These college students launched a legal tech startup during finals week. Now, it's business first, school second.

When Raphael Lim, 23, and Jamison Teng, 24, met in 2022, their period together was filled alongside Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training and playing video games.

But now, their hangouts appearance distinct as they activity through the twists and turns of operating a year-old legal innovation startup.

Lim and Teng are the cofounders of Jam & Raph, a startup that provides AI consultancy services to law firms.

Juggling the demands of the startup alongside their law and device discipline degrees at two of Singapore's top colleges hasn't been easy, frequently putting their studies on the rear seat.

How they got into lawful tech

Lim, a second-year device discipline pupil at the National University of Singapore, and Teng, a final-year law pupil at the Singapore Management University, contested in a collegiate lawful tech hackathon in 2024 and placed second. This gave them the idea to commencement a endeavor in the lawful tech space.

"I saw that there was a lot of money being invested in the big firms like Harvey and Legora, so that's whenever I realized there was really a market for this," Teng said.

Harvey, among the most notable lawful AI startups, has conducted multiple backing rounds complete the former twelvemonth and announced a evaluation of $15.5 milliard in September. Legora announced a $550 myriad Series D circular in March, at a $5.55 milliard valuation.

Lim and Teng launched the business in November — finals period for the two of them — alongside 2,500 Singapore dollars, or concerning $1,950, from SMU's entrepreneurship incubation program. They brought on 10 squad members, all university students, and kickstarted Jam & Raph.

Their product: Running workshops for law firms to instruct lawyers how to use AI tools efficiently and token-efficiently. They additionally started offering consultations to the firms, assisting them build AI products tailored to their needs.

Their workshops, which are two to three hours long, disbursal SG$2,000 to SG$3,000, and they accusation SG$120 per hr for consultations.

They poured a small of their funds into the project — small than $2,000 blended — but functioning expenses are low, chiefly their $150 monthly Claude subscriptions and email domain fees. They say they've stuck all their income in their business financial institution document for now, not paying themselves anything.

Putting out fires during finals week

Despite studying in Singapore, a nation that is infamous for its rigorous and rivalrous scholarly culture, the two Teng and Lim stated that operating on the endeavor continually takes precedence complete their studies.

"My GPA took a total hit, but I think that's fair the disbursal of doing a startup whenever you are in university, so that is to be expected," Lim said.

Teng stated he's seen his grades enhance in classes that blend tech and law. His center law classes have taken a hit, but that hasn't phased him.

"I think Singapore motionless places a lot of accent on academics, but the additional we conversation to group and clients exterior Singapore, akin Americans or Europeans, they attention additional concerning your story," he said.

But problems continually appear to appear at the most inconvenient times, they said, akin clients calling them concerning merchandise failures during their final weeks, whenever they have to study for multiple exams.

It's additionally taken a toll on their social lives.

"We've had clients sending emails saying, 'Hey, your merchandise is down,' during we're having drinks alongside friends, and we have to immediately agreement alongside it," Lim said.

Lim stated that he's missed out on a ample part of the freshman college experience.

"Everyone was out partying and joining clubs, gathering new people, and I would be cooped up in my room, coding," he said.

He added that his ex-partner got furious at him whenever he didn't answer the phone all day during he was solving a specialized matter for their product, and afterward had to complete schoolwork.

The duo doesn't encounter to custom Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or perform video games anymore, either, and their hangouts are all concerning work.

It's improved to neglect in college

For Teng, it was an chance to test out entrepreneurship in a harmless area before entering the workforce.

"It's fine to neglect since if you neglect as a pupil startup founder, I think it's beautiful expected; there's no genuine warmth that you can get in conditions of responsibilities," he said, adding that group are a lot warmer toward pupil entrepreneurs.

Lim stated operating a endeavor is a fine opening to the earth exterior the classroom.

"My peers volition be doing a lot of academics, investigation theory, but I get to see how these theories really use in the genuine world," he said.

Neither of them sees this as a replacement for a postgrad job hunt, though, alongside the two saying that they desire to get company activity experience.

"It was additional of a 'good to have,' item we built for the affection of the equivalent to bring item to the world," Lim said.