20 VC FF 019: 500 Startups Week: Life As A 500 Startups Portfolio Company with Ashish Walia, Co-Founder @ LawTrades

Ashish Walia is the Co-Founder & COO at 500 Startups portfolio company, LawTrades. LawTrades aims to decentralise the traditional legal hiring process through providing an amazing marketplace of attorneys with domain experience in the startup world having worked with companies from the likes of YC, Techstars and 500. Ashish is also the Host of The Ashish Walia Show, a podcast dedicated to interviewing the latest and greatest world changing entrepreneurs, you can listen to Harry's interview on The Ashish Walia Show here!

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) I would love to kick off today’s show by hearing a little about your background and the origins of LawTrades? What was the a-ha moment for you?

2.) Was Ashish nervous leaving the security of the legal profession for the life of a tech founder? What would Ashish advise people who want to make the leap but are not sure if it is worth risking everything?

3.) The legal space is about a century behind the rest of the consumerised world of tech, why is there this divergence between the advancement of tech and the lacking progression of the legal space?

4.) How did Ashish come to raise funds from 500? What was the process and interview like? Why did Ashish choose 500 out of all the accelerators? What were the challenging and surprising elements of the fundraising journey?

6.) What would Ashish do differently if he was founding LawTrades again? What does Ashish wish he had been told before he became an entrepreneur?

Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:

Ashish's Fave Book: Peter Thiel: Zero To One

Ashish's Fave Entrepreneurial Resources: Gary Vaynerchuk, This Week In Startups, How To Start A Startup

Ashish's Fave Blog: James Altucher, Tim Ferriss,

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Ashish and LawTrades on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

We would like to say a special thank you to our partner for this very special 500 Startups Feature Week, LawTrades, the go to place for startups and VCs to get their legal work done. For all 20VC listeners LawTrades are offering a special $150 off your first piece of legal work when you mention ‘The Twenty Minute VC’. You can follow them on Twitter here!