The initial pitch (from your link) contradicts the rationale for the pivot.
The premise they started with was that its hard to sell efficiency enhancing software to lawyers because the billable hour discourages increasing efficiency. The solution was to become a law firm, offering fixed fees to secure business and leveraging the software to increase efficiency and enhance profitability.
> Atrium LLP is trying to solve this by charging fixed pricing for work. It plans on doing this by building models to predict how much work will be needed for different types of projects. Even if the models aren’t perfect at first, it doesn’t really matter: regardless of whether it is higher or lower margin initially, the point is that when are have a fixed price for service, it is your internal incentive to reduce cost over time. That is how the market drives lower cost for customers. When you have buyers who pay suppliers based on cost plus, you get high prices that don’t trend down over time (think government contractors). When you have fixed pricing, costs generally come down over time.
By shifting away from charging for services to selling software, you’re back to the initial problem: law firms don’t want to pay for efficiency enhancing software because the billable hour discourages it.
The premise they started with was that its hard to sell efficiency enhancing software to lawyers because the billable hour discourages increasing efficiency. The solution was to become a law firm, offering fixed fees to secure business and leveraging the software to increase efficiency and enhance profitability.
> Atrium LLP is trying to solve this by charging fixed pricing for work. It plans on doing this by building models to predict how much work will be needed for different types of projects. Even if the models aren’t perfect at first, it doesn’t really matter: regardless of whether it is higher or lower margin initially, the point is that when are have a fixed price for service, it is your internal incentive to reduce cost over time. That is how the market drives lower cost for customers. When you have buyers who pay suppliers based on cost plus, you get high prices that don’t trend down over time (think government contractors). When you have fixed pricing, costs generally come down over time.
By shifting away from charging for services to selling software, you’re back to the initial problem: law firms don’t want to pay for efficiency enhancing software because the billable hour discourages it.