system after the match or more entrepreneurs needed to get service. But in the United States and I’m sure in other countries as well, growing your brand and expanding to more areas is actually more difficult than developing the idea, and this difficulty led us to the process of closing ANÜ. In addition, the legal obligations and tax obligations that we encountered while developing the system and making it functional put a lot of pressure on us. Fee share in the United States has created serious financial liabilities for a start-up that is just at the beginning of the road.

What do you think about the legaltech ecosystem in the United States and other countries around the world, the share of this ecosystem in the world economy is increasing day by day, how much do you think this share will increase when we complete the 21st century?

Technology is developing very rapidly, and the legal ecosystem will inevitably keep up with it. But in the United States, the legaltech ecosystem is very, very small, contrary to what people outside think. Maybe in a European country or Israel, this ecosystem is more developed and larger. Despite demand, need, developing technology, and economies, this ecosystem is in a much smaller state than it should be. There are many reasons for this; Institutions resisting technological developments, not noticing this development in technology, using this ecosystem only for simple office work, and… it goes on and on. I can say this partly from the perspective of the legal ecosystem towards legaltech, technology is developing artificial intelligence, blockchain, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, but the actors of this ecosystem does not take legaltech beyond just using it for simple office work. As technology develops, this ecosystem needs improvement, and I am sure that the share of this ecosystem in the world economy will double or triple in the middle of the 21st century.

Interview with Maxwell Wulff-Legaltech/Start-up File “ANÜ”

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Written by Şaban İbrahim GÖKSAL