Comment by 7Figures2Commas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 7Figures2Commas | Hacker News Reader

7Figures2Commas

> The cases are mostly barren, and the ones with annotations aren’t particularly insightful like the earlier ones from when Casetext was first announced. This problem, I absolutely understand, given that it’s a relatively new service and the amount of case law out in the wild. Having meaningful annotations for a substantial amount of cases will be a challenge compared to a discography of 90s era rap music where the number most influential tracks can potentially be narrowed down to 50.

> My money is still on Casetext to do some damage given that easy access to annotations from practitioners and academics are important to legal research.

This is a good example of how easy it is to underestimate the importance of momentum when evaluating startups.

Casetext has been around since late 2013. If "the cases are mostly barren, and the ones with annotations aren’t particularly insightful like the earlier ones from when Casetext was first announced" nearly two years later, it calls into question the model.

There are lots of opportunities in the legal market, but trying to take Westlaw and Lexis Nexis on directly is insane.

> trying to take Westlaw and Lexis Nexis on directly is insane.

No, stating that any startup founded in 2013 could be capable of being a competitive product in 2015 - if they only had momentum - is insane.

Building hard things takes a long time. Casetext will only get better but it will take years for them to get it right.

Silicon Valley is obsessed with short-term projects and failure to its detriment.

As long as Casetext gets enough early adopters to stay afloat and improve their model, they could very well catch up one day and offer a far superior product.

I'm sure they've discussed this at length: what is the incentive for a user to annotate case law?

Law happens in such slow motion and not exclusively at the computer that you don't really get the feedback as you would in programming (fixing a bug versus arguing a motion) - which is one of many reasons why Stackoverflow is successful (not that this is really a fair comparison anyway - more of an example). If my immediate success on compiling is dependent on trying out one of these suggested solutions, I'll certainly have an incentive to comment, upvote, and potentially contribute later on knowing how much it helped me.

As somebody who disagrees with much of what "Silicon Valley" accepts as common sense (you can read my past comments if you care), I'd suggest that startups have to be just as careful about unrealistic long-term expectations as they are about unrealistic short-term expectations. It's just as easy to fall for "If you build it they will come" as it is to convince yourself that your lack of traction will miraculously address itself if you can stay afloat long enough.

As burritofanatic noted in his comment, the fundamental question for Casetext is "What is the incentive for a user to annotate case law?" If the incentive or incentives were compelling, you would not expect a statement like "The cases are mostly barren, and the ones with annotations aren’t particularly insightful like the earlier ones from when Casetext was first announced" nearly two years in. You'd see evidence of increasing traction.

Casetext is trying to attack a very difficult market. Bloomberg invested over a billion dollars trying to do the same thing and had very limited success. Casetext has raised less than $10 million.

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