With Legalstart, Timothée and his partner Pierre have created the product that meets the needs of entrepreneurs. Timothée looks back on the story behind a growing startup and the challenges that await it.
The journey of Timothée Rambaud, co-founder of Legalstart
What is your background?
I did scientific preparation in Paris, before joining MINES ParisTech. I am from the class of 2000. I then completed a VIE at BNP Paribas, in New York, in structured financing, between 2003 and 2005. I continued at Goldman Sachs in M&A until 2007, the year when I accompanied the opening of the Paris office of HIG Capital. In 2013, I left this company to create Legalstart with Pierre.
Why did you want to go into finance after your training?
I followed a quantitative finance specialty at MINES ParisTech. What interested me was mainly the business part, market, positioning of the company, development… Gradually, in my career, I got closer to the operational side.
Within HIG Capital, when I was an investment director, I had to wear several hats. There was a whole part of portfolio management of the fund, where we worked hand in hand with the entrepreneur on his development, his strategy… I really liked it!
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The entrepreneurial adventure
You were therefore in daily contact with entrepreneurs. Is that what made you want to get started?
I really enjoyed working with startupers on a daily basis. It fascinated me and I told myself that I really wanted to take the plunge and be an entrepreneur myself. Ultimately, the launch of Legalstart is a story of opportunity and the alignment of the planets.
With Pierre, we noticed that the legal sector was very little impacted by technology and operated in a very traditional way. When we dug a little deeper, we realized that there was a company based on the current Legalstart model in the United States and it was doing really well. We noticed similarities between the American and French markets. A few interviews with users confirmed our intuitions.
How did you meet Pierre, your co-founder?
Pierre is a lawyer. He studied law in Paris before completing an LLM at Harvard. He passed his bar in Paris and the United States. We met in New York, in 2003, when he worked in a business firm. On Legalstart, our profiles are different, but complementary. I wear more of a business-engineer hat while Pierre wears more of a professional hat. I rather take care of the product, marketing, business issues and Pierre, operations.
Focus on Legalstart
What is Legalstart?
It is a startup whose ambition is to support the entrepreneur from the creation of his startup and throughout the life of his company. With Legalstart, you can create your business, hire, protect your brand, hold your general meetings, manage your accounts, call on a legal expert, draft general conditions of sale, find a specialized lawyer… We offer a wide range of services which allows us to meet all the needs of entrepreneurs.
The platform emerged in 2014. Today, Legalstart has 120 people, half of whom take care of operations and the other half of marketing, tech and product.
Why did you launch a startup in the legal world?
With Pierre, we realized that French entrepreneurs did not have a legal and administrative services solution adapted to their needs and that’s when we created Legalstart. Unlike the vast majority of startups, we managed to develop the service and the project completely self-financed. It’s one of our prides. Fundraising is not the end all be all. Our objective is to create a healthy and sustainable company and business model. We have been successful in doing this from the start and have built a robust and solid business that has supported over 300,000 entrepreneurs since launch.
The future of Legalstart
How do you imagine Legalstart in a few years?
Today, we support one in ten entrepreneurs. Tomorrow I would like Legalstart supports one in five entrepreneurs. We want to help more and more startupers by offering increasingly simple services. We have a never-ending list of projects and it’s extremely motivating. And, to develop it, we are looking for talent for all our teams: marketing, product, Tech, HR… If you want to join the adventure and are motivated, you are welcome!
