Should Rocket Lawyer prioritize expanding its library of customizable legal documents or focus on improving its attorney consultation services?

Introduction

The trade-off question at hand is whether Rocket Lawyer should prioritize expanding its library of customizable legal documents or focus on improving its attorney consultation services. This scenario involves balancing two core offerings of a legal tech platform, each with potential impacts on user experience, revenue, and market positioning. I'll analyze this trade-off by examining the product context, identifying key metrics, designing experiments, and providing a data-driven recommendation.

Step 1

Clarifying Questions (3 minutes)

• Context: I'm thinking about Rocket Lawyer's current market position. Could you share how we're performing against competitors like LegalZoom in terms of market share and user growth?

Why it matters: Helps understand competitive pressures and growth opportunities Expected answer: We're second in market share, with steady but slower growth than the market leader Impact on approach: Would influence whether to focus on differentiation or market expansion

• Business Context: Based on our revenue model, I assume both document creation and attorney consultations contribute significantly. What's the current revenue split between these two services?

Why it matters: Identifies which service is currently driving more value Expected answer: 60% from documents, 40% from consultations Impact on approach: Would help prioritize resources based on revenue potential

• User Impact: Considering our user segments, I'm curious about the overlap between document users and consultation users. What percentage of our users utilize both services?

Why it matters: Reveals potential for cross-selling and user journey optimization Expected answer: 30% of users use both services Impact on approach: Low overlap might suggest focusing on improving one service to drive adoption of the other

• Technical: Regarding our platform's scalability, how much additional load can our current infrastructure handle for document customization vs. attorney matching?

Why it matters: Determines technical feasibility and potential bottlenecks Expected answer: Document system can handle 3x current load, consultation system only 1.5x Impact on approach: Might favor document expansion if consultation system requires significant upgrades

• Resource: Thinking about our team structure, how are our product and engineering resources currently allocated between document services and consultation services?

Why it matters: Assesses our ability to execute on either option Expected answer: 70% on documents, 30% on consultations Impact on approach: Might influence decision based on where we have more expertise and capacity