We’re only a week away from the Startup Alley pitch competition that’s the opening night time occasion of ABA TECHSHOW, and I just lately had the chance to meet up with final yr’s winner, Tony Valenti, founder and CEO of Universal Migrator, who informed me that, since Startup Alley, “it’s been an excellent yr.”
“It positively brings a number of visibility,” Valenti stated. “I feel Startup Alley was an excellent profit, and I feel profitable was an excellent profit.”
Actually, Valenti’s firm has gone from startup competitor final yr to diamond sponsor this yr, the very best degree of TECHSHOW sponsorship.
On condition that I set up and average Startup Alley, that is music to my ears. However I’m not so naive as to consider that profitable Startup Alley, alone, can result in success. You want a product that solves an issue and does it effectively.
Facilitating Information Migrations
The issue Common Migrator solves is knowledge migration for regulation companies and authorized organizations — most frequently from one regulation apply administration platform to a different or one doc administration system to a different. It allows migrations from greater than 100 sources, with new ones added nearly each week.
“Information migrations in authorized tech have historically actually sucked,” Valenti stated. “The issue with knowledge migrations, typically talking, is that lots of people historically have tried to make use of CSV recordsdata to maneuver knowledge round. That simply doesn’t work the way in which that Common Migrator strikes knowledge.
“We make it very easy to drag knowledge out of various programs after which push it into completely different programs, so initiatives that historically would have taken a human perhaps seven or 14 days to do are actually like two-hour initiatives.”
To be clear, that two hours is human time — the time it takes to arrange and configure the migration. The precise time required emigrate all of a agency’s knowledge varies relying on the agency and its programs, however averages 24 hours.
Even then, Common Migrator strikes current knowledge and paperwork first, so a agency can start working in its new system at the same time as older knowledge remains to be being migrated, Valenti says.
In search of System Alignment
One purpose Common Migrator has seen a lot progress over the previous yr, Valenti believes, is that companies are extra steadily altering apply administration platforms to search out one which finest aligns with their enterprise and areas of regulation.
Amongst apply administration programs, there isn’t a actual “secret sauce” that distinguishes them, he says.
“Should you take a look at just about the entire apply administration programs, they’re all promoting the identical ketchup,” he says. “A few of them have ketchup constructed from pure tomatoes, some from hothouse tomatoes, however it’s all the identical ketchup.”
However what does differ is the platform and the person interface. “So that you might need a agency that’s utilizing model primary and so they discover that model quantity two higher aligns with their enterprise and the world of regulation that they apply.”
When that occurs, he says, “Common Migrator makes what was a really laborious, time-consuming and dangerous means of migrating from one platform to a different quite a bit faster and quite a bit much less dangerous.”
When Common Migrator competed in Startup Alley final yr, it might pull knowledge from 65 sources. It’s now at over 100 and persevering with so as to add extra primarily based on buyer requests. The corporate helps over 200 knowledge migrations a month, Valenti says.
Applied by means of Consultants
Whereas Common Migrator has facilitated migrations for regulation companies and authorized organizations from small to giant, the first channel for it to promote its merchandise will not be on to regulation companies, however by means of the authorized know-how consultants and IT consulting companies that work instantly with regulation companies to maneuver them to new programs.
“Loads of regulation companies come on to us, however we wish to be a channel enterprise,” Valenti says. “We wish to be supporting everyone else’s initiatives and having extra initiatives go to our companions.”
The corporate additionally has relationships instantly with some apply administration firms whose inner migration departments use Common Migrator to facilitate migrations into their platforms, Valenti informed me.
One factor Common Migrator doesn’t do is make suggestions about apply administration or doc administration platforms.
“Typically regulation companies will ask us, ‘Who do you suggest?’ And I inform them, ‘We don’t suggest anyone, we suggest that you just do your individual analysis and also you choose the corporate that finest aligns with the place you wish to go after which we’ll take you there.”
Whereas Common Migrator is not going to suggest platforms, it does attempt to present unbiased data on precisely what knowledge could be migrated between platforms. Salespeople for apply administration firms could not at all times be effectively knowledgeable or as much as knowledge on what knowledge could be migrated from one platform to a different, however Common Migrator can present this data, Valenti says.
Actually, for a lot of merchandise, its web site lists what knowledge could be migrated and which platforms it may possibly migrate that knowledge into.
Valenti additionally urges regulation companies to be cautious about signing up-front, long-term offers with apply administration firms.
“Whoever you’re signing up with, go month to month till you’re on their platform, utilizing their platform, and you like their platform. As soon as you like their platform, then have the dialog about transferring to a yearly or tri-annual contract.
“However don’t do it up entrance — don’t get married till you’ve been on just a few good dates.”
