From Law School to Launching Startups: Devin Miller's Unique Path

Today we sit down with Devin Miller, the founder and CEO of Miller IP Law. Devin's multifaceted career includes an impressive blend of electrical engineering, legal expertise and entrepreneurial success. Not only has he founded a thriving law firm focused on patents and trademarks, but he's also launched several startups across different industries, from wearables to food trucks.

Devin takes us through his fascinating journey of achieving 4 degrees and shares why he chose the balance of a dual career as a lawyer and a serial entrepreneur. Hear about the surprises and challenges he encountered in building businesses, the value of embracing an entrepreneurial mindset, and how his podcast, the Inventive Journey, aims to highlight the authentic ups and downs of entrepreneurship.

Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or simply curious about blending legal acumen with business innovation, this conversation is packed with insights and inspiration. Stay tuned as Devin reveals what it takes to thrive in today's fast changing world of business and law. As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment podcast.

I'm your host, Dave Goulis, and this week my guest is the founder and CEO of Miller ip, Devin Miller. Welcome, Devin. Hey Dave, thanks for having me on. Excited to be here? Absolutely. We appreciate you taking the time. So, Devin, you've had a long history in business with not only Miller IP but some other companies as well. Can you just walk us through your. Your backstory and how you got to where you are?

Yeah, and that could be anywhere from a. The short version to a much longer and extended version. So I'll try and keep it a bit of a bite sized chunk. So.

So really it to give you a little bit of the backstory, it really started with undergraduate. So my wife always jokes I got three degrees, which my wife. Sorry, four degrees, which my wife always jokes is three degrees too many. But I got undergraduate, I did electrical engineering as well as Chinese. As I was coming out of focus was on electrical engineering and as I was coming out of that it was really saying, hey, I like engineering but I didn't want to be an engineer.

In other words, I didn't want to be a small cog in a big whale stuck at a big company for a long period of time or I had any say so with that came out of undergraduate said do I want to do. I thought startups and small businesses were interesting. I also thought the legal aspect of patents and trademarks and working with a lot of startups and small businesses to protect their ideas and their brands and innovations was interesting.

So Rather than choose one or the other, went straight down the middle. Got a mba, Master's of Business Administration as well as a law degree. Kind of along that I've always taken both paths. So I did got a law degree. I've been an attorney for 1112 years now. I'd have to think of the exact date now, but 1112 years doing that full time as a an attorney and started out working for large law firms and then started my own firm Miller IP about six years ago.

And alongside of that I've done several other startups and small businesses. So I've done everything from when I was doing the law degree in the MBA degree, did wearables, I've done a food truck with my kids. I've done a small religious products business with with my family lead generation platform that started as an internal project. So really it's kind of always taken that I'll do the law as a full time and then the second full time job is all the entrepreneurial endeavors.

So that's probably as consolidated as I can get. But I'm happy to expound on anything beyond that. Attention Shopify sellers. Are you tired of slow sales? Do you want to skyrocket your revenue? Well, you'll want to join this free masterclass from my friends, the Traffic Ninjas. Learn how to optimize your store, boost conversions and dominate your niche. Sign up with the link in the show notes and take your Shopify business and to the next level.

Okay, so wow, quite, quite a fascinating journey and just from the education aspect. So you started off in electrical engineering and Chinese and then you pivoted to business and being an entrepreneur as well as a lawyer. Quite a fascinating pit. So walk us through what that was like in terms of just the sheer. I mean one degree is, is plenty but all these degrees and seems like a very short period of time. How did you manage to do that? Very busy and a lot of work.

No, I mean so one thing I always looked at is if I was going to be in school, I was always going to utilize or get as much done as I could. So I always figured hey, if I'm going to be studying, getting a degree, why not double up and get a double or dual degree at the same time. So that's where the electrical engineering and Chinese. Now Chinese people kind of say hey, that's a little bit out of left field. It is. Other than.

So I I served a religious mission for my church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Nick nicknamed the Mormons. So I went to Taiwan which is Chinese speaking. Debatable as to whether or not it's part of China. Depends on who you ask. That's a whole other conversation. But I came back and added that on as a second degree. And then the same thing when I went off to graduate school, I says, hey, I could get a law degree, that'd be three years. I could get an mba, that's two years.

Or I could comb them and it's only a total of four years. So I shave that off and have a lot more of the background. So for me, it was really always. One was the goal was, if I'm going to be in school and working my butt off, why not get as much education and as much background in the things that I think will be beneficial to the career as possible? And then two, it was just running as much as possible. So not that you ask or kind of give me a context.

When I was doing the law degree, the MBA degree set the stage. So I was doing the two degrees at the same time. I had, I had a two year old at that time and I, and, and then I had the, I had a newborn. I was working about 20 hours as a law clerk at a law firm. And that's also when I started the, the first wearables business. So I don't know how I got it all done and it was just a busy time.

But that was kind of the context of I always tend to probably, you know, pack more things in than I should and I always have to try and find that balance, but always looking to maximize the time when I'm, when I'm doing something. Okay, all right.

And did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur, like growing up? You know, it's a good question. I, I don't know that I have an answer. I mean, I, I've thought about it. I've been asked before. You know, I certainly grew up, my dad was, or kind of had more of the entrepreneurial bent. He did some of his own businesses, he worked for some smaller businesses or startups, and he always kind of had some projects.

So I always saw that now, I don't know that I ever looked at and said, hey, I want to follow my dad's footsteps, or that's what I want to be, but there's probably an influence there. But really, you know, so I always kind of love the idea of business in general, especially as I got more into the end of the undergraduate kind of looking at what I wanted to be when I grow up, so to speak.

Although I don't know if I've fully answered that, but with that, you know, I kind of, as I incrementally probably had that earlier influence, probably kind of went under the radar, didn't really think about it. And then as I started to really more get towards the end of the undergraduate, started to look and say, what do I want to do? And that's where I kind of said, hey, I think the startup small business kind of doing your own thing is interesting.

And then it took me some kind of path to navigate to figure out how I wanted to do that. Okay, and so as you mentioned, you started several different businesses. What was the biggest surprise you encountered, you know, starting all these different companies? Probably the, the biggest surprise is the, the level of naiveness. It's probably beneficial, but the level of naiveness. I think everybody thinks that they're. And I was the same way, exception to the rule.

And hey, everybody else, it takes them longer. And they always say, you know, it's going to be longer, it's going to take you more money, it's going to know there's going to be ups and downs. You think, oh yeah, that's for everybody else. And I'm going to be the exception and I'll get it right the first time and do everything perfectly. And then you get into it and you figure out, no, it does take a lot longer. It's a lot more effort, It's a lot more time and money and involvement.

And so I think now the, the flip side of that is I think if you were to know all of that on the front end, in other words, if you know, hey, it's going to take a lot more money and time and effort and stress and you might have failures, you might have success if you knew all that on the front end. Nobody would ever get started on a business because it would be so daunting that you never get.

But I think that's probably the looking back, the thing that probably, you know, wasn't or something, I was a bit naive or otherwise didn't necessarily appreciate going into it. And now I'm probably, now every time I look at a business say that's going to be a lot of work. If I'm going to do that, I really want to better enjoy it. Ah, okay. And how is being an attorney and having that, that background been an asset to you in, in business?

Yeah, I mean certainly it's, it helps that I can do my own legal work, in other words. Right. You know, as opposed to a degree. Now I don't get Outside of my area of expertise, if you wanted to go into divorce or migration law or you know, a lot of those other types of areas or you know, even bankruptcy in that I don't get involved in that nor do I want to even litigation. But as an example, most of my or I think all the businesses that have to think if there's an exception, all have brands.

Right? You always, almost every business you're going to build has a brand, which means I can file the trademarks. Some of the businesses that were more heavily into technology and innovations was able to, you know, do the, the patents on that side. So it did allow on the leveraging of the background to be able to, to leverage the ability to reduce the cost as well as understand the, the legal side of things as well as the business with the mba.

But on the legal side to reduce costs, get a better return on investment as well as understand the process. So it kind of was beneficial. A lot of the business aspects. Okay. All right. And so you mentioned you work for some larger corporate firms for the first several years and then eventually you, you started Miller ip. So what made you decide to start your own law firm? Yeah, so, so yes to your point. So I worked at, you know, kind of a mid size, more of a boutique when I started out.

Moved over to a large law firm, law firm top 100. I had the opportunity to work with clients through that firm that were Amazon, Intel, Red Hat, Ford and others. So certainly in our large recognizable businesses and you know, from that perspective, it's always cool. Everybody says, oh, Amazon, you know, what did you work on?

I say, well, I worked on the Kindle and this aspect, and this aspect sounds a lot more glamorous than it was because very small cog and a big will they file lots of patents, but those type of things. But as I was going through that, I got a lot of great experience but I always kind of kept circling back with, as I was going through that, which were the clients that I really enjoyed working with.

In other words, was it the biggest name recognizable ones or is it the stall or small startup or small business that wasn't as name recognizable but was really kind of a fun business that I gotta have a lot more say in.

I gotta have a lot more strategy with kind of input, direction, guidance and really kind of when I step back and said, hey, I like working with more startup and small businesses and going or kind of giving that or having that as a direction of wanting to go as a large law firms really aren't set up for That, I mean they, if you give them enough money and they'll kind of, you know, do the work and you'll go through their system. It's not really set up for startups and small businesses.

They're not really catering to that crowd, but they'll still do it for you. But there's a difference when hey, this is who we're, you know, here's a system, here's the explanation, here's how we walk you through it, here's how we are set up. All of our kind of the step by step process, our explanations and working with those type of clients, more headaches, but there's also more reward. And that's kind of where I wanted to be.

So that's kind of as I was saying after I got about five to six years into my career says those are the clients I want to work with because I want to work with those clients. Large law firms weren't going to provide that opportunity. So I wanted to do or do a firm that did focus on that. Most firms don't.

And I also loved entrepreneurship startups and small businesses, so said why don't I strike out and do it on my own? Okay. All right. And when you made that decision and you launched out, I mean, what was it like growing your client base when transitioning from like you said, large enterprise level companies to, to startups? Yeah, I mean, so beneficial.

Some of the businesses that I started all the way back to even MBA school were, you know, they've grown beyond, you know, just me and their businesses and their own momentum, had some client base built in with that. So some of the businesses I started actually became my own clients as I stepped or stepped back or made an exit or otherwise maintain good relationships.

But also working for a number of different firms kind of over that period of time also started building up clientele that were wanting to, that had a good relationship with, you know, with a lot of service based businesses you're more focused on the individual that you work with, not necessarily on the firm that you're at.

And so kind of as I build those relationships, kind of built out a book of business that allowed you, not everybody, some stayed with the other firms but migrate with the firm. So kind of had at least a initial client base within which to leverage to start to build the firm.

Okay. And as you're working with these small businesses and these startups and you know, focusing on like the IP aspect, you know, of, of the, you know of, of the, the scope of work, like what are some of the most Important lessons that you learned through, through that process. Sorry, say your question one more time. Yeah. In terms of working with all these startups, right.

And, and transitioning from the corporate world, what, what are some of some important lessons that you learned after the fact, after working with these companies that you can apply to, to your own businesses?

You know, it's probably one where it's going to be the, it's pretty similar to, you know, a lot of other businesses in the sense that, you know, if you outwork everybody, you know, as much as you have talent, as much as talent, you do need, you know, you know, to be an expert in your field. But more so than anything, it's just outworking everybody. And it doesn't even mean that it is you work more hours in the day.

It's that you put in a concerted effort, you're focused, you apply your skills, you focus on the things you can add the most value on.

And really if you can start to hone in on that, whatever businesses it is, whether it's building a law firm, doing a service based business, a product based business, if you can have those kind of focusing on where you can add the most value, that was probably the biggest takeaway that I saw with the other businesses that as I did my own endeavors as well as build the own firm that intended to have the greatest impact.

Okay. And that sounds too like very, it sounds like some of that like engineer in you in terms of just trying to find out the most efficient way to operate, the most efficient way to work, to, you know, provide the maximum output. Is that, is that fair to say? Yep, absolutely.

I think that, you know, there's, there's aspects that I probably pull from within each, every degree I did, you know, some of the engineering is the systems and the way to analyze things and look at it, you know, from Chinese, you know, sometimes it's looking at it from a less an analytical perspective. In other words, providing that by.

Or that balance, you know, the MBA is going to be from a business perspective and the legal is going to be from the, to the law perspective and kind of, I tend to look and kind of pull the different areas of learning or the different things that are takeaways from those, from those different degrees and from those different experiences of background and then smash it all together.

And it tends to probably have a unique outcome because you know, typically you only have a experience or background in one of those and to be able to pull from the different aspects of a lot of them probably gives a little bit of a Leg up. Okay. All right. And along the way, you also started a podcast, and it's called the Inventive Journey. So, yep, talk. Talk about that process and. And what made you decide to do that.

Yeah, so, I mean, it was really more so out of working with a lot of startups and small businesses myself. So in other words, so as I was working with a lot of startups and small businesses, in addition doing my own journey, but I kind of kept hearing the same reoccurring thing. Now everybody is different. They have their own journey, whether they start early or later, products or services or what kind of business.

But on the other hand, there's also some commonalities of, hey, I'm having to wear a lot of hats. There's ups and downs. Feels like I'm the only one that's failing. It feels like I'm the only one that doesn't have it figured out. And so kind of with that, you know, which is far from the truth, everybody has to wear lots of hats. Getting so. Okay, I'll put almost every. Everyone. I'm sure there's an exception to the rule, but vast majority have to wear a lot of hats.

You're feeling like you're a failure. You're feeling like everybody else has it figured out. And in other words, there's those commonalities. And yet when you're going through the trenches and doing it on your own, you oftentimes don't get that perspective. And so with that, it was really the wanting to set a more accurate or a correct perspective of, hey, everybody goes through those.

And while everybody's journey and how they experience that may be different, you're still going to be able to hear those commonalities and learn from how other people dealt with that.

So I was really where the podcast, the genesis level, was just starting to share those journeys of different founders, co founders, owners of startups and small businesses. And we go all the way back to the high school, college time frame. So it's really starting at where the journey started all the way up till today.

Because, you know, the difference is a lot of times you just want to jump on, hey, here's why I'm successful today, and here's the business I grew and how I made it or made my millions and. And how I'm retired on an island somewhere, and all you hear is a success story, and you never really hear the journey leading up to that and kind of what you went through. And so we wanted to kind of capture that full journey, really.

It was most or it was with the focus of giving back to clients and giving or setting a accurate perspective and giving them an ability to learn that, hey, a lot of other people are going through this. And then the, the podcast has then just continued to grow and evolve from there. Okay, now, so interesting. So so many people feel like they're the only ones that don't have it figured out.

Yeah. I mean, you look at whether it's social media, you know, Facebook or Instagram or, you know, tick tock, I'm not getting into the political stuff on that. Or you go into the movies or the books or the podcast or whatever it is, whatever you get your, your consume, all you hear, all you see is the highlight reels of all everybody's success. I mean, very. Most of the time, you know, other than if you're trying to make a nice little meme that, you know, you maybe throw up on LinkedIn.

But most of the time, you don't really share most of the failures because people don't like to be looked at as a failure or to relive something that wasn't fun or less comfortable. And so you're just getting the highlight reels.

And so when you look outwardly and everybody is only sharing the highlight reels and how everything is going amazing, even if they're on the, you know, in reality, they're on the verge of bankruptcy or they've had three failures before, or they're currently, you know, having, or making an exit or they're not making it, or they're being wildly successful. You never know all of those. And so everybody always feels like, I look at all the other highlight reels and what am I doing wrong?

Because everybody else seems to have it figured out. And so that was really the genesis of, hey, let's do a realistic, you know, perspective of how that is. Because people do feel, you know, like that they're the only ones that don't have that highlight reels and they're going through the failures. Okay, and how is the, how long have you been doing the podcast? Four years. I'd have to look at the exact time frame. Three and a half, four years.

Somewhere in there, I think we're up to now 6, 700 episodes. I can't remember somewhere in there. So doing it for a little while. Talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and startups and small businesses, but some are right in there. Three and a half, four years and six, 700 episodes. Okay. And hearing all those stories. Right. And I can only imagine a wide range of different entrepreneurs and all types of different ups and downs. I mean, how was that?

How has that changed like your outlook on, on business? Yeah, I don't know that it's changed or significantly in the sense of. It's probably more of reinforce the things I already knew. So in other words, it wasn't like I had this, this great breakthrough of hey, I didn't realize this before and wow, this is an amazing.

Now I'm sure that incrementally I learned things along the way, but it's more of kind of reinforcing the people are getting started at different stages of life which you know, gives me the perspective when I'm doing the, the legal aspect hearing that, you know, everybody's operating on a budget, everybody is trying to figure out where to focus and you know, there's always more things to spend money on than money to spend.

And everybody is, doesn't have everything figured out and has questions and needs a little bit of explanation. And kind of hearing this, a lot of those things in aggregate really kind of built that into the, at least on the law firm side of building that into how I go about now explaining things and giving that different perspective and walking things people through it and all that.

And it's probably, I don't know if there's any one thing that sticks out and more of the aggregate of just kind of say, oh, that's a unique thing or that's something that I hadn't really thought about. And then I'll kind of look to see how I incorporate that into the approach that I take on on both my businesses as well as the law firm. Okay, okay, got it. All right, and so we're new in 2025 right now and you've had Miller IP for quite a while and the podcast.

So what's what, what's new with you this year and what are, what are you most excited about?

Oh, I'm excited about a lot. So I mean on the perspective of, you know, the business side, if I were to say the law firm, you know, is one of. It's a bit venturing into the unknown. Everybody talks about AI legal field is, you know, isn't any, any less impacted in the sense you're looking at and saying it can either be a great tool or it can be the downfall of all, you know, all service based businesses including or especially if you're on a computer and predominantly in front of a desk.

Hey, what's the impact going to be? And short answers, I don't know. But it's kind of been an interesting iteration as we look at how to incorporate that in you know I or I continue to one of the things I enjoy is I have a couple small family businesses that I I get to work with my kids and we started those and are kind of just some of their still pretty early stage but that's really been rewarding.

So 2025 will be continuing to kind of figure out how to incorporate the kids as I have their ranges 9 to 14 in the businesses that we're going and teach them the lesson to give them an opportunity to learn and grow on the outside of work perspective. I'm sure I will do I usually try and do about a marathon a year trying to decide if I'll do a normal marathon or I'm also excited about maybe trying to do a trail run at least maybe a half marathon, doing it on a dirt trail and doing that.

So number of things that are going on that'll or should make for a fun 2025. Okay. All right. And Devin, if people want to get in touch with you and learn more about your law firm or the podcast or anything else that you're doing, what's way that people can reach out to you? Yeah, so I'll give kind of three different ways that they can reach out to me kind of depending on what they're wanting, how they're wanting to reach out and what they're wanting to reach out for.

So if they're so we offer free 15 minute consultations where we'll sit down. It's not going to be an end all, be all, answer every question but kind of get you kicked off, get you started, answers a few questions and you know, give points in the right direction. To do a free consultation they can go to strategymeeting.com just like it sounds strategymeeting.com if they're wanting to connect with me on social I'm sure we have social accounts every or on all the major platforms.

The one I'm most active on personally is on LinkedIn so if they want to connect with me on LinkedIn they can go to meet miller.com so just meet M E-E-T and then miller my last name meatmiller.com and the last one is that they just want to check out the law firm website. We have a ton of resources.

Check out the podcast, check out our flat fees, check out all of the information we put out that's just@lawwith miller.com so strategymeeting.com if you want to grab a consultation meet miller.com if they want to connect with me on LinkedIn and lawwith miller.com if they want to check out the website. All right, and we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone. All right. Well, Devin, thank you so much for taking the time to be here, sharing this valuable wisdom from your journey and.

And all the exciting things that you're doing. We greatly appreciate it. Hey, my pleasure. It was fun to be on, great to be on, and a great conversation. So thank you for having me. All right, and that's all the time we have for now. We will see you next time.