Changing State Laws with Patrick @ Notarize.com - Escape Velocity Show #27

About this video

In this Escape Velocity interview, Patrick, founder of Notarize, tells Dan Martell how he built an online notarization company after a bad notarization experience when he sold his previous company Spindle to Twitter. He says Virginia had passed a law in 2012 allowing presence in a notarization to be established by video call, and Notarize launched its product in February of 2016. Large auto insurers, mortgage lenders, title companies, banks and wealth firms came inbound, but acceptance was the barrier: recipients questioned documents without a raised stamp. Patrick says the company has been to 40-some states, testified in 40 state legislatures and changed 22 state laws, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac eventually on board, and that it did a SOC 2 audit before winning a single customer. He describes Notarize as software plus a staffed notary service with 24/7 coverage and average connection time in less than 30 seconds. He says the company had raised a total of $43 million, put more than $10 million into lobbying and opening the market, and had a team of more than 40 engineers. Current challenges he names are activation and usability — customers do not understand how it works — and deciding how much to build for business users versus integrating into tools they already use. He also discusses hiring COO Liz Graham, abandoning prescriptive OKRs in favor of picking three problems per quarter, and sitting on the boards of Lob and Drizly while remaining a venture partner.

Key takeaways

• Notarize launched in February 2016 after Patrick found Virginia’s 2012 law allowed notarization presence to be established by video call.
• Legal does not mean accepted: Patrick says the company testified in 40 state legislatures and changed 22 state laws to get the market, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, on board.
• The business is software plus a staffed service, not pure software, offering 24/7 coverage with average connection time in less than 30 seconds.
• Patrick says Notarize had raised $43 million total and put more than $10 million into lobbying and opening the market, plus several million into legal research and compliance.
• After prescriptive OKRs failed, the product organization shifted to identifying problems to solve and picking no more than three problems per quarter for the team to own.

Episode details: published May 7, 2020 · 37:34 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

← Previous: Come Up With Better Business Idea · Next: How to Work With an Agency →

All Dan Martell videos · Dan Martell profile · Dan Martell (official site)