It's a great story - I’ll tell you the short version. In 18th century England, emerging tailors wanting to spread their wings beyond high-end Savile Row would break away from their master tailor and offer quality services to a wider market. At the time, they coined this practice “Whipping the Cat”, and this is what inspires our name. Those tailors offered an affordable alternative and disrupted the industry. We are doing a similar thing in the legal service market through our customized - or “tailored” - legal services.
The most important differentiator is that we threw away the clock and time sheets: there is no hourly based billing at Whipping the Cat. We started the business by seeing things from the client’s perspective, and then working backwards to offer the right services and the right billing model.
First, to remain customer focused – if people aren’t buying, you are probably selling the wrong thing. And second, to realise that it may take longer than you expected to get where you want to be, but when you get there the uptake may be faster than you think. You need to be prepared for both!
Receiving the award is a great feeling. I am very proud. We were judged by fellow lawyers and came out top, which says something about Whipping the Cat’s quality.
I have twins who are turning 10 soon – and their birthdays are all about having fun. When Whipping the Cat turns 10, I think our team and our clients will still be having fun too.
I have three pieces of advice: