When it comes to enjoyable activities in life, the legal intricacies of angel financing deals might rank just above a root canal. But two Seattle startup attorneys are having a little fun with their profession, creating a new iPhone app called Angel Trivia Daily that educates and informs those entrepreneurs thinking about pursuing investment capital.
“We wanted to create something kind of fun around the angel investment and startup world,” said Joe Wallin, who came up with the idea with his good friend William Carleton. After an initial brainstorm, the attorneys reached out to Jason Thane of Seattle’s General UI to help build the mobile app.
“We thought, shit, all of these terms that kind of intimidate people — but they want to know what the vernacular is — we could just play a multiple choice game around those,” added Carleton.
Through the 99 cent app, you can participate in daily quizzes and try to figure out the answers to burning questions like: “When should you consider filing a Section 83(b) election?” or “How broad is the friends and family securities laws exemption?”
The questions, however, are not completely dry legal mumbo jumbo. (There’s even a PR question related to yours truly). The app also has some other fun bells and whistles. For example, when the game is loading a message appears saying: “Waiting on a liquidity event.”
The attorneys are starting with 24 questions, but Wallin notes that they’ve got a “huge backlog” of potential questions. The idea is to release a new question every day.
What is it with Seattle attorneys moonlighting as mobile app developers?
After all, Wallin and Carleton aren’t the first to experiment with mobile apps. Eric Koester, formerly of Cooley Godward, sold his mobile app Learn that Name to Seattle startup Gist last year. And Michael Schneider quit his day job as a corporate attorney to plunge head first into mobile app development, a career which he has said is more lucrative than the law.
Wallin and Carleton tell GeekWire that they aren’t about ready to quit their day jobs to market the 99 cent app. “Maybe, we will be able to buy you a cup of coffee,” joked Wallin.
John Cook is co-founder of GeekWire. Follow on Twitter: @geekwirenews.
