Treat Law Firms As Allies
Tim Flannery, co-founder of Passthrough, on building TurboTax for private fund investing
The strategic lesson is that workflow software in regulated markets wins faster when it turns service providers into allies instead of threatening their economics. Passthrough is automating the repetitive work around subscription documents, signatures, status tracking, and data extraction, but it leaves legal judgment and fund admin oversight in place. That makes law firms and administrators more likely to recommend the product, because it removes their least valuable work without trying to replace their role in the transaction.
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Carta built an explicit law firm motion around this idea. Its law firm product is framed as reducing data entry and errors so lawyers can focus on clients, and its partner resources train firms to onboard companies into Carta. That shows the go to market advantage of selling time savings to lawyers instead of selling against them.
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In private funds, the pain is even more operational. Passthrough describes 100 to 200 question subscription packets, multiple revision loops, lost emails, and days or weeks of delay. Anduin and Juniper Square market similar onboarding software to LPs, GPs, fund admins, and law firms, which shows the category has converged on helping all parties work inside the workflow, not cutting one of them out.
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This matters for distribution as much as product design. Passthrough says 80% of its business came through network effects, and it treats fund administrators like customers even when they are not the paying account. In practice, the admin or lawyer who has a smooth close becomes the repeat referrer across many future funds.
The next phase is deeper software that absorbs more compliance and onboarding work while staying partner friendly. As private market distribution broadens and rules add more checks, the winning platforms will be the ones that become the shared operating layer for GPs, LPs, admins, and counsel. That position is much more durable than a narrow pitch about replacing billable hours.