In this episode of Hello Chaos, host Jennifer Sutton welcomes Ana Junaidja, an IP attorney and founder of Ana Law. Ana shares her love for intellectual property and how she ended up specializing in this field. She also discusses the importance of IP for startups and entrepreneurs who want to monetize their ideas. Ana's passion for sharing her knowledge with others led her to launch a media company that helps lawyers create content and build their brand on social media. The podcast is produced by Orange WIP, a multimedia company that provides resources and information for founders and entrepreneurs.
00:02:57 Passion for IP and entrepreneurship.
00:06:05 Embrace change and monetize assets.
00:12:03 Lower barrier of entry for entrepreneurs.
00:19:29 Protect your intellectual property assets.
00:22:09 DIY trademark filing is risky.
00:29:43 AI is transforming business operations.
00:32:05 Lawyers using AI will succeed.
00:37:15 Marketing is essential for business.
00:45:56 Importance of networking for business.
00:52:44 Empower women through entrepreneurship.
00:54:21 Plan for profitability, and legal protection.
00:59:26 Take your business seriously.
01:05:02 Connect with Anna Jeneja easily.
Swell AI Transcript: Ep. 75 Ana Juneja.mp3
SPEAKER00: Welcome, welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs, and innovators. We talk to founders from all different industries, different company stages of all shapes and sizes. We like to hear real, raw, and those unbiased stories, founder stories, and why our mantra is where aha meets oh shit. We drop new episodes every Sunday so that we help motivate, inspire, and get founders and entrepreneurs prepared for the week ahead. Hello Chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by Orange WIP. That's Orange WIP, W-I-P, for work in progress, because that's what we all are. Orange web is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs and affiliate cities through hyper local media platforms that are designed to inform inspire and create connections to help founders succeed. Orange WIP is an all-in-one content hub for founders with fresh and engaging stories. We have curated local calendars and local dynamic roadmaps to help the founder and startup entrepreneur navigate their local entrepreneurial ecosystems. We've done all the hard work for founders, so they only need to go to one trusted place to find all the local information they need. We're in three cities today, hoping to expand to 30 cities within five years. So every city needs to have an Orange WIP. My name is Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ. I'm the founder of Orange WIP and will be your host today on Hello, CAS. And we have as our guest, Ana Junaidja. Did I say it? Junaidja. I said it, did I say it right? Okay, Junaidja. And Ana, I'm so excited you're on, because you've got two companies. Ana is an IP attorney, and she runs her own law firm called Ana Law. And she also started a media company that is dedicated to serving lawyers. Is that right?
SPEAKER01: That is right.
SPEAKER_00: All right. Welcome, Hannah. Welcome to Hello Chaos. Welcome to the chaos, although we welcome all the chaos as founders.
SPEAKER_01: I love chaos and thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00: So start us out. Just give us the, you know, what started you on this journey? Why IP? How did you get involved with founders and startups? And then now why did you launch a media company? So let's start us out.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. So those are, that's so much, but so just to start IP is a sector of business law. It's kind of a specialization of business law. And I have always actually been really interested in IP. Apparently, even when I was a kid, my mom said I was like really into copyrights and patents and things. So I found that really interesting. And then of course, as you grow up, you want to do other things. You want to be a spy and diplomat and all that stuff. But then I did end up going to, you know, law school and ending up kind of in the IP field. And that really happened because IP lawyers, they tend to have science backgrounds. And if you go to law school with a science or engineering background, you're really geared towards patent law because there just are very few of scientist lawyer mixes. And that is why I sort of ended up in the field. I actually didn't know I would love it as much as I do, but pretty much as soon as I started working, I fell in love with it immediately. It was definitely my calling. I just didn't really know it until I started.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what was it about it that you were just like, this is awesome. This is my this is my jam.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I just think it's something that I, for some reason, it just clicked in my head. I understood it so deeply and being able to share that with startups and businesses and entrepreneurs that, you know, are looking to monetize their intellectual property. They're looking to push the envelope, like push humanity forward. You know, I'm just on the forefront of everything that people are doing and it's very exciting. And I think that's part of it, me being able to share that with people. It's the innovations the creation.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh, so when you think you know when you think about your journey Um, so you you run this law firm. What made you start the media company?
SPEAKER_01: So I worked at a law firm previously to mine when I graduated took the bar. I worked at just kind of a more normal path. I worked at a IP law firm that was a very established traditional type of law firm. And I really would have stayed there for a long time. I really loved what I was doing. I loved my clients, but I felt there were certain other opportunities out there in terms of there was just an untapped market of people who really didn't have a lot of exposure to IP. And during that time when I was trying to see, you know, is there really an untapped market? You know, there really was because immediately on social media, I had a lot of success. And because of that, I then had a lot of interest from other lawyers who wanted to share their own passion and things like that with a new audience as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's more of like educating other lawyers about the patent journeys, what needs to be protected.
SPEAKER_01: It's just helping other lawyers be able to create content on social media. Oh, okay. Brand on social media, because I think they're the law is a very traditional field. And, you know, change or anything great never really comes from the inside, it's always going to come from an outsider, which I kind of am, because I'm doing things in a different way. So that is why people like lawyers were very interested in what I was doing, because it's not that common to have, you know, lawyer on tik tok. or at least a couple of years ago. Now, it's way more common. But when I started, it was very uncommon. They hated it at first and they thought it was weird. But then once you start getting a little bit of success, they all want to know how you did it. I had a lot of interest specifically from other lawyers who wanted to learn more about what I was doing and now we help them.
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha. Okay. So it's more of like a media company to do social media or teach social media for other lawyers. Like how do you build your personal brand? Yeah. On social. Okay. Um, so what do you think is the, the, the biggest kind of surprise or the aha moments that you see, maybe not just in your own journey, but when you work with startups and founders and you know, these creators, what do you see? Like, the big like light bulbs going off?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I'm a lawyer. So the biggest light bulbs I see going off is when people get sued, and they freak out. So that's definitely the biggest times when they're like, Oh, I didn't even know that was a thing. In my field, you know, things are, just if you infringe on IP, it's breaking the law. It doesn't really matter if you were ignorant or not. It's really important for business owners to educate themselves so they're not in that aha moment. But also, there's another time too where people have a lot of intellectual property assets And they are not monetizing them. And then, you know, we do an audit for them. We work with them. We get to know their business really deeply. And then we realize we can create a lot of revenue streams from things they already have and that they didn't even know that they could monetize. So give an example of that. So for example, I was working just, you know, a couple of hours ago, my last call before, um, this, I was working with a client who has, she is a UGC, like a user generated content creator. And she very specifically makes content with her hand. So she used to be a hand model and now she makes content specifically with her hands. And, um, you know, she originally came to me of course, because someone had stolen some of her pictures and they were using it and we, had to deal with that issue about a year ago, but she's been with me now for a while. And now, you know, we've gone through her website, we've gone through our contracts, we negotiate deals with her for the brand she works with. And, you know, she's able to charge more for her rights and perpetuity. So being able to have exclusivity and long-term relationships, she's able to charge more for those types of things. She's able to create subscription services where people can license her photos and have a reoccurring revenue stream from that. And she also is able to then sell, um, basically copyrights to her photos. She'll take a bundle of photos, we'll copyright them and she'll sell the whole thing with the copyright. And that is, she's able to charge more because she's not just selling the photos. It comes with a lot of rights. And, um, so that those are some of the ways that, you know, we were able to dig into her business and just be able to charge more.
SPEAKER_00: Enter okay. And so as you've started your own law firm, what was the big aha moment for you?
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say it doesn't really have anything to do with law or IP, but my big aha moment was really being able to, um, Free up myself. So using technology and people staff to be able to gain back My time was my biggest aha moment because especially if you are a business owner who's built your own business Maybe it's different if you buy a business, but if you've built your own business, you're very particular about everything you're very controlling and you know letting that go and being able to train other people is a huge skill and That was definitely my biggest aha moment. I feel like that is my biggest business journey, you know, thing that I've had to overcome in my business.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we talk about that a lot with other founders is that is the, you know, when you go from a solopreneur to then want to scale and you've got to bring on a team, it's a whole different mindset of because then it becomes, you know, if you're the one that's doing it, it's under your, you know, service. But you need other people here to help you scale or you need to bring on other people that literally do what you do, but they need to do it in your manner. Right under your brand and your banner you got to think through a whole different like what's the scalability what's the process what's the system how you know and and make sure that people are doing what you need them to do that represent you.
SPEAKER_01: Right. Exactly. And I just think, you know, we've all been trained, you know, at least unless you're maybe if you're Gen Z, you're not like this, but for all the rest of us, we have been so trained in a traditional way. And I look at it now and I mean, Dropbox and HelloSign, which is now the same thing, you know, e-signature have literally replaced multiple people that used to have to work.
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, especially for your industry. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01: But you used to have to drive somewhere or have somebody come into the office, have your secretary print things off, bring it to you, put it in front of them, get them to sign it, or mail it to them. I mean, it was a whole process. There are crazy things that we take for granted that have literally replaced entire people. in our businesses. And so I think it's a really amazing time to be an entrepreneur, starting a business or growing a business, scaling a business because there's so much available to us that we take for granted every single day. But the barrier of entry of starting a business, if you really feel a calling to is lower now. And I think that's something people should take into consideration.
SPEAKER_00: Right. I think there's a there's a widespread kind of culture in different communities. Why we started Orange WIP because we realized these the the local markets were being fed by the economic economic development, you know, local engine and entrepreneurialism. Is that a word? Yeah. Is a fuel to that, but it becomes, you know, how do you connect and how do you, like, nurture and make sure that you're hitting the full spectrum? It's why we saw, like, major gaps in markets and why we created Orange WIP, but I think it is over, like, when I started the marketing company 10 years ago, it was a struggle to find entrepreneur other entrepreneurs other like-minded people and to have this like Inspiration to just do it start it, you know start the cut and I think now what I've seen a shift just in attitudes across the country of it's it is this like there's no other better time is you're you are gonna like your local market and national, like it is, there's so much fuel and passion and encouragement to start something.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree. I think people are realizing there's a lot more information out there and things are not as crazy difficult as people make it out to be. And it's always good to, I think people are more interested in just with the economy, how it is people are interested in having multiple revenue streams. It's always good to, you know, be able to do something you really love on the side and make money from it and share your passion with others and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: So what's been the most rewarding part of your journey?
SPEAKER_01: So far, you know, the most rewarding part has definitely been when we are able to reach people who don't have any idea what IP is and they didn't even know a patent trademark copyright was a thing and we're able to shift their business. We're able to bring them on, transform their whole business because now they are protecting their assets because Intellectual property. So content, you create your brands, your inventions, your logos, all of these are different types of intellectual property assets. And they're actual assets like a line item on your taxes. They exponentially increase the value of your business. You get much greater results when you sell your business or when you're negotiating deals and things. So being able to take somebody who just didn't have any idea and bring them on and teach them and Create this brand new incredible revenue stream in their business and work with them to develop that Has been definitely the most rewarding thing because there's so many people I reach that really are total beginners in the IP world
SPEAKER_00: What's the first thing that you walk somebody through? So if someone goes, hey, I have this idea, and what if they've already started the company or selling the product or the service? Do you have to kind of go, whoa, let's take a step back? Or do you try to catch people at the very, very infant stage? Or is it OK if someone's like, I need to kind of see if there's a there there, and they've worked at it for three to five years? What's the do's and the don'ts there?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so well, to start this, I'm going to give like a really quick overview of like the different types of IP, because this is going to be very important. So copyrights, they protect content art. So this is anything, you know, videos, movies, photos, artwork like sculptures, architecture, software, anything that is an original work of authorship, basically. So that is what is protected via copyrights. And then trademarks protect brands. So this is brand names, logos, slogans, jingles, even colors, things like that. Anything that identifies your brand, that is you know, protected via trademark law and then patents are for inventions. So, you know, people invent chemicals or tools or, you know, processes, methods, things like that, that is protected via patent. So being able to just explain to people, look into their business, kind of go through everything is the first step because a lot of people also don't know what they have and what they've created, especially if they've never sat down with an attorney and actually understood what's going on in their business. And then you know, being able to point out, hey, that's really vulnerable. You've taken all these photos and you're running ads on them, but you don't have a copyright. Like anybody could take that. And, you know, there goes a hundred K of ad spend you just wasted. Right. So, you know, that type of thing is where we can catch people early on or sorry, after they've already created stuff. And then we're kind of stepping in during the process. Ideally, I mean, it would be great if people can be caught before they even start anything. And before any mistake is made before anything is done because we have the greatest I have the greatest control Over how everything is managed if I get people before anything has been done. That's not the most common scenario.
SPEAKER_00: Um Do you see it where people are like, okay? I've got this great name and they haven't done their homework to go. Oh somebody else has that name Or a similar logo in the same category and you're dealing with like that's their aha moment of oh crap I gotta cease and desist
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we get a lot of those. I would say 75% of our work is usually when people receive some sort of cease and desist lawsuit, anything like that. I really would not be able to sustain my law firm and make any money if I was just helping people do things correctly from the start. You are going to pay a lawyer a lot more money to fix your problem than to do it right from the start. Right. That's just the reality of how it is. Especially when you're at the beginning stages of your business, your money is so tight. It's so valuable. People definitely put off taking care of the legal side, which is actually a huge mistake because running a business or starting a business is a luxury, but the legal that goes along with it is not a luxury at all. It's just a requirement to do business. So putting off the legal side of things in order to go get a business coach or to hire a social media manager is pretty much always a mistake because you are not setting up your, you know, business for success.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you had said, you know, you've got to think of when you pay for that trademark or copyright, it's an asset. It has become now a legal asset that you can put a financial asset or a financial asset. Yeah. that becomes a part, it's a value to your company. It's a value on your line, like a line item on your, so it, it should be treated no different than if you had an office space or if you needed to purchase a piece of equipment to produce or to help scale your business. Is that kind of, you know, to put it in that framework?
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what it is because you're also, you know, potentially going to monetize that, get royalties, all of that. And then when you go, to sell your business, the way they evaluate businesses. And so the value of your IP in particular, it's generally going to be your brand and your, you know, depending on what the business is, the brand trademarks are going to be a big part of it. But if you're very tech heavy, maybe patents, you know, if that's more of what your business is, and then if you're very content heavy, your copyrights will be very valuable as well, or music heavy, anything like that. But your brand is going to be a huge part of what the value of your IP portfolio is. And when you look at the value of a business, let's say a business is valued at 100K, actually 40 to 60% of that 100K is actually the value of your IP. So if you do not actually own your IP, your business is now reduced in value to 40K or less. or even less if you don't even have any substantial real estate assets or things like that. If you watch Shark Tank, that's why they ask, hey, do you have your patents and trademarks? Because they will not buy your business. Your business is valueless if you have not protected the IP or if there's any issues.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or they might not want it like it. I know when entrepreneurs and founder, you know, we go in and pitch for, you know, your your series A or whatever, that's one of the first questions they ask of you got to put that in your pitch deck of what do you own what trademarks and IP, you know, what have you what have you secured?
SPEAKER_01: Right. Because the problem with IP just the way it is is that the way the law is is that if you fail to protect your rights from the start you May be forfeiting your rights forever So America for patents is a first to file country pretty strictly and for trademarks It is a branding rights, right? That means the first to use the brand. It's definitely the owner. However, you're then relying on common law rights So you can think of it as if you have a name that you really want or a logo or something, and someone else filed that trademark at the USPTO just one day before you do, just one day. They filed it one day before you, even if you used it before them, your options to get that trademark are now 10 times the price. So you can still get it. It's just now an uphill battle.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to cost you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not going to cost you or if you DIY your trademark, and then you receive some sort of refusal and you have to hire an attorney to come in and fix it. That's very common.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by DIY? Talk to me about that. What do you mean by DIY your trademark?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so in the US, if you are a US citizen, you do not have to have an attorney to file a trademark. Just like with a lot of lawsuits, you can file your own lawsuit, you can file your own divorce, anything like that. you are allowed to do that legally. If you're a foreigner, you must have a U.S. attorney. But if you're a U.S. citizen, you can file your own trademark. However, your success rate is going to be quite low, just statistically speaking. And the problem is that once you put something in the record incorrectly, that's now on the public record incorrectly, And even if you hire an attorney, you know, we are, we are not time travelers. We're working with what you've done. So we'll, you know, we can step in and help at any time. Your outcome is just not going to be, you know, I don't have as much control over the process. Right. as I would if I was handling it from the start. So more damage control versus really helping you set yourself up for success and set yourself up to really be able to monetize something. But it's very, very common for people to DIY their trademarks or for non-IP attorneys as well to file trademarks and then hand it to us when they get some sort of refusal. Like I said, though, the problem with IP rights is you can be You know, you're gonna have you could have potentially really devastating consequences if things are not done correctly on from the start Right, it's a I mean it's not like a one-time set it and get it right. I mean it's a Well for some things that is like trademarks they last forever, but there's no maintenance and paperwork and all that to deal with you know, I down the line. However, the process to get anything in the IP world, copyrights you can get in a few months, trademarks take minimum a year, usually longer, patents take a few years. So Every day that's kind of delayed getting your IP filings done or IP work done is potentially a day where you're losing time. You're losing time in line and you're letting anyone else look at your business and being like, Hey, I really like the name, Orange WIP Media. I'm going to go get that trademark because they did it and maybe they'll buy it. They can buy it for me. So it's just setting yourself up to kind of be exploited. You're building a brand for someone else to rip off from you. Right. Yeah. And you're investing all this time, all this money into ads, building your business. And then, you know, if someone else, it's just going to get handed over to someone else because they were the ones that got the trademark and they sued you for it and you couldn't afford to fight back. Literally you're handing them your business.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so how has it been juggling the two businesses of yours?
SPEAKER_01: You know, my main focus is obviously my law firm and that's where 95% of my time gets dedicated. The social media work, you know, is I have a big media team now and they really handle it. You know, I'm not really working one-on-one with anyone or any of the lawyers. I may do some sort of class. I think many people just need reassurance and they need where to get started. Many people watching this podcast are probably already creators or have at some point created content. And if you've never done that before, you are in a different mindset. But I really think that there is statistically an access to justice issue, right? And I'm not claiming that IP work is the same as criminal defense or anything like that. But for people who start businesses and they want to better their lives and things like that, they may not have access to a lawyer. Of my experience level, you know Accessible to them very easily or they may not know Even how to access them. So, you know same with other fields of law. So lawyers really should be Interacting with younger generations. I mean younger generations are not Finding lawyers the same way, you know people used to find them 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: That's right the yellow pages. They are not going there
SPEAKER_01: they're not going to the yellow. I don't think I've ever seen a yellow pages so you know.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't even know if they're if you know are they googling it because we've seen some of the the younger at least you know coming through our agency as interns and stuff. I'm like I'm gonna date myself but you know we in college and in and as I started climbing up through agencies we didn't have Google. Like we had to go down to the library and get LexisNexis to access anything or books and stuff and not until really then it was like, man, Google is my friend. I Google everything. But we've noticed a trend over the last, I don't know, several years of, like I said, younger interns that were, you know, apprentices that were trying to, you know, to nurture and train. That is not the first go-to. like, just to go Google. Like, we have to say, did you Google that? Like, go find them.
SPEAKER_01: I think I look on YouTube first.
SPEAKER_00: I think YouTube is my first, yeah. That's what they do. They're like, oh, I went to Instagram to go find that location, or I went to Twitter to go find, or I went to, you know, I went to YouTube to go look that up and I was like, oh, they are literally there. I mean, and we see that in the stats. I'm working, you know, Facebook is the number two search engine next to Google. Then, you know, and YouTube, I think they, they vie for one and two after Google. And I would not be surprised if one of those is going to overtake Google, um, with the younger generation coming up as far as just pure search terms and search. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: I totally agree and I think especially video content has been a really great way to connect because people will hear your voice. They can get to know you and also there's a lot of misinformation out there. So if you're a lawyer and you want to say something, it's good to say good information that you believe you want to put out there. you know, people really get to know you it, you know, I, when I started my law firm, I didn't have $5,000 a month to go pay for ads or Google. I don't even know how or what the prices are for all that stuff, but I definitely could not afford to go get a billboard and things like that. So, you know, that's just it. There's never really been an opportunity before where people could market for free and, um, literally start big businesses from it. So I think that's another thing is it's just, you're, you're able to, you know, maybe offer better prices to people because you're not having that overhead of having to acquire a client for $2,000. So, you know, you're not paying the big firm, you know, when people work with us, they're not paying the big firm rates because they, we didn't have to pay $2,000 to get that client, you know, walking into us. So that's like been another benefit. And it's just, um, it's been really great to connect and it's been great to be on social media. I think it forces me and the lawyers and professionals on social media to really keep up with technology and be aware of what's going on because A lot of businesses are online. There's a lot of online issues. And my clients don't really want to go to a lawyer who doesn't know the difference between TikTok and Twitter when there are issues with TikTok shop. They really don't want to ask stupid questions to their lawyer. They want their lawyer to already be competent enough. And if you're not aware and up to date with technology, you're really lacking in that.
SPEAKER_00: How are you seeing your business being shifted through AI and all the AI integrations with social and websites and people's operations? And is there vulnerabilities there? Are there things to look out for? Or, you know, or is it more of no, go for it. It helps. It helps scale your business.
SPEAKER_01: It helps scale your business for sure. It definitely is a great tool. There are security issues. There are security issues with a lot of technology out there, including social media, including chat GPT. So that is something to really be careful of. It really depends on your industry. If you are a food blogger and you're using chat GPT to help you write some captions, you're not really at risk of anything. However, if you're an attorney, we're not putting client information in chat GPT, especially not the free versions, because you really have no control over that. You have privacy consideration. You have accuracy consideration. So depending on how high risk your business is, you need to use common sense when it comes to using AI, unless it's been vetted. But we've been using, in my field, I've been using AI since the day I started working as an attorney. five, six, seven, however long it's been. I can't even count pre-COVID.
SPEAKER_00: I like skip the two or three years. It's just, I can't even gauge.
SPEAKER_01: I know, right? So since back in like the mid 2010s, whenever I started as a lawyer, We've been using AI, the software, to implement AI searches with searching different patent and trademark systems. That's been there for a while. And now I think what will happen is AI in the legal field and in lots of service-based businesses, it's going to shift to not just providing us information, but putting together the whole thing. Right now, sure, AI can give me some information about what trademarks are out there, what patents are, that kind of thing. But can it put together a comprehensive plan? Can it put together a comprehensive application? Not yet, but I don't think that's that far in the future. And as it continues to get refined, I think it will be a really good asset. It will also give options for people who don't want to use lawyers or specific service providers. It'll give them that option too. There's always going to be the people who, you know, they just want it done right. you know, they need their business to work, they're just going to have a lawyer do it. But I think lawyers will also, the lawyers who start using AI and really becoming very well versed in it will succeed over the lawyers that are, you know, trying to charge 10 hours for a five minute task.
SPEAKER_00: Right or like you like it helps them scale because of volume just pure helps them cranking out the volume of it Um, so what do you think has been your greatest aha moment? No, I already asked that what is the greatest? Oh shit moment like Like not just necessarily like a client but yours like where you're just like, oh, what have I done?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I would again go back to like, um I think it was when I realized you know I, so there have been points in my business where I think I've hired on too many people at once and haven't trained too many people at once. And that has been my biggest onboarding. Like you, like it is not possible to onboard for me. It's not possible to onboard five people at once. It's just not. I'm very particular. I'm very controlling. I have a very certain way of doing things. I need to like do everything step by step with them one at a time. So that was my biggest, biggest mistake. And I think I lost like at least five to 10 days of work just trying to run after all these people. And I was so scattered.
SPEAKER_00: Did, did you, so let me ask you that because I, I felt the same way. I've, I've realized that the, there's a difference between onboarding and orientation of people and, but it takes a lot, um, time to like onboard the team correctly. And when you don't, like when you think, okay, I'm, you know, I'm spread too thin or I can skip these couple steps. I've recognized that that, Those little, those little things is what ended up in the long term of like they, we could have uncovered a wrong fit earlier on, or we could have managed better expectations earlier. I don't know if you've had any issues with talent retention. retention of team. Yeah. Change your onboarding.
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah. I'm early to hire, early to fire type of thing. So I think, or not fire, but let go. I think exit kindly. Exit kindly. Yeah. I do like probation period. So it's basically, you know, the way I hire is I typically will give a task, like a smaller task and I'll do a project-based um task and i'll see you know how they do and if they do that sufficiently i start to on you know i start to onboard them with actual projects and start ramping it up But I don't really have a specific… I'm still a very small business so I don't have departments of where sectors of people are doing specific things. And a lot of entrepreneurs are probably needing their team to be more versatile than that as well. So the way I've done it and I've found it works pretty good is basically starting to onboard people onto a project and then giving them more and more tasks within that project and training them in that way. Because in a project there are going to be you know maybe 30 tasks that have to be you know if I'm trying to file a copyright you know there's 30 tasks total so if I can teach them how to do like one through five and then they do that the first one and then you know someone else does six through 30. And then the next time they can do one through 10. And you know, training them that way. That's, that's been the best way I've found that I can get people understanding things. And then once you train, you know, your core team, they can train others.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the good part.
SPEAKER_00: So what keeps you up at night? Um, where's your stress? Yeah. Do you, do you have, do you, do you struggle with any kind of stressors or things that you worry about, about your business or the industry?
SPEAKER_01: I definitely struggle with, um, you know, for me, I would say, which is crazy because people wouldn't think this, but I think, you know, I'm very, very comfortable with what I do. I'm, I, I'm really good at what I do. I've been doing it. since the day I started as a lawyer, I studied IP law in law school. I worked at the USPTO. You know, I'm very well versed in what I do. I'm very confident in that. I'm like the only law firm that I know of, and I'm sure I'm the only law firm that offers, you know, 100% money back guaranteed patent trademark copyright services. So, you know, we have 100% success rate. We, you know, get good results. I'm confident in my work. What keeps me up at night is the marketing side of things. So, you know, operations is an ongoing business venture. I feel like in every business, always.
SPEAKER_00: It's a work in progress, always.
SPEAKER_01: It's always a work in progress. And mentally, like, I can handle that. But I think marketing has just been difficult. It's difficult to find time. you with my marketing. I've struggled with, you know, marketing vendors, I've had different, you know, video editors, I've had things like that. So I think marketing is definitely what keeps me up. And then if I'm not marketing, and then I'm wondering how much, you know, I'm losing right now, how much time, you know, and then pipeline, the pipeline, the pipeline, the pipeline, and then, you know, there's my marketing is getting me a lot of other benefits besides just client work. You know, I'm getting invited to a lot of spaces I probably don't deserve to be in because I just have grown on social media. And so it's, it's just balancing all of that and balancing, you know, having to deal with reading comments about yourself. And so marketing is really what keeps me up as a business owner. And, um, that's, um, something I think that has shifted this year. It used to be, I think operations kept me up. Work never kept me up. Work never kept me up. I was always like, I'm definitely a lawyer first, businesswoman first in terms of I can understand people's business and I can get them good results in that sense. That's where my talent lies. But I, you know, have to run a business. I have to deal with operations. And then I deal with, you know, marketing that business and not just marketing that business, but marketing myself and then my other business, you know.
SPEAKER_00: You're putting yourself out there. Yeah, you're putting yourself out there. Yeah, and it's scary. And it's stressful.
SPEAKER_01: And that's anytime you you know, when I started my firm, you know, I wasn't paying anything for marketing. I'm just throwing up tik tok videos. It's not complicated. Anytime I've tried to elevate, you know, my content or do anything. It's been I've really gotten just really burned, you know, every vendor I've worked with every editor, everything I've done, you know, with marketing has been, you know, a crazy struggle, which is just, Um, I don't know why that is. I found a lot of business owners struggle with that as well. You know, every agency I've worked with every, um, videographer, every, uh, editor, you know, everything has, nothing has, um, ever worked out for me.
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting. I can tell you from coming from 30 years in marketing and agencies and working with big brands. I can tell you there's a, you know, there's a lot of maybe great video videographers, maybe great editors, maybe great copywriters, but it's something I think I wrote this on LinkedIn, I don't know last month or so I can't remember. But it's this, we're seeing a trend at the agency level, especially with smaller businesses and micro businesses, is the dismissal of a good creative brief, and just sitting down on paper. and putting your thoughts on paper and having somebody with brand expertise or storytelling expertise that really pushes at it and land on something that can go, this matches the vision, this matches the value proposition, this is serving the communications objective that we all agree on, and this is who we're targeting and who our voices is geared towards. I think a lot of it is just, cause we work with a lot of small business and people like, let's just skip that. Just give me the video. And we, we struggle as an agency getting, getting business to go. I get it. We'll get there. Just takes a little bit of brain sweat, but like once people sit down and see that end result and go, cause that little bit of like, I call it the heavy brain lifting. It's a little bit painful to have to be forced to think three things, putting it on paper. I mean, it really is for, because a lot of like we want to, we're founder, entrepreneur, we want to run business owners. If you're a CEO and, or you're really a CMO of a, you know, company that we work with and you've got 200 employees or, 5,000 employees, and they're like, I got to put this video out. I'm like, let's take the time. Hold on, because it will save time later. And now you can go not just do one video, now you can create a whole series of things. but it's all based on that one kind of I call it the value prop of the concept and but I think that's it's because we've seen like I said this like dismissal of creative briefs and quite honestly because we've been so marketing is so fragmented and be you know and we've seen over the last I want to say five to ten years this trend of people coming out of school people going because look when I grew up it was like if you wanted to be really good at marketing the really only path you took was you needed to go work for an agency like you needed to go work for a brand company a brand agency and that's where you got your chops and That's where you got your disciplines. That's where you, you know, were taught. And I came from the media side. So, you know, we were taught all the terms and the little technology there was at the time, but all the trends and how to read data and how to read analytics and, you know, but working with the creative team to go, what information do they need to do their job right? and working with like strategic planners and account, you know, you see all that in an agency, but the last, I would say eight years, five, eight years, there's been this trend of, I can just go straight from school and not have to go work in an agency. I don't need those disciplines. I can figure it out myself. And the bigger, you know, so when, and so what happens is they work with somebody like you were like, that's not quite hitting it. I, it's just, I can't tell why it's off, but it's off. It's, I'm disappointed, but you can't really articulate it. It's, and so it just comes across as, well, maybe it's subjective. So we, you know, trying to put that tangibility, but I think that's what it's like. Like I got jumped on a bandwagon of, have we lost the art of good creative briefs? Was my, cause that's where we see it.
SPEAKER_01: needing a deep understanding of the business. I think it's in a lot of service provider industries. I think there's so many lawyers that lack an understanding of the business and they don't understand their business objective. That's right. Asking the right questions. Yeah. Asking the right questions. Just understanding the goals. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and a lot and then and then knowing how to interpret that to go this is and pushing on it and really you know we call it uh you know if you like to cook right so marketing and branding and message and storytelling is a lot like cooking right it's layers but you gotta sometimes let that sauce kind of cook to get to that roux and that true essence But a lot of it is you got to have the experience to know the questions to ask, how to interpret it, how to push, so that those concepts that come out are what, it's what's magic. It's what's really, it's the tasty sauce, right? It's the umami flavor. of messaging. But that's just a little self-diagnosis of, I think that's what's probably your, you know, and it's hard for you to articulate. And it's like, I just, I'm unhappy, but I don't know. I just don't like the results and why it's turning.
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely, you know, people also in marketing now, it's way different. Like you said, people are going into school, they go and they'll have some success on like Twitter, Tik Tok or whatnot. And then they'll start an agency from that. Right. And they think that that's, you know, going to work for everyone. And you know, it really never does. So that's, you know, you really do need to have like foundational understanding of marketing and branding and things. And some people have an inherent knack for it. I have some sort of inherent knack for it. But, you know, I don't have the time to dedicate to, to doing all of that expect, you know, going so deeply on every different platform that I want to go in, right? Like I have a massive email list and I just haven't been able to, you know, get it together. So if you have a business, your business is really focused on that.
SPEAKER_00: Right. Right. Yeah. Um, so, so as you deal with stress, like what do you do on your free time? So when you're not in a lorry lorrying and making a, you know, um, social media content, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I, um, I really like, I think all the normal things. I, you know, really like to go out to eat, drink, gym, eat. All the normal things people have. I really like just to hang out with my friends and family and you know, have a lot of downtime whenever I can because, you know, I'm very, very busy and I really like to network as well. I found that networking has been a new thing for me. I never really networked at all until this year and I found I really enjoy it. Like I like going out and meeting people. I like hearing their stories. Yeah. you know, giving without expecting things in return is really important for business owners who are serving the community to do. And I'm glad I have like a hobby of just going networking events and things.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So are you, cause you're up in New York, right? Or. I'm like New York in Miami. You're never okay. So you yeah between I'm in my Jealous I was I was like is she on a top of a No, I but you're you've got oceanfront. That is very nice.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really nice. I was wearing all black so it looks like New York, but I
SPEAKER_00: So when you do network, is it you're working with more in the lawyer, you know, law, legal industry networking? Are you trying to really get engaged with more of the founder community and or social like what what what are you organizations and stuff that you're trying to get involved in?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's definitely a mix. I do go to a lot of lawyer networking events and that's not really business building. That's more, I guess, for camaraderie. I think that's why we do them. But there are a lot of lawyer events and they have great speakers. It's great to network with people, though it doesn't really do anything for your business. So yeah, I do go to a lot of founder events. I go to a lot of my clients events. So you know, my clients are business owners, they have a lot of events. And then also just, you know, I'm trying to also build like my speaking career, I want to become a better public speaker. And I, you know, want to spread my message, not just on, you know, Instagram, So I've been trying to do more of that especially this year and definitely I'll do a lot more of that in 2024. You know my ultimate goal though is actually you know politics so I'm now trying to network more in that world.
SPEAKER_00: Okay so trying to get involved at the local level or like going for more estate?
SPEAKER_01: level. Yeah. More state national level. Like I'm very interested in foreign policy issues just because of my background in IP, you know, we're very involved with foreign policy in terms of what we see, what we see our clients encounter, um, all the IP theft issues with China and things like that. So I'm very, um, That's definitely a huge passion of mine too, is just business issues on a national and global scale. I'm so pro-business. I'm an immigrant myself and my parents are immigrants. They are doctors, but they started their own business, have multiple businesses. My entire family is business owners. I've been in that world since I was a baby. and I'm very, very pro-business. So I just naturally maybe fell into caring a lot about how those issues affect me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Local and bigger level.
SPEAKER_00: That's right. We need all the voices at the small business level that we can get. We do. We do. And more women. And more women, exactly. Yeah, I've just, you know, in the last few years, I've recognized that the importance of networking. So I'm involved in like the women's, the WeBank, it's Women's Business Enterprise Council and my certifications through there and been involved in like the the National Small Business Association and just you know working with 10,000 small business because I'm a alumni with there and you know I thought it's like you think oh these issues I have at the local level and then when you start seeing stuff at the state or federal level and you're like okay so I'm not alone in these issues or these you know these feelings and and I'm seeing the gaps and then you see that you know you just see it and You know, just widespread it is we need stronger voices. Definitely.
SPEAKER_01: No, we do So many issues, you know just in my own field like just an IP that affect small business owners I mean, you know, there's things that I've personally been affected by. I've been targeted by China to file illegitimate trademarks en masse. China has filed illegitimate trademarks en masse at the USPTO, which is why it's now taking over a year to get a trademark. And that harms American business owners because they want to know if a name is getting registered or not by inventory, right? So they're being harmed in return and the government's not doing anything. Absolutely nothing. So, you know, it's, it's all of those types of issues that are very, very, um, prevalent in even the average small business that you see on the national level. And I really feel that the way to fix that is to have a voice for the small business owner or medium business owner.
SPEAKER_00: It's now and that same thing of like the the little stats you hear on especially female founders and you know out of the the out of 100 percent of all the venture capital and investment angel investing everything under the VC investment you know category of funding across the country less than two percent go to female founders. Yeah, it's just absolutely wild. That is crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And female founders and female CEOs have better results.
SPEAKER_00: That's right. And better rates of return than men, yeah. That's right. We're known to be, yes, we're risk, probably risk averse. But our companies are more stable. And they're usually value better. So yeah, we need
SPEAKER_01: We need the voices all the voices, you know, my client base is almost entirely male. It's like 99% male. So I need more female clients. That's for sure. I'm not solving female issues if I'm not getting female clients. I want that's right. You know, female founders on there.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, you know where to go. Alright, so my last question for you. Actually, maybe Now this might be the last clip. We'll see how this goes. So what would our listeners be surprised to learn about you that we haven't talked or that's not on your LinkedIn profile?
SPEAKER_01: Hmm. That's not on my LinkedIn profile. I don't know that there's too much in there. Let me think. Um, you know, like specifically about IP or just about me? Just you. Yeah. Oh, you personally. Um, Oh, that's a really hard question. Um, I'm trying to think, you know, I, I kind of said like my story about how I'm an immigrant and like, so pro business and things, but it's really, um, a lot deeper for me too, because I just feel, you know, I've in the past been in home life situation in my personal life where I was, you know, not, safe situations. And I think women and I'm very a strong advocate for women, women in particular, to really take control of their life financially. And I do believe that starting a business, launching a brand or, you know, monetizing IP is the easiest way to do so right now. Because it's kind of, you know, you create once, monetize forever. Yeah, it's yours. And if you protect it, you do things right, you know, you're going to be good on that. So that is kind of where it comes from. I just think women need to be taking more control of their life. I'm saying this as I have like no female clients, but you know, that's why I create content and why I want to connect with people because I think knowledge is power and just knowing is better than not knowing and having your options open. is great. And that is just, you know, a really strong principle that I think I see more, you know, millennial women getting into and things. So that makes me really happy.
SPEAKER_00: That's great. So, okay. So what are, what are, um, the biggest piece of advice if you, you know, let's say two pieces of advice that you would give to other founders, listeners out there, um, that either you've struggled with or you've seen others struggle with, like, what would you tell them?
SPEAKER_01: You know, I would say the first piece of advice is to really have a strong plan on how you're going to make money. Okay, so I see a lot of people these days, like we talked about the barrier of entry to start a business is lower. However, you really need to understand that the point of being in business is to make money. So if you are not able to come up with a plan of at the start before you start like dollar for dollar how you'll actually be profitable you don't have a business you have a really expensive hobby and um you need to figure it like there's you know if you have a goal of revenue you need to backward calculate that this is like what you should do before you start before you buy any inventory before you hire a lawyer anyone you know think about what your business is that make a budget make a financial budget make a plan a business plan a business plan so
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know how to do that, almost every market, I mean every, you know, region, city, you know, wherever you are, I guarantee that you have some incubator or an accelerator, check your universities, your tech schools, whatever, go to that. A lot of times they're free, like and even if you just have a post-it note like we tell people just go in with your post-it note to go help me think like this is my idea is there a there there like yeah help me help me figure this out help me write a plan um there's so many free resources that yeah there's so many free resources and like just keeping on the forefront that your business needs to make money if your business is not going to be able to make money you need to go back and figure out how that business can make money or don't start it
SPEAKER_01: because you're going to have a really bad outcome then. If you just start a business randomly and expect one day you'll make money, that's why businesses fail because they can't make money. That's right. So thinking about that, people are like, oh, I can't be such a greedy capitalist. I mean, you have to.
SPEAKER_00: You have to understand You have to make money. Also, you're putting money in. We always say whatever dollar you invest or you spend on your company, whether it's in, you know, operational, IT, legal, you know, staff, it needs to return in cousins. Your time. Like for every dollar you spend needs to return in dollars, at least three. At least bring back three cousins.
SPEAKER_01: Yes. Yes. And you're investing your time, your effort, your mental health. So you just, yeah, you have to make money. And then, you know, the, the biggest tip I guess I'll give is, you know, do things right legally. So, you know, have your contracts, there's so many businesses that operate, you know, without contracts, and then like, you want to get paid, don't you, you know, you know, have your IP done, you know, go to a lawyer, get an audit, have them prioritize what you need to protect budget for it. Get it done because you do not, when you're a small business, you have smaller pockets of, you know, you have smaller cushion to absorb mistakes. So if you're Apple and you lose a trademark, you know, portfolio that you really wanted to launch a new product with, it's not that big of a deal. They can rebrand, maybe they'll take a hit, but they're not going to get wiped out. If you're a small business and you've just launched with a name that somebody else already has, and you've invested all this money into your website, inventory, graphics, all of this, you're out 10K.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Or way more. Or way more. And if you're running ads, all that's gone. So you want to just do things right legally the first time. Have your contracts. you know, don't get sued by the ADA because your website was not ADA, you know, American Disability Act compliant, like all of this little stuff, you know, you it's, they're really quick fixes, but if you don't do it, it's devastating. You know, if you get caught up into like an ADA lawsuit, you know, I, my cousin, you know, he has a handbag company and he was sued by somebody. Um, and she said she couldn't access his website to buy bags. And he didn't even qualify for the requirement because he was, he had a smaller business than the levels limited, but he settled, you know, for like 10 K. So you're exploited if you don't have your legal done properly. You don't want to, um, build a house on land you don't own. You want to just kind of be on secure footing.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: That's a good analogy. Doing the legal at the beginning, it's not very expensive. It's very expensive when you have to deal with your mistakes. Had he just had a good policy on his website, it's a couple hundred bucks from a lawyer even. It's not as expensive as you think either to do things the right way. I don't have any incentive to say this either because I'll make a lot more money if you guys make mistakes and come to me. But for a business owner, really just think about what you're doing in your business. Take it seriously from the start. As soon as you realize that if you decide that, Hey, this is a business and I want to make it viable, just take it seriously. Don't give yourself the option to slack on that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's great advice. Okay, so this is the last question. This is a fun one. What three things are you either watching, reading, or listening to? So are you into what TV show or podcast or books are you into right now?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is this is a fun question. So the last movie I watched, even though I'm not a TV person or movie, but I did watch the Taylor Swift movie, I think she has a lot of lessons that you know, people can learn from what I like her music and I'm a Swifty because I think I'm in her demographic. But even if you don't like Taylor Swift, you know, you have to think about what she's done and what phenomenon she became and look at her business or the team.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
SPEAKER_01: and her brand. Yeah. And you know, it's very, very, very interesting. If you get into it, you know, you have this person who is like a very tall, thin model, like person, and she has been able to successfully portray herself as like the girl next door. I mean, it's a marketing world class, right? Because she what she's done is she's like, you know, created this persona and this brand that fits with her talent, and she's been able to monetize it. Now she's a billionaire. So, you know, that's what happened when women own their IP.
SPEAKER_00: That's right. Well, and then what she did around her music IP was amazing, you know, and that was because, you know, the story behind that and what is it? Scooter, you know, basically locked her out of her own music. And it was and I think it was Kelly Clarkson that said just tweeted at her and said, you need to go back in the studio and rerecord it. Just change it up a little bit, rebrand it. And now you and then encourage everybody to just buy that.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, she still owns the rights to the original song, the songwriter rights at least, not the masters, but she can stop other radio companies and things from listening to the old version.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean. And so she went in and re-recorded everything and just slightly just changed the master, the music, and that's where a lot of the, you know, she took control back of what she felt scammed her, right?
SPEAKER_01: Right. And she's very talented. Lots of artists are talented. They can always create more music. But I think it's very interesting to see that she chose to do that because she found, you know, not really, that's not really very common. It's not really been done before. So it's interesting to see how, you know, you can take certain situations and be really creative and then profit off of them. right even if you know you you lost out at first so very interesting how she did it very interesting to think about her longevity I don't know if that's the right word but how long she's been around yeah pretty rare you know since she was a teenager I mean she was a very young teenager so lots of lessons to learn from her and you know the movie was also really fun so that was like the last movie I read and then um What am I reading? I'm reading the 48 laws of power right now. I like reread it once a year, like around that year. I think it's a great thing for women business owners to read. Like it really can put a lot of things into perspective. And I found that the 48 laws of power, like they've really helped me deal with my vendors in particular. So, you know, as a business owner, you're really constantly pitched by all of these people. Yeah. Always like go on your LinkedIn. Oh my God. people, you know, in selling you their software and whatever they are giving you. So, you know, being able to take control of the perception and, you know, of your time is good. And that book really helps me like put things into check sometimes. Um, so I like that book somehow somehow it kind of related to that. Um, that's a great one.
SPEAKER_00: Um, then are you listening to any other podcasts other than hello chaos? I know that's on the top of your now.
SPEAKER_01: Are you a podcast? I love, I love the, um, business and marketing podcasts always. Of course. That's my, one of my favorite genres. I listened to, um, what was the podcast now? I can't remember the name of it. I think it was called, it's something, do you know Tori? She's that first hundred K book writer. She's some financial influencer. So I've been listening to her podcast. I don't really listen to finance podcasts, but hers is very interesting. It's all about how, Yeah, I think just look up like her first 100k. I think it's something like that. So it's really cool to hear her story. You know, another female podcaster and she teaches women about like financial literacy and more on like the saving and and that type of thing. But you know, I'm more of a hey, start a business like you'll you'll you know, you need to start a business but she you know, has some great stuff in there too.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's great. Well, we're out of time. I know what we're ran a little longer than we, but I love it. I love the conversation. I always amazed at how fast these things got to look up. And I'm like, we got to wrap it up. But thank you for hanging out with us today. Thank you for having me. So where do you want people to connect with you, contact you? How do you promote your stuff?
SPEAKER_01: I am. I'm all over every social media platform, just that at Anna Jeneja is my handles on IG, TikTok, LinkedIn. And in all my socials, I have a link in my bio, it's AnnaJeneja.com, and you can contact me. You can actually book a free call with an attorney right there. And you can also send us a message as well, if you have any other specific question that you don't need a call for. So I'm very easily accessible. I also answer all my DMs and things like that too, on Instagram at least.
SPEAKER_00: Very good. And just for our listeners out there, it's Anna, A-N-A, and it's Juneja, J-U-N-E-J-A. So Juneja. Exactly. Yes. All right. So everyone connect with her. Connect, connect. And for everyone out there, thanks for listening and watching us. Thank you for joining. This podcast episode will be published this coming Sunday and available on all podcast platforms. My favorite, I happen to, I'm an Apple podcast person, so that's where I go to get mine. So subscribe to Hello Chaos. like, comment, and share so we can build and grow a more connected entrepreneurial community. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by Orange WIP. Again, that's Orange WIP, W-I-P, for work in progress. We are a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We are 100% free. We are underwritten by our sponsors in the digital edition and looking for sponsors for our HelloCast. Um podcast, but we are a one-stop content hub just for founders delivered also in a weekly Email every sunday gets you prepared for the week And it's just an email to subscribe. So come on subscribe us Subscribe to us. We are currently in three markets and that is uh in south carolina the greenville the columbia and tarleston markets with our goals to expand to be in 30 cities in five years Check out the latest edition. I think we just dropped that last week in the three markets and it is on talent recruitment and retention and how do you build your workforce. So great for stories, founder stories from across the state and stunning photography. Go subscribe and support us. Find your city and enjoy. And if you'd like to be a guest on our podcast, uh, please send us an email to hello at orange WIP.com. And that's again, orange w I p.com. Y'all thank you for tuning in to hello cast and we will see you again next week. It's where aha meets. Oh shit. I'm JJ Jennifer Sutton. I'll see you again. Thank you.