DigitalTown

JustLegal, an Austin legal technology startup, had an MVP and founders Frank had been advising. He helped raise the round and joined as chief technology officer when the funding arrived in early 2017.

• A scalable architecture on AWS, designed and implemented.
• An engineering team of 12, hired and run.
• The commercial platform, delivered from the MVP.
• LawPay integration, so payments respected trust accounting rules.

He then led the sale of the technology to DigitalTown, Inc. (OTC: DGTW) in an all-stock asset purchase. The initial purchase was in October 2017 and it closed in December 2017. Frank and his core development team joined DigitalTown.

DigitalTown was a smart-cities fintech company, headquartered in Seattle, launching in Central Texas.

Frank joined in September 2017 as President of the Service Provider Business Division and VP of Global Operations. He was President of Got.Law when it launched on 7 December 2017, and went on to serve as chief operating officer through 2018.

That sequence is rare. The same person built the product, carried it through the acquisition, and then ran it inside the acquirer. Nothing was lost in a handover because there was no handover.

• The Central Texas launch. He formed and led the teams and ran the ground operations.
• Back office on AWS. The company's back-office infrastructure ran on AWS under him.
• Automated KPI reporting, so the executive team read the same numbers each period without anyone compiling them.
• A focused product. He planned it, hired the product manager, and the product was delivered on schedule.
• Subsidiaries. Managed as part of the operating role.

Launched 7 December 2017 with Frank as President. City-branded attorney directories, among them Austin.law and Denver.law, with secure video consultations and automated scheduling.

The model was simple for both sides. Free for people looking for a lawyer. Attorneys paid only for bookings they accepted.

A fintech company cannot move money on good intentions. Frank established the banking relationships and the FinCEN administration, and started the money transmitter agent license process, beginning with Texas.

CityShares, a hyperlocal digital currency for Austin businesses, was part of the same program.

Frank came to city technology with a view already on record. In October 2016 he had published a paper warning of large-scale vulnerabilities in United States municipal IT infrastructure.

In July 2018 the City of Austin ran a blockchain challenge. DigitalTown placed second, with the only working solution.

The city built on that work. Its MyPass digital identity effort for people experiencing homelessness, and its entry in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge, were both built on it. A working system is what a city can take forward, and this one did.

• SXSW 2018: A World of Blockchain Powered Communities.
• Texas Bitcoin Conference 2018.
• Austin Blockchain Collective town hall, the South Austin Business Association and Cyber Talk Radio.

• AWS
• LawPay
• Secure video
• Automated scheduling
• Automated KPIs
• FinCEN
• Money transmitter licensing
• Digital currency
• Digital identity