We're raising £300k for TCLA

I want to do great things. What I mean by that is I want to have a lot of impact, at scale – and earn a lot of money in the process.

It’s interesting to notice that some people can state this easily. I couldn’t, until probably this year. I have that voice in my head that steps in first and is like ‘But how?’. Some of it, I think, is British modesty and an uncomfortability when talking about money. Most of it comes from a place of fear. I’ve learnt that I often still see the world as Little Jaysen, who is quite a different person: a lot more scared of the world, less willing to ask for help, and lacking the confidence that things will work out. I’m not that same person today.

What I have learnt is that you need to start with the belief. If you don’t have big goals, you won’t see opportunity, and you won’t take the risks necessary to go after those opportunities.

At TCLA, we’ve been pretty comfortable for the last couple of years. If we keep doing what we do, we’ll turn over £1m in ARR/£500k in profit in the next three years. But that’s also the problem with a bootstrapped business. The growth is incremental. That was a really useful thing when I was 23 and starting TCLA because I had a lot to learn. But I’m now at the stage when I want to go after a much more ambitious goal.

Our goal is to make TCLA the home of the world’s best legal talent, from the junior to the senior market. What we already have is a huge distribution of future lawyers that we build very close relationships with. What I want to do is reshape what training they are provided with at a junior age, so they have the tools to excel in whatever they want to do. 

I’m very bullish on this idea because I know what it did for me. In the age we live in now, there’s no reason everyone shouldn’t have access to the highest standards of training in written communication, public speaking and financial awareness.

AI has also opened my eyes this year. For me, it has given me two substantial benefits. One, I can now use AI to build most projects I want to, usually in a very short space of time. This is less about building a functional product and more about being able to see what can be built. The short feedback loop between knowing what the problem is and seeing a working model of the solution has unlocked so many opportunities for what we can do in this space.

Second, I have a co-founder, someone to bounce ideas off, with a vast amount of knowledge. The most useful aspect for me right now is using the voice recording of ChatGPT to talk through where I’m stuck. I’m now able to go after much harder problems, with someone who is always around to help. 

But what I’ve realised is I can’t run sales and marketing, coding our platforms and partnerships by myself. Trying to juggle too many projects means the quality of our output goes down. We need a permanent team of talented people.

That’s why we’re raising an angel round of £300k right now (with £60k committed so far). It’s the first time we’re taking external money at TCLA, and I’d like to be joined by people who are excited by our mission. If you know someone who is interested, please drop me an email at jaysen@thecorporatelawacademy.com. We close in August 2025.