Otta's Experience of Working With Gazelle Law
“Responsive, pragmatic, and great value”
We chatted to Theo Margolius from job search platform Otta about his experience of working with the team at Gazelle Law.
Hi Theo! Can you tell me a little bit about Otta and your role there?
Otta is a job search platform, and in short we’re redefining how the best candidates search for jobs. We're used by innovative companies to hire mission-driven talent, and have about 1.3 million candidates using the platform across the UK, Europe, and the US.
Do you specialise in any particular sectors or professions?
We're focused on helping tech companies at the moment - from start-ups all the way
through to the big tech companies like Spotify. We recruit for all types of roles. We have candidates looking for and securing positions in marketing, finance, engineering, sales….any function you might expect to have within a large organisation.
How does Otta work with Gazelle Law?
We have no in-house legal team at the moment. I'm the de facto legal sign-off person! We started using Katie and Gazelle Law very early on in our start-up journey and they have been our outsourced legal partners. We've used law firms as well, either separately from Katie and Gazelle Law or alongside them. At some point we may look at growing our own in-house legal team, but having Gazelle Law on our side is giving us the flexible legal resource we need right now.
What makes Gazelle Law a great legal partner for Otta?
Katie and the team at Gazelle are very commercial and pragmatic. I've often found with lawyers that they’ll give you advice, but can be hands-off when it comes to decision making. Katie and Gazelle Law are great at offering us decisive commercial advice which helps us to make fast decisions and move on.
The team is very responsive as well, which is really important to us. Usually if we send Katie an email she'll reply within half an hour with a great answer.
As I said before, when we do use law firms, we still use Katie to help manage them, and she acts as our in-house General Counsel. But she’s also great at negotiating with them, keeping the cost down, and making sure that they're being pragmatic and we are not running up excessive legal spend.
Has there been a time Gazelle Law really went above and beyond?
When we were working on our Series A funding, we got a term sheet in December and we were trying to move really quickly to get it closed. Katie helped us instruct a law firm, working with them to keep things moving along. She managed to help us get that whole legal process closed out in about six or seven weeks, which is very quick for the legal docs of that round.
It was a complex deal too, because we’re a UK business with investors in the US - so we had UK and US Counsel, and so did the investor. There were four sets of lawyers on the case, and Katie was in the middle navigating, making sure that things ran smoothly, and working very closely with our law firm partner.
It really helped myself and my co-founder knowing that she was there and on the ball, managing it all and pulling us in at the right moment, rather than us needing to be stressing out over all the details.
How is Otta doing things differently in the world of online job searching?
There are three main ways that we stand out for candidates. We think about three different pillars - information, selection, and matching. We have upgraded information on companies and jobs, so candidates can make more informed decisions. We invest heavily in having the best selection of jobs for candidates from the newest, most innovative companies to work for. And we have very structured data on jobs and companies, and the same on candidates preferences. Our perspective is that if we can attract the best candidates to be using Otta then we're going to have a great product, because all companies really care about is getting quality candidates in their funnel. Then they do the rest of the hiring process. We’re candidate first, and candidate focused, and therefore they can expect to get great candidates through Otta.
How would you say Gazelle Law is different from law firms and how they work for
their start-up clients?
I would reiterate the responsiveness. I think that's one of the most important things for start-up founders. In terms of the model, you have trust that you're not going to get ripped off, you're going to get good advice, and time isn’t being clocked up for every single email that you send! It's always been fair, pragmatic, good value legal advice - particularly for the level of service that you get.
Thank you Theo - and if you would like to check out how Otta are disrupting the world of recruitment, you can check them out on otta.com
Want to work with a legal services business that really “gets” start-up needs? Or are you a legal consultant looking for a fast-paced role in the start-up space with flexibility and work-life balance? Get in touch for a chat at Katie@gazellelaw.com.
