Category Visionaries How Callidus scaled Google ads from 3 to 40 leads per day | Justin McCallon
Callidus Legal AI is transforming litigation practice by building comprehensive AI-powered workflows for legal professionals. With 1,200 customers and 100% quarter-over-quarter growth, the company has developed a product-led growth strategy that combines domain-specific AI tools with visual multi-step workflows. In this episode, Justin McCallon shares how Callidus has achieved rapid growth through a zero-friction PLG approach while building trust in a traditionally conservative industry.
Topics Discussed:
- The current state and future potential of AI in legal practice
- Callidus's approach to building domain-specific legal AI tools with visual workflows
- The company's comprehensive case database containing 11 million U.S. cases
- Product-led growth strategies that drove 100% quarterly growth and 1,200 customers
- Performance marketing optimization for legal AI tools
- Building trust and eliminating hallucination risks in AI-powered legal research
- The evolution from chatbot-based tools to sophisticated visual workflows
- Organic growth strategies including making case databases freely accessible on the web
GTM Lessons For B2B Founders:
- Master zero-friction PLG for professional services: Callidus achieved 1,200 customers and 100% quarterly growth by eliminating traditional B2B sales friction. Justin explained their approach: "Initially we did this with zero touch points, zero friction. You don't need to talk to anybody. It's basically just you come to our website, you sign up for a trial, you start using the app." This model works particularly well for professional services where individual practitioners can make purchasing decisions independently.
- Focus on high buyer-intent keywords for performance marketing success: Rather than casting a wide net, Callidus targeted specific, high-intent search terms. Justin emphasized: "A lot of people focus on words that maybe are too informational with lower buy intent." They focused on keywords like "legal AI assistant" and "legal AI research" that indicated immediate need rather than general curiosity. Founders should prioritize keywords that align with their ICP and indicate purchase readiness.
- Create organic acquisition through valuable free resources: Callidus moved their entire 11 million case database to the web for free access, creating a powerful organic acquisition engine. Justin described the strategy: "People have free access to every case that we have. And they can search, say Brown versus Board of Education. And we'll be one of the groups that has a page dedicated to that." This approach generates organic traffic while demonstrating product value, creating a natural conversion funnel from free users to paid customers.
- Optimize every funnel step with ruthless precision: Callidus's performance marketing success came from methodical funnel optimization. Justin broke down their approach: "Every step of the funnel. Break it down. What conversion rate are we seeing on this step of the funnel? What's benchmark? And then for the areas that are below benchmark, why are we not doing well?" Founders should treat each funnel step as a conversion problem to solve, using data to identify bottlenecks and creative solutions to address them.
- Build trust through domain expertise, not just technology: In conservative industries like law, trust is built through demonstrating deep domain knowledge. Callidus differentiates itself by combining legal expertise with engineering: "We have really visual multi step workflows, we have really deep engineering, we've tied both the legal knowledge and the engineering expertise." Founders entering regulated or conservative industries should emphasize domain credibility alongside technical capabilities.
- Use evaluation systems to optimize AI model performance: Rather than fine-tuning models, Callidus built comprehensive evaluation systems to optimize performance across different foundation models. Justin explained: "We've gone through and had lawyers say, hey, here's my case I've worked on in the past. Here are all of the cases I would reference here... Then we can say, okay, it looks like for this API call, GPT-4 is the best, and this one's Claude." This approach allows for dynamic optimization without the overhead of model training.
//
Sponsors:
Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership.
The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.
//
Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire
Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.
Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM