Philip Akalp: Lawyer Turned Online Incorporator

With the Internet craze beginning to take hold, Philip Akalp's law professor predicted that helping businesses incorporate online would become a big business. Intrigued, Akalp borrowed $100 from his wife, and launched a site about incorporation - http://www.mycorporation.com.

Sales trickled in slowly; corporate forms and documents littered the couple's house. Meanwhile, Akalp graduated law school and passed the bar.

By 1999, the business was self-supporting, and Akalp and his wife had enough money to buy a house and convert the basement to an office. A year later, they had run out of room there too, and they rented their first commercial office space and began hiring a staff.

By 2005, riding the wave of small business startups, sales hit $7 million, by which time Mycorporation.com had expanded into services such as trademark search and registration. The company is now backed by Intuit, makers of Quicken and TurboTax software.

A nice story about how one lawyer used his JD to launch an online legal service business.