Today we’d like to introduce you to Paige Hulse

Hi Paige, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?

I was 10 when I asked my parents how to answer the question about “what they did”. As entrepreneurs, they
laughed when I asked “who gave them that job”. My dad started his company with nothing but gumption. One
investor recognized it, bet on him, and the rest is history. Gumption, and grit were my standard of normalcy.
I learned firsthand the unpredictability of entrepreneurship in my family of entrepreneurs, as I watched my
parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles (and later, my in-laws) start, build, sell, rinse and repeat.

My dad’s industry is one of the most historically litigious, but I cannot remember a single time that my parents
were worried or distracted about the legal side of business. Just as I was taught that entrepreneurship requires
faith, I watched my dad always invest in the best attorneys, so that he had advocates in his corner.

My first job as a lawyer was anything but glamorous, or comfortable. It was gritty. Think less “Suits”, and
instead, picture oil stains on the floor from our clients’ boots. They were literally the boots on the ground in
their industries.

I was in the courtroom by week 1. It was the deep end. When there is no option other than to learn how to sink
or swim, you learn to do the latter-fast. Little did I know how valuable that lesson would soon become. When I
was finally finding my stride, the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness burned my world down.

On paper, I was “on track” in this industry I had longed to be a part of for so many years. Privately, I was offered
disability, and asked how I wanted to spend my “good” days. Until that question, I couldn’t hear, much less
define that persistent voice of intuition I’d quietly pushed down. In the hospital bed, it became undeniably
loud.

It was time to turn away from the pride of “what was expected” in my industry, and chart a new course. The
fullest form of realizing my passion for advocacy for entrepreneurs was by operating as the same. So I jumped,
with no parachute.

In one of the most traditional industries in the world, it looked crazy from the outside. I was a newlywed, had a
high stack of medical bills, and had no choice but to learn how to build a “unicorn business” that could support
both. And by doing so, I discovered an even deeper calling to help my clients do the same: build a business that
opens the door to a freedom of lifestyle and charts a new course. The fullest form of realizing my passion for advocacy for entrepreneurs was by operating as the same. So I jumped, with no parachute.

In one of the most traditional industries in the world, it looked crazy from the outside. I was a newlywed, had a high stack of medical bills, and no roadmap. No backup plan. But through surviving that diagnosis, I recognized the deeper meaning behind that judge’s message: I had the power to use any challenge as a strategic advantage.
And by doing so, I discovered an even deeper calling to help my clients do the same: build a business that opens the door to a freedom of lifestyle and charts a new course.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

I’ve owned my own business since 2017. I’ve heard all of the same stats you have- the vast majority of startups survive until year 5 (appx. 80ish percent). A good number of those “year 5 survivors” fail before year 7. And then, roughly 90% of startups fail before year 15.

I honestly sailed relatively smoothly until year 5.5. I say “relatively smooth”; Believe it or not, 28% of the first 75 months of entrepreneurship have required me to steer the ship through extreme physical emergencies where I was suddenly absent. When nearly a third of your time as an entrepreneur occurs in and out of a hospital (and you weather a pandemic), it pushes “business succession”, and unique business considerations to the forefront of your mind that most don’t consider until decades later.

From the outside, however, no one knew that was happening. I was building business; it looked exciting. Behind the scenes: nearly a dozen surgeries, a relapse of the aforementioned condition, and years where every dollar I brought in was spent on prayer-filled trips to Mayo and Cleveland Clinic. That journey cultivated the peace of mind knowing that each challenge was the training ground for refinement.

Because of my private health battles, my journey as an entrepreneur has left no option other than cultivating a uniquely refined level of mental toughness.

Year 6 of entrepreneurship, however, became my “Annus Horribilis”. In a year span, I encountered novel (to me) business challenges; an overhaul of my internal team, deals gone bad, social media accounts wiped off the internet. And that was just the first quarter! It only got worse from there.

But then, But you know that second wind you get in a workout that makes no sense? That’s what I started to feel. I also learned the (much too) hands on lesson that nothing is guarantees, so there is absolutely nothing to be gained by fear, or trepidation of the “one day”. I could handle nearly any disappointment, but I couldn’t live with the ghosts of “what if”. I had, and have, bold and concrete dreams for our future, and my family. I want to live a big, bold life, and squeeze every single ounce of life that I can.

I share this because, we will all encounter hardship in phases. The key, however, is to remember they are phases, not permanent. At the same time, as leaders of our businesses, we have to be prepared for chaos- and you can think you’ve climbed the hurdle just to realize you didn’t see the mountain range.

The silver lining to a year of fire is that your risk tolerance raises significantly. You remember that discomfort and calamity are two different things, and too often, we confuse the two. So, I started pursing an idea I’d been joking about since 2021. And it was like dominos fell into place, repeatedly. The byproduct of that year of unrelenting challenge was that it cultivated the grit, and the curiosity to pursue a brand new venture- the first of its kind in the industry.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

Through my law firm, we practice intellectual property law for entrepreneurs worldwide, and as fractional general counsel for select clients.

One of my great passions regarding intellectual property law is the inherent ingrained nature of IP within every company- realizing the value of the intellectual property, and taking action to secure (and monetize) that intellectual property is one of the keys of creating companies that can create generational wealth within an organization. In the “corporate” world, a general counsel arguably provides as much business strategy as legal advocacy, and as an entrepreneur myself, this is the exact approach I bring to our clients as a an outside general counsel. By viewing entrepreneurship through the lens of “business” and “legal”, rather than one or the other, we’re able to align our actions and our advice in a truly unique way.

This is precisely what I am doing with my first entrepreneurial startup- The Creative Law Shop®. For 7 years, I’ve converted every contract I’ve written into a redacted template, so that entrepreneurs around the world had access to my own contracts, and the contracts I’ve drafted for my own clients.

However, since 2020, I knew, there was more we could be doing to help creative business owners legally protect their businesses when it came to their contracts. I could write the most ironclad template in the world, but if someone isn’t comfortable negotiating, or never mastered the language they were provided, how effective was that contract? The answer wasn’t to write yet another blog post or create another course, and tell busy people to take the time to read it and apply it correctly. They needed something that felt like sitting down with an attorney to draft their contract.

Viewing my own company as my own general counsel, I saw a gap in the market, I began examining my own intellectual property within that company more in depth, and as I began diving more into the world of AI legality for my clients, I saw the gap in the market.

This month, we launched the Creative Law Foundry™, our custom- coded contract drafting app. Behind the scenes, I stripped down every contract I’ve ever written for a creative entrepreneur, identified triggering events, cross-referenced those triggering events, and built a brand new platform operational from that knowledge, with the additional asset of a custom-coded GPT to assist with negotiations and common questions. The GPT is trained on 7 years of emails and questions, negotiations, and every contract I’ve written. The platform, however; this is something entirely new. This is the byproduct of my identification and implementation of the appx. 900+ triggering events that play into every “creative law” agreement. The contract-building side of the app will allow people access to any and all information that I could ever provide, using my own contract language. However, there is an additional AI component that will just enhance the model- all of my trainings, contracts, correspondence, etc from the last 7 years.

Literally, you could be a client and email me and tell me a client has asked to purchase your copyright rights in the work, and you can get on my calendar and then pay for those edits. Or, now, you can access my same output with the click of a button.

Gone are the days of sitting down and filling out a template alone, or listening to yet another podcast and then going back to double-check for the referenced language. Now, the user has every answer I could provide at their disposal, and I’ve simplified appx. 100 questions into 5 per section. The control is entirely in his or her hands, and they can build their own legally sound contract without the hourly rate, that now suits their exact business needs.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?

Intellectual property services, and outside general counsel services can be found at paigehulselaw.com

Contract templates, and our contract building app can be found at shopcreativelaw.com, and foundry.shopcreativelaw.com.

My own entrepreneurial journey can be found at paigehulse.com

Contact Info:

• Website: www.paigehulselaw.com, www.shopcreativelaw.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/paige.hulse.law www.instagram.com/creativelawshop.com

Image Credits

(headshots) Amanda Bringham; brand photos Christine Gosch