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YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT YOUR IDEAS. SO ARE WE
CROWLEYLAWLLC.COM
SEPTEMBER 2025
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Startup Survival Secrets
Lessons From a Legal Insider
I’ve been fortunate to enjoy an eclectic and fulfilling career, but one of my proudest moments came when I finally put “author” on my CV. As mentioned in recent editions of this newsletter, I published my first book, “AVOID STARTUP FAILURE!: Learn The Top Ten Causes Of Failure For Technology Startups And How To Turn Them To Your Advantage,” A special supplementary workbook to help readers of “AVOID STARTUP FAILURE!: Learn The Top Ten Causes Of Failure For Technology Startups And How To Turn Them To Your Advantage” apply the book’s lessons to their own companies is currently in the works. Stay tuned for more information in future editions of this newsletter.
earlier this year. I was recently interviewed about my reasons for writing the book, its primary focus and what I hope readers will take away from it. Here are a few highlights from that conversation. You’ve been in this field for quite a long time and have accumulated a substantial knowledge base. Why was 2025
That said, I wanted to provide innovators with a checklist of a manageable number of problem areas that would alert them to the need for help and the need to pay attention to how to deal with those issues in a way that protects their economic interests and their interest in controlling the trajectory of their ideas’ development. Ultimately, I want to help them better control their ability to profit from all the hard work that goes into creating new knowledge and bringing it to the marketplace.
the right time to put your expertise into book form?
Well, I wanted to have an opportunity to reach a broader audience — not just limited to my direct clients, but to people who needed to know these facts so they could identify when they need help to protect themselves. The greatest danger for innovators is not getting the legal help they need soon enough. Sometimes, they make decisions that they don’t realize have legal implications and these legal implications manifest themselves only later, when it’s too late to do anything about them.
There’s a world of resources for innovators who want to develop and market a product. How does your book differ from some of the more traditional ones available? Instead of covering the entire waterfront of issues in textbook style, I incorporated a story about a fictional innovator, “Sam Champion,” into the text to help people understand what could happen and how these issues manifest themselves realistically. Continued on Page 3 ...
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Inside the I-Corps Initiative Innovation Ignited
starting their company. Upon completion of the program, they’re expected to deliver a final presentation on their startup ideas and products for the rest of the class. “Once you graduate, you’re ready to present to a venture capitalist or a bigger company,” Smeraglia says. To help encourage a smooth transition, Smeraglia regularly welcomes representatives from law firms — including Crowley Law LLC — to visit the Cohort sessions and provide expert insights. “To make those companies successful, we also had to create a network of experts that could help. So, we work with lawyers like Phil Crowley to advise these small companies. Phil attended one of our recent I-Corps events and gave some free advice.”
Having an innovative idea for a startup company is only half the battle; you also need a firm grasp of strategic planning and networking to elevate your concept to the marketplace. Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation (“NSF”), Rutgers University is leading the charge in bridging the gap between startup concept and market rollout. As a partner institution with NSF’s Innovation Corps program (“I-Corps”), the university has hosted free, multiweek Cohort training programs for new entrepreneurs throughout the state for the past seven years. I-Corps Cohort sessions — held 3–4 times annually at Rutgers’s Newark, New Brunswick, and Camden campuses — apply the Steve Blank Lean Startup philosophy to creating a new company with limited staff and resources. Vince Smeraglia, executive director of new ventures in the Office for Research at Rutgers, works with RU colleagues to oversee the I-Corps initiative and works to provide attendees with an essential overview of the steps necessary to succeed in the increasingly competitive startup space. “I-Corps is essentially an NSF entrepreneurship boot camp,” he explains. “It’s designed
to teach scientists how to become entrepreneurs through an extensive didactic training and some hands-on experience.” I-Corps Cohort sessions explore the basics of intellectual property law, contracts, business planning and company formation (e.g., creating a C corporation or an LLC). Most importantly, participants are encouraged to network with the entire ecosystem involved with their product’s evolution and ultimate success. “The heart of the program is a requirement in the boot camp to essentially cold call 25 potential customers or at least folks in the distribution network or somehow connected to the commercialization of your product,” Smeraglia observes. “For example, suppose you’re working with a student or a professor who has a new idea for a medicine for diabetes or weight loss. In that case, you’ll want to contact physicians who deal with diabetic patients, but you’ll also want to contact companies working on diabetes. Then, you might want to contact insurance companies to see if they would be willing to pay for the cost of the drug you’re developing.” Following these interactions, participants can adjust or update their business plans accordingly, leading to the next step of
I-Corps training is available to all entrepreneurs across New Jersey,
regardless of their affiliation with Rutgers. Smeraglia advises new attendees to read up on the Steve Blank Lean Startup approach before attending their first I-Corps Cohort session. Additionally, he recommends that prospective attendees use Google and generative AI to research their specific technology area to gain greater knowledge of similar products and services already available and better determine how theirs would differ. For more information on I-Corps training and to register for upcoming events, please visit EcoDevelopment.Rutgers.edu/ strategic-programs/i-corps.
“The New Jersey Innovation Institute (“NJII”) is an independent nonprofit corporation that operates as a think tank and research institute to foster innovation and economic development in New Jersey. Unlike other think tanks that focus on policy, our mandate is to leverage the resources of the New Jersey Institute of Technology and serve as a conduit between them and the outside world. We work with corporations, other higher education institutions and governmental organizations to accelerate innovation, foster translational research and upskill workers in NJ and beyond. NJII’s Venture Studio program encompasses four business divisions: defense, entrepreneurship, health care and artificial intelligence. “At NJII, we’ve seen many startup companies struggle and make irreversible mistakes when attempting to raise their first funding. These businesses need access to a nimble, experienced law firm that can help them avoid common pitfalls and that’s why we work with law firms in New Jersey like Crowley Law LLC. I’ve known Phil for over a decade — back when we both worked at Johnson & Johnson — and his services proved invaluable to me as a client when I launched my startup company before my role at NJII. Additionally, he’s been an essential asset to our Venture Studio program and related efforts to accelerate business growth and innovations.” New Jersey Innovation Institute Ventures, Vision, and Value –Michael Johnson, Ph.D.
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In the nefarious world of online crime, nothing is sacred. There was a time when a compromised email system was the most significant cybersecurity threat facing a business, but we’ve entered an era in which hacking can adversely affect human health. Imagine an outside party inserting false information into a CT scan and refusing to reverse the changes until the health care provider pays a ransom. This nightmarish scenario is one of many that Lou Steinberg, founder and managing partner of CTM Insights, is working hard to prevent. In Episode 22 of Philip Crowley’s “From Lab to Patient, Garage to Market” podcast, Steinberg discusses his efforts to improve cybersecurity in the life sciences and technology spaces (including evolutions in deepfake detection), provides stunning examples of current hacking techniques and offers cybersecurity tips for small businesses. In one of the discussion’s most surprising moments, Steinberg details how cyber criminals use artificial intelligence (“AI”) to threaten medical providers like never before. “One of the first projects we worked on at CTM was related to AI. I read an article about some security researchers in Israel who hacked a CT scanner. They were able to use AI to insert or hide fake cancer. A radiologist could read a scan and think you had cancer you didn’t actually have — or not see cancer you did have.” Steinberg observes that this level of high-tech tampering could lead to a new breed of ransomware in which cyber attackers demand payment to reverse their revisions to the hacked scan. Additionally, he relays a story about a case in Hong Kong where an employee coordinated a wire transfer during a Zoom call with “executives” from his company. Unfortunately, the employee was the only human on the call. Crowley Law LLC strongly urges our readers and clients to listen to this critical podcast for insights into how to better protect themselves against these and other cybersecurity threats. Hosted by Crowley Law LLC Founder and Managing Partner Philip Crowley, the “From Lab to Patient, Garage to Market” podcast explores the critical issues and concerns impacting the biotech, life sciences and startup markets by offering fresh perspectives from industry leaders and experts. It is available on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all major podcast channels and at CrowleyLawLLC.com . From Lab to Patient, Garage to Market Deepfake Dilemmas and Cybersecurity Insights
As we’ve known for thousands of years, people are programmed to learn from stories. I used that methodology to help readers understand the implications of their decisions. The book identifies 10 primary issues or failures that you’ve seen startups experience, but what is the ultimate problem area that’s most often overlooked? I don’t want to give away the store and give you what I have found to be the top reason for the failure of technology startups. Still, I’ll provide you with number two — the failure to involve a trusted, experienced legal advisor early enough in the process, because some may fear overwhelming costs. Getting an experienced business lawyer involved in discussions early doesn’t have to cost a lot and it helps innovators identify when they need legal help and what mistakes to avoid. One critical point you make in the book is that a patent isn’t an all-access pass to do whatever you want with whatever innovation has received that patent. What are some gray areas concerning patents that clients struggle with? People assume that when they have a patent, it’s a get-out-of- jail-free card and that they’re free to commercialize what they’ve developed without regard to what may be some controlling technologies that underlie the particular patented innovation. In the book, I give an example of a person with a patent on a bicycle wheel and a person with a patent on improved bicycle spokes. In that analogy, the holder of the patent on the bicycle wheel has the basic patent — the controlling patent on bicycle wheels. The person with the improved bicycle spokes patent has an improvement patent , but they can’t sell, market or manufacture bicycle wheels with those spokes without getting a patent license from the holder of the basic controlling patent. ... continued from Cover
What can your target readership do before reading the book to help ensure they utilize its advice and perspectives?
They should consider the trajectory they envision for developing their invention, business, and technology. Where do they want to take it? What do they see as their success? If they had a magic wand to control the situation and everything worked out the way they hoped, what would this business look like in three or five years? What are their hopes, desires and goals? All these things should be thought about critically before reading the book.
Note: The foregoing may constitute attorney advertising under applicable bar rules.
–Philip Crowley
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In This Issue
1. Purpose, Protection and Profit
2. Rutgers’s Startup Spark
Client Testimonial
3. Podcast Preview
4. Sell Better to Your Sector
The Community Connection Tips for Capturing Local Customers
standing and demand for your business are critical to consider before establishing your business locally. If, for example, you intend to offer a product or service that the locals generally have previously had to travel out of the area to purchase, you can beat the faraway competition by offering discounts based on a customer’s zip code. This promotional tactic attracts local customers while nurturing community connections. CARE ABOUT THE SAME THINGS YOUR LOCAL CUSTOMERS DO. As you establish your local footing, focus on things that bring your community members together. If local high school sports events are popular pastimes for your potential customers, consider sponsoring a team or donating to school fundraisers. Showing your commitment to supporting things your target local demographic values — and the
visibility from engaging in such activities — will go a long way in helping you build a reputation as the go-to source for your neighborhood’s needs. CATCH CONSUMERS IN THE ‘NET.’ While you can still achieve some of the best local marketing the old-fashioned way (by hitting the streets), you can also find invaluable information while surfing the web at home. You can expand your online presence by identifying and listing specific keywords to attract local views. For example, if you want to drive sales of pizza at your casual dining establishment, using keywords like “best pizza in [town/city]” or “pizza delivery in [town]” can be advantageous. By starting small and thinking locally, you can plant the seeds for growth in your community, leading to greater financial rewards than you ever imagined.
Whether you’ve just launched an eatery in your area, want to turn the locals on to your homemade trinkets or have aspirations to dominate the global market for your products or services, focusing on navigating the marketing maze close to home first is often the wisest way to build a solid foundation for future growth. Here are three tips for building a presence in your backyard. IF YOU KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS WELL, YOU CAN SELL TO THEM. It’s reasonable to assume you know a few things about the place where you live. Your community’s culture, key industries, economic
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