‍As a partner at Michael Best & Friedrich, Nicholas Herdrich specializes in a singular mission: steering startups through the complex journey from formation to exit.

He specializes in guiding startups through all stages of the life cycle, from formation to exit. His advice, however, is rooted in more than just legal expertise—it's built on the experience of having been in the founder's seat himself.

But Nicholas’s path to law was not a straight line. He co-founded a digital media platform, Hopster, and later launched a second startup targeting shoppers for consumer-packaged goods brands. After years in the trenches of entrepreneurship, he reached a turning point.

“Then I had a moment where I thought it would be really interesting to take this from a legal perspective,” he explains. “I saw what our attorney did and I said, instead of focusing on one startup, I could be helping 30 to 50 different startups with different problems.”

This unique background allows him to see challenges from both a legal and business angle. He believes that while all founders must take risks, the key is understanding which ones are actually worth taking. 

His approach is not about achieving immediate legal perfection, but about helping founders understand the vision for perfection and pragmatically move towards it over time.

New Founders, New Laws

On one hand, if a founder is able to develop something that navigates a complex regulatory structure with legal help, or secures a great patent for a technology, that is going to be very protective for them.

If you're up against big companies like Google or Facebook, they can throw a lot of money at a problem. But if you can build certain moats around your idea, that's really advantageous.

The other flavor of that question I think about is: what risks is a startup willing to take, and should they take versus not? When they're making decisions, they're naturally going to want to take more risks and maybe not do everything perfectly from a legal perspective.

My job is to give them the framework, to say, “Hey, this is what the law says, and this is what we need to do,” so they can make informed decisions about taking those risks. I tell them the ones they absolutely shouldn't take. It takes a different flavor: are you going to get in legal trouble, or is it going to be a problem when we try to sell this company or you try to raise financing?

Finding Good Legal Representation

It can be tricky. A lot of my work comes from referrals, and that's probably the best path. If the founder already has a network, use it to get recommendations from people with direct experience.

For instance, if a referral comes from an investor I've completed 25 financings for, and they recommend me to someone in their network, it establishes a baseline trust. It's like they're saying, "I've worked with this person, and they will be good to you."

I always advise founders to talk to a number of attorneys. I even say this in new client pitches: you should go talk to several people because you're going to spend so much time with your attorney, and it won't be a perfect fit for everyone. So, try to get a referral and then interview a couple of different ones.

When you're looking for an attorney, there are generally two types of firms to consider. There are the big, full-service firms that handle everything. Then you have boutiques run by maybe five to ten lawyers but don't offer all those services. These options also come with different price points.

Good Client, Better Service

I think the best clients are those who know how to use their service providers correctly. By that, I mean we are an amazing resource, but we also get paid by time. So it's about balancing getting the advice you need without spending eight hours a day on the call.

This means doing your own research, talking to other people, and having more targeted questions. But it also means not being afraid to call me—because sometimes the founder doesn't know what they don't know. They can get themselves in trouble by being afraid to call and spend the money on a half-hour conversation, which then ends up costing them thousands of dollars because they didn't.

So there is a balance there between needing your hand held for everything versus not calling your lawyer because you don't want to pay. Some lawyers just really struggle with providing practical guidance versus just saying, "This is the letter of the law."

Best Advice

My best advice is you need to find an attorney that can grow with you. So they can service you today when you're at the napkin idea phase, and can service you when you're selling your company for $500 million – and everywhere in between. 

There are some unique firms that are able to do that. So you find someone that's willing to invest the time and actually teach that as your lawyer – but really just a business advisor – to some extent. 

And it's not just the lawyer like you're going to need a network of different advisors and people like beta boom or other accelerator programs are super critical. It's almost like a college degree for a lot of startups, especially if they just are just getting started and and need to build a network – in terms of finding customers, investors, all sorts of things.

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