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Posts by: Joel Lessem

About Joel Lessem

Joel Lessem

Joel joined the management team in September 2005 and became Firmex’s business architect. He is responsible for over-all business strategy and execution.

Over the last 15 years Joel has succeeded in rapidly building revenues in growth companies. Prior to being hired to build the Firmex business, Joel drove the US growth of PointForce (a 60-person software company) before the company was acquired in 2004.

Joel also co-founded Crescent Logic in 1999, a software company that designed and licensed online equity research tools for mid-size investment banks.

Joel Lessem

“Strategic Inflection Points” – PC Revolution and Cloud Computing

By Joel Lessem July 22, 2010 at 9:50 am

Strategic inflection points indicate the astonishing ways in which the economics of industry change as time progresses.


I am reading Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove, the legendary CEO of Intel.  In the book, Grove focuses on dramatic changes to the economics of an industry, which he calls “strategic inflection points.”    One “inflection point” he discusses is the disruption the PC brought to the computing industry.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Cloud Computing, Corporate & Finance, Industry Trends, Information Management, Legal
Joel Lessem

Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle: The What, The How and The Why

By Joel Lessem June 24, 2010 at 6:17 am

The “why” of a business venture, for Sinek, is not simply the act of making money; rather, it points more to a cause, vision or purpose. He says most of us in our daily lives are pre-occupied by the “what” and the “how” – but are not driven by “the why.” I think Sinek’s correct – we spend much of our time just “getting work done” and don’t remind ourselves of “why” we even care to do it.


I watched an interesting talk by Simon Sinek on what makes certain companies or people achieve greatness.  To explain his thesis, Sinek makes a very important distinction in defining what it takes to achieve entrepreneurial success: some people know “what” they do, some people know “how” they do it, but few people consider “why” they do it.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Cloud Computing, Corporate & Finance, Legal, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

Cloud Computing: More Knowledge and Greater Productivity for Less Money

By Joel Lessem June 17, 2010 at 6:02 am

There is a strong correlation between the electrification of industry, a hundred years ago and the cloud computing industry today.


In 2008 Nicolar Carr published a bestseller called “The Big Switch: from Edison to Google,” it’s central thesis being the strong correlation between the electrification of industry, a hundred years ago and the cloud computing industry today.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Cloud Computing, Corporate & Finance, Industry Trends, Information Management, Legal, SaaS
Joel Lessem

Is Firmex a Product or a Service?

By Joel Lessem June 10, 2010 at 5:08 am

What I have learned is SaaS business forces you to focus on service. If a SaaS customer is not happy with your company’s support, s/he can “unsubscribe” with far less difficulty than if s/he was dealing with a locally installed system.


When I first went to trademark Firmex virtual data rooms as a software company, the trademark attorney told me that to trademark us as a product company I had to physically be able to “ship” something.  “Send us a copy of your product on a disk with packaging.”  My reaction was “huh?” – We have the internet – we don’t “ship” software on FEDEX trucks anymore, we let the internet take care of the distribution.  According to the Trademark office, then, you’re not a software product company,  you are a service company.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Cloud Computing, SaaS, Virtual Data Room - FAQ, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

Virtual Data Rooms for Financial Audits

By Joel Lessem May 27, 2010 at 9:05 am

Firmex corporate clients are using their unlimited use virtual data room to share financial information with their auditors, setting up all their folders and documents online.


If anyone  has ever had the pleasure of conducting a financial audit he/she is all too aware that it’s a time consuming process.  The audit process has four main stages:

  1. Planning & Risk Assessment:  Are there other factors that could have a material impact on the company and are not evident in the financial reports?  What are the risks of an inaccurate audit opinion?
  2. Internal Controls Testing: Are the financial controls rigorous, consistent and accurate?
  3. Substantive Procedures: Detailed review of financial information.
  4. Finalization:   Create the audit report.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Corporate & Finance, Information Management, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

The Green Efficiency Advantage: Virtual Data Rooms and Developing Renewable Energy Infrastructure

By Joel Lessem May 20, 2010 at 4:49 am

Environmental health is a growing global issue and demand for renewable energy is accelerating. Solar energy has grown at 30% per annum over the past 15 years while wind power grew close to 32% in 2009. As Firmex, virtual data room technology, becomes more cost-effective and easy to use, the software is increasingly useful to the renewable energy industry.


Over the last year, Firmex has been signing a significant number of renewable energy developers -  in particular solar and wind energy. As the health of the environment continues to be a growing global issue, demand for renewable energy is accelerating. Solar energy has grown at 30% per annum over the past 15 years while wind power grew close to 32% in 2009.  In 2008 some $155 Billion was invested in renewable energy up fourfold from 2004.  Investment fell 40% in 2009 due to the economic crisis though experts expect that to rebound.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Corporate & Finance, Industry Trends
Joel Lessem

Life Sciences: Highly Confidential Intellectual Property and Virtual Data Rooms

By Joel Lessem May 13, 2010 at 9:20 am

The process to take a new drug through pre-clinical and clinical trials is extensive. Since the Intellectual Property is so valuable and confidential, Life Sciences firms will generally limit the distribution of documentation in a secure virtual data room – they can watermark, restrict printing and save documents as required.


Many Firmex clients are Life Sciences firms developing new therapeutic medicines.  What amazes me about this industry is the time horizon of 15+ years to take a drug from idea to market, costing millions, even billions of dollars. There are 3000-4000 early-stage research-driven firms funded by public markets or venture-capital that take on the technology risk of trying to develop new drug pipeline.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Corporate & Finance, Information Management, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

How Safe are the Documents in your Office?

By Joel Lessem April 29, 2010 at 8:50 am

Firmex is in the business of providing M&A advisors, lawyers and corporate executive staff a secure online data room for sharing critical operational, legal and financial documents with 3rd parties. Recently, a group of lawyers were convicted for trading insider information which was gleaned from picking through other lawyers’ client documents and another company was saved from losing all their documents in a fire by storing everything in their Firmex virtual deal room.


Firmex is in the business of providing M&A advisors, lawyers and corporate executive staff a secure online data room for sharing critical operational, legal and financial documents with 3rd parties.  Not surprisingly, as the company’s CEO, I run into resistance from senior partners and executives about putting critical and highly confidential company information on the Internet.   They are worried that it’s “not safe.”

Read more…


Joel Lessem 4 comments Cloud Computing, Information Management, Legal, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick…How to Handle Market Risk

By Joel Lessem April 22, 2010 at 10:13 am

According to technology guru, Steve Blank, there are two types of risk for a Research and Development based company – market risk and technology risk. For example, technology risk applies to Life Sciences firms when they are searching for a cure for a terminal illness – it may take them 10+ years to prove the drug works. If they find the cure, however, there really is not a market risk; the product will be in large demand.


Recently, I have been reading Steve Blank (founder of 8 technology companies) on how to successfully take a technology to market.   He has a tremendous blog with all his articles. Here is my summary of some of Mr. Blank’s key points.

Read more…


Joel Lessem 1 comment Corporate & Finance, SaaS
Joel Lessem

Firmex Offers to Help Arrangers of Structured Debt to Comply with SEC Rule 240 17g-5

By Joel Lessem April 21, 2010 at 11:36 am

In order to reduce the possibility of a recurring financial collapse, the SEC wants to bring greater transparency to the rating of structured debt products. The Firmex deal room offers arrangers a simple solution to comply with the SEC.


A common complaint by participants in the recent credit collapse is they did not understand what they were buying, rating or selling. Part of the reason for this lack of clarity is that the structured debt products CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligations) and related derivates products were themselves convoluted, consisting of large volumes of mortgages and other forms of debt which were aggregated and sliced into tranches with varying risk profiles.

Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Corporate & Finance, Information Management
Joel Lessem

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): What is the Impact?

By Joel Lessem April 1, 2010 at 10:44 am

I am awestruck with the economic impact SaaS has had on the software industry in the last half decade and, I suspect, it will grow to be of similar magnitude to the Internet’s effect on newspapers, music and publishing. I have no doubt that the efficiencies SaaS drives will completely disrupt the software business and here are the reasons:


I was in the client-server business from 1993-2005 and since 2005 I have been in the SaaS business.  I am awestruck with the economic impact SaaS has had on the software industry in the last half decade and, I suspect, it will grow to be of similar magnitude to the Internet’s effect on newspapers, music and publishing.  I have no doubt that the efficiencies SaaS drives will completely disrupt the software business and here are the reasons:

Read more…


Joel Lessem 4 comments Cloud Computing, Industry Trends, Product & News
Joel Lessem

Virtual Data Rooms: Unlimited-Use Closes Deals Fast

By Joel Lessem March 4, 2010 at 10:01 am

Firmex’s unlimited use virtual data rooms expand the use investment banks have for their deal rooms exponentially; hasten deals to close and help avoid unnecessary risk.


In any deal, time is risk.  The longer it takes to close a deal, the greater the potential for the transaction to get derailed.  Being prepared ahead of time is one way to avoid time delays and risk.

Read more…


Joel Lessem 1 comment Corporate & Finance, Due Diligence, Information Management, M&A Transactions, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

Why Is Unlimited Use of Virtual Data Rooms so Beneficial?

By Joel Lessem February 11, 2010 at 2:00 pm

Most virtual data room providers charge per dataroom, page, number of users. Which are the benefits of an unlimited use virtual deal room model? Why does such a model makes sense?


It has always puzzled me as to why virtual data room providers charge per data room or per page or total number of users.  How can any company running a deal know exactly how many pages of documents they will have? Or how many users are going to access the deal room?  Read more…


Joel Lessem 2 comments Corporate & Finance, Industry Trends, Virtual Data Room - FAQ, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

Understanding Virtual Data Rooms

By Joel Lessem February 4, 2010 at 12:10 pm

Are you wondering what a virtual data room is and what is it used for? This article should answer most of your questions. If you want to know more, just drop us a line and we will be happy to answer.


A virtual data room (“deal room” or “data room”) is a secure web-based document repository generally used for buyers or investors to perform their due diligence on M&A transactions or investment. It is however an increasing trend in top legal firms to use virtual document rooms to support business and commercial litigation processes for external collaboration and file sharing. Read more…


Joel Lessem 12 comments Cloud Computing, Virtual Data Room - FAQ, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

The New Firmex Blog is Live!

By Joel Lessem January 28, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Welcome to the new and improved Firmex Blog. These are the goals for this online space. Thanks for dropping by!


Welcome to the new and improved Firmex Blog, an online space to discuss about secure document exchange and collaboration, virtual data room technology and its applications, M&A trends and news, secure extranets, and many other related topics. Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Product & News
Joel Lessem

News: Virtual Data Room Enhancements for Large Projects

By Joel Lessem January 21, 2010 at 10:34 am

Firmex, the leader in branded virtual data room infrastructure, today announced significant enhancements to its technology platform to support large projects.


At Firmex we are proud to announce significant enhancements on our virtual data room technology platform. The following is an extract of the press release made public today:

Firmex has released a new architecture that exponentially increases the speed in which users can review large volumes of documents.  

“Since we do not charge for data or documents stored, our clients have increasingly been using Firmex for very large transactions. These transactions can run 10,000 to 100,000 document folders, each containing sets of documents”. Read more…


Joel Lessem 1 comment Cloud Computing, Product & News, SaaS
Joel Lessem

Legal and Financial Advisor are Raising the Bar: Online Documents = Better Client Service

By Joel Lessem June 29, 2009 at 2:23 pm

Legal and Financial Advisor are Raising the Bar: Online Documents = Better Client Service


Being organized ultimately means less mistakes, getting the work done faster and providing superior service.  Whether it is completing a transaction,  structuring a businesses or managing a clinical trial are volumes of documents.   Having documents highly organized, accessible and online access reduces the voicemails, “lost” e-mail attachments and miscommunication that frustrates any collaborative process.  As one attorney commented Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Legal, Uncategorized
Joel Lessem

The Power of Control

By Joel Lessem August 17, 2006 at 4:17 pm

Firmex’s Deal Room™ is my company’s “private-label” virtual data room technology being used by transactional lawyers to conduct commercial transactions or “deals”. Deals are corporate divestments, acquisitions, equity and debt issues, restructurings and bankruptcy filings, joint ventures and so on.
Many of these deals involve thousands of diligence documents containing hundreds of thousands of pages of [...]


Firmex’s Deal Room™ is my company’s “private-label” virtual data room technology being used by transactional lawyers to conduct commercial transactions or “deals”. Deals are corporate divestments, acquisitions, equity and debt issues, restructurings and bankruptcy filings, joint ventures and so on.

Many of these deals involve thousands of diligence documents containing hundreds of thousands of pages of information to be reviewed. This is followed by hundreds of “agreement” documents or transactional drafts that go through numerous iterations. It is not uncommon to have anywhere from thirty to three hundred people in a “working group” represented all parties.

All this information is communicated in a fairly distributed and ad-hoc manner. The labor to communicate deal information via email, fax, courier and in many cases physical travel in onerous. The shear number of communication “transactions”, number of emails, number of faxes, couriers and phone calls, number in the thousands. Of course each communication is liable to go “missing” or most certainly “untracked”. Was it received by the right person? was the information relayed correctly? or did the receiving party call for more time because they claim they did not get the information in the first place? Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Uncategorized
Joel Lessem

The “Long-Tail” of the Online Software Industry – XCEVZP5HEJPE

By Joel Lessem June 28, 2006 at 4:17 pm

The long-tail concept of the long-tail was first coined by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired magazine. In 2004 Anderson said:“The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand [...]


The long-tail concept of the long-tail was first coined by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired magazine. In 2004 Anderson said:“The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers”.

Like other digital products, software is increasingly being delivered over the web. Until recently business software developers either distributed their product through a network of VARs (value-added resellers) or sold it directly, which required flying “implementation” consultants to client locations for installation and on-site training. Direct Sales were very costly due to staffing, travel and splitting revenues with VARs. When it came to doing business with resellers (who often only covered a small territory), only the “best sellers” which appealed to the widest possible set of customers, could be supported. This explains why customers have been getting “one size fits all” software that is then “configured” to their specific requirements.Historically software implementation could often be characterized as “putting square pegs in round holes”. There are thousands of cases of failed implementations and numerous law suits against software companies for not delivering as promised. A veteran enterprise software rep once described getting a new name account like “handing them a grenade and walking away with the pin”. It was just a matter of time until the whole thing blew up.Delivering software online, it provides a greater opportunity for niche applications to be developed and sold. The costs of distribution are much lower as software developers can sell and support their software directly with little time and cost lost to travel. Further as an online service customers always have the latest version of software which means the developer does not have patch and support past versions of software. Cost of ownership is also reduced for customers who do not have buy applications servers and software, and hire additional technical resources maintain them. Read more…


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Cloud Computing, SaaS
Joel Lessem

Who’s Deal Room is it? Firm or Client?

By Joel Lessem June 19, 2006 at 4:17 pm

There has been much talk about the “boom and bust” of client extranets and deal rooms. In the late 1990s leading firms such as Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance invested millions building their own deal rooms. Neil Cameron, legal consultant, quoted in LegalIT article : Five Year Review Back To the Future (October 2005) [...]


There has been much talk about the “boom and bust” of client extranets and deal rooms. In the late 1990s leading firms such as Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance invested millions building their own deal rooms. Neil Cameron, legal consultant, quoted in LegalIT article : Five Year Review Back To the Future (October 2005) , says that clients are not interested in using their law firm deal rooms. That in the future law firms will use their clients deal rooms.

On this note I spoke to Gillian Stacey at Davies Ward who have been running numerous deals on “their” deal room for clients. I asked her if clients have been giving any push back on using the Davies deal room? The answer was an emphatic “no”! She says that clients are not in the business of running deals. Many simply do not have the deal frequency or inclination to invest in the technology.


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Cloud Computing, Product & News, Virtual Data Room - FAQ, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

Online Deal Rooms Trends

By Joel Lessem June 14, 2006 at 4:17 pm

The emergence of online due diligence deal rooms is growing. From a few hundred deals in 2002 to an estimated 6000 in 2006. The two leaders (Intralinks, Datasite) are now being beset with smaller, cheaper alternatives as the market matures. These smaller virtual data rooms are sold through financial printers, who can digitize hard copy [...]


The emergence of online due diligence deal rooms is growing. From a few hundred deals in 2002 to an estimated 6000 in 2006. The two leaders (Intralinks, Datasite) are now being beset with smaller, cheaper alternatives as the market matures. These smaller virtual data rooms are sold through financial printers, who can digitize hard copy diligence documentation and post it online for accountants, lawyers and relevant parties to review.

On the other side of the spectrum are the legal software companies companies (Hummingbird, Interwoven) that have launched “enterprise collaboration tools” that handle due diligence and the actual collaboration over drafting closing documents. Downside is these enterprise tools tend to be generic for many different legal matters and they are not super intuitive for managing transactions specifically. They also require an investment in implementation and IT resources.

All the law firms I have spoken to recently about online transaction management have some sort of legal extranet. But it appears that when it comes to managing transactions online the software is not being used. Either its too complicated for attorneys to use, or simply its not a great fit.

With over 3000 transactions being managed online in 2005 (from 450 in 2002), its just a matter of time until law firms take control of running these deals and implementing online transaction management software.


Joel Lessem Leave a comment Industry Trends, Virtual Data Room - FAQ, virtual data room
Joel Lessem

Changes in Managing Complex Transactions

By Joel Lessem May 5, 2006 at 4:17 pm

The Evolution of Transaction Document Management


This diagram illustrates the current ways of executing a deal.


Joel Lessem Leave a comment M&A Transactions, Product & News