Most founders treat legal as the paperwork you handle once a deal is on the table. Business and technology attorney Morvareed Salehpour makes the opposite case: legal architecture is part of building the product, and the founders who bring it in early are the ones who raise more and get acquired for more. She joins Maria Pienaar and Katie Whitcraft to unpack a copy-left near-miss that almost open-sourced a client's proprietary code, why online templates leave AI and SaaS (software as a service) founders exposed, and how to prioritize legal spend when the budget is tight.

In this episode:

The copy-left trap that can unintentionally open-source your proprietary code

Why templates and online legal tools fall short for AI and SaaS founders

Triaging legal risk on a limited budget, starting with your biggest exposure

Data privacy and compliance across US states, consumer health laws, and global markets

How the smartest founders use legal as a growth engine

0:00 Introduction

2:11 Open Source and the Copy-Left Trap

6:33 Legal From Day One: Templates, Triage, and Timing

20:30 Negotiation Strategy and the IP Sections That Sink Deals

33:57 AI, Vibe Coding, and Data Privacy Time Bombs

46:46 Insurance, Liability Chains, and Legal as a Growth Engine

Morvareed Salehpour is the managing attorney of Salehpour Legal, a business and technology law practice serving software, SaaS, AI, digital health, biotech, and media-tech companies, along with the designers, developers, and IT providers who support them. She advises founders on contract negotiation and drafting, data privacy, intellectual property licensing, and mergers and acquisitions. Her focus is bringing legal strategy into product development early, before a gap becomes a liability.

Website: https://www.salehpourlaw.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morvareedsalehpour/

Ops or Die is the ScaleSpark podcast for people who know operations isn't sexy until it saves your business, hosted by Maria Pienaar and Katie Whitcraft. If your operations feel messy but not broken enough yet, the ScaleSpark team is at scalespark.ai.