Left to right: Bill Mayer, MJ Cartwright, Mark Lee
Listen to the full interview here.
Transcript:
Mark Lee: This last segment is called success stories and brought to us by Ann Arbor Spark out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. We appreciate their support in stepping up and working with Small Talk and we try to feature things that they’re doing and identify clients that they work with and share their story with us. So Ann Arbor Spark, we thank you. With that said, we have 2 guests in the studio. Bill Mayer, he’s the VP of Entrepreneurial Services. He has founded and exited multiple startups in technology and finance sectors. His areas of expertise with Ann Arbor Spark are in finance, securities, and quantitative analysis. Now he has worked with several businesses covering a broad range of industries. We also have MJ Cartwright and she is the CEO of Court Innovations. She’s a hands-on executive who has worked in many industries leading startup initiatives including manufacturing, education, training, and healthcare medical devices. Bill, MJ, good morning. Thanks for joining us.
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Mark: MJ, I know that you have a company called Court Innovations. Please give us some background information on your business.
MJ: Absolutely. We’re the first spin-off out of University of Michigan Law School and we are really focused on increasing access to justice. It’s very exciting to be able to be a part of this movement. We’re working with courts around the state of Michigan and we’re working them to extend their court online so that they can reach the citizens and their communities without having people to go to court. Going to court without “going to court,” essentially. And that is to resolve a lot of minor offenses, so if you think in terms of outstanding warrants that can be resolved without having to go to court without having to worry about being arrested. And traffic ticket violations. If you get a traffic ticket this weekend, you know, Monday, you go in and you have to wait to do it. Why not just go online and see if you can resolve your ticket. Other areas that we are working on are around warrants, how can you actually help people before a warrant is issued. We’re workign with courts that are going to be coming out soon with resolving parking violations as well as resolving some of the driving with license suspended misdemeanors. So we’re really working with a lot of different cases with the courts, unclogging the backlog of court cases, and at the same time for the citizen you get your court issue resolved without packing on more and more fees, knowing that your case is handled, and you don’t have this hanging over your head.
Mark: That’s interesting. So people ask me all the time “How do you come up with new ideas, new business ideas?” I have to ask you, how did you come up with that business concept called Court Innovations. How did you come up with the idea?
Mark: Coming out of the University of Michigan Law School, our two founders, one is a law professor, JJ Prescott, at the U, and one of his former students. They got together and really were looking at “how do you unclog these high volume court cases?” And then we started working with the courts, they brought me in, and let’s move this from something theoretical into something practical and how do we make this work? And by working with courts, we started with Washtenaw County and Bay County, and got some pilots going to see how we could really help the courts. I did generation from an academic standpoint and a practical sense of getting into the courts and finding out what would work with them.
Mark: Interesting concept. As you know, this show is focused on entrepreneurship and small business development. MJ just gave you her perspective on how she started her business, she connected with people from the University of Michigan, and one thing lead to another. Now they’ve got this concept called Court Innovations. How long have you been in business?
MJ: Since the beginning of last year.
Mark: So you’re relatively new.
MJ: Very new.
Mark: So let me ask you, what challenges did you have to overcome when you started your business a year and a half ago?
MJ: I’d put them in two main categories. One is finding and building the right team of people and the second is actually getting that exposure and marketing and opening the door of those first courts we need to get into to really prove we have something that works for them and for them to get excited about what we have to offer them.
Mark: And you’re headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan?
MJ: Yes we are, right downtown.
Mark: And why Ann Arbor?
MJ: Well, Ann Arbor was able to help us on both of those barriers. There’s a lot of really smart businesses down there, really successful ones, and even ones that aren’t successful. When you have the talent that you can bring from people dealing with mergers and exits and you can pull them into your company as their next move, pull them into a good experience. We had that with our product director, Tracy, someone I worked with before and she’s worked with other startups. Incredibly talented in what we need done. Our Chief Technology Officer, Saeed, was in the Silicon Valley and wanted to work back in Ann Arbor. And we worked together, I hate to say decades ago, and it was a great to actually get his talent and bring him into Ann Arbor in addition to using Ann Arbor talent.
Mark: You know, the thing I like about this conversation, we’re going to bring Bill in in a moment. But I like that you’re tapping into the University system. And last week we spent some time talking down at Goldman, Bud, and Bob Schudd. And they talked about what they’re doing as it relates to Eastern Michigan University. So you have two wonderful institutions in Washtenaw County and you’ve got quite a few more, I don’t want to offend anyone. But to see that Ann Arbor Spark is working with EMU and U of M is really a huge plus for the organization and for you as well.
MJ: Yes absolutely.
Mark: So the last piece before I segue to Bill will be the talent component. We all want to have good talent. Why is that so important?
MJ: Well, you’re moving fast. You’re moving lean. And time to market is very critical. So yeah, you can bring in some junior people, but your core team has got to be solid and they have to know how to do this. It’s a team business. Your passion has got to be there right from the start or quite frankly, it’s not going to work.
Mark: I love the concept. It’s so cool. So you can actually avoid going into the courts. You can do all of this online.
MJ: Absolutely. And you’re still interfacing with the courts.
Mark: Not that I’ve ever experienced that, by the way! Ha ha.
MJ: The whole idea is interfacing with the court, knowing the court is hearing your voice, even though it’s online and not in person.
Mark: I gotta ask, is this the only concept out there like this? I’ve never heard of this before. Does anyone in the Detroit area or Southeast Michigan have this type of concept?
MJ: The only ones who do have our system. And we’re getting more and more courts involved.
Mark: That’s outstanding. Bill Mayer, from Ann Arbor Spark is here in the studio this morning. Can I get your perspective on MJ and working with her as well. You’ve worked with a lot of entrepreneurs and startup businesses. How common is MJ’s story?
Bill: Well, MJ’s story is a common one. But Court Innovations is a good case study for what it’s like trying to assist early stage technology companies. Back before Court Innovations had MJ at the helm, it was effectively in faculty at U of M’s law school. And an attorney that was very well intended, very motivated, but the team had never actually built a company together. So it’s this kernel of a good idea and from my perspective, I saw a lot of difficult, scary, sort of necessary steps that needed to happen in order to turn a good idea into a viable, growing business. I’ve known MJ, I don’t know how many years, but one of the things that we try and foster at SPARK is a very good connected community. We refer to it as our ecosystem in Ann Arbor. So MJ had been working with a couple companies since leading HealthMedia after it was bought by Johnson and Johnson. And so, I actually asked her a couple favors, do a couple projects, help out with some entrepreneurs that I knew could benefit form having some senior skilled input with what they were doing. When MJ made the decision to join Court Innovations in the CEO role, that flippd a switch from my perspective. It took skilled, senior experienced talent and put it on top fo a really good idea backed by the University of Michigan. That’s when I knew the gas pedal was being pressed. I mean MJ, you knew what needed to be done. You know there are no shortcuts. You have to go talk to courts. You have to show the light to magistrates who have been doing this for many many decades and know what they’re doing and are well-respected. But you’re looking to disrupt an industry that is fairly well-established. I remember in the early days talking about what that could do to cash flow if you could bring in all the warrants and these things. But as you got into the courts and started talking to them, I don’t know, is cash flow something that fleshed out? Or what really turns on the light bulb for the magistrates?
MJ: For anyone in the courts, and even the law enforcement, prosecutors that work with the courts, the biggest thing is that they are able to do what they went into the courts to do, went into law enforcement to do. And not worry about these high volume cases that clog the courts and don’t bring in the money. So you focus them on what it is they went in there to do in the first place. Secondly on the cost reductions that can occur by unclogging the court and bringing in the dollars for their outstanding cases faster. Those three things.
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