Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Waldbuesser. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sarah, appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

It took me several months of brainstorming to come up with the name for Destination Legal®. I remember walking along Lake Michigan (as I was living in Chicago at the time) and it hit me! I have a huge passion for travel and thought that would be a great way to incorporate some of myself into the brand but I also knew that we would become THE destination for coaches and online business owners looking for legal help on the internet.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My entrepreneur journey really began because of my love for travel. I had always had a big passion for traveling, craved adventure, and wanted a life outside 4 walls. For many years I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or who I wanted to become. The traditional jobs I had as an attorney at a law firm and later in research and academia where not satisfying me deep down. All I knew was I wanted to be able to travel, have freedom in my life, and make an impact. Realizing how unhappy I’d become (despite having great friends in an amazing city and my ‘dream’ job), I found myself Googling “travel while you work” and stumbled across a podcast by two online entrepreneurs called the “Tropical MBA” who were also digital nomads traveling the world and working from anywhere.
I knew immediately that this was my future. I had no idea how to get it but just knowing there were people like me out there was such a huge step. Four months later, I left my 9-5. For good.
I spent the next few years building online businesses, at one point I even had an online store selling eco-friendly furniture. I was learning a lot about digital marketing, all the while consulting to pay the bills, and traveling along the way. I traveled to over 15 countries, saw the sunset in Santorini, had lunch in Petra, went caving in Vietnam, rode a gondola in Venice, and ate baklava in Istanbul.
All while working from my laptop.
The more online coaches and digital nomads I met, the more legal help I saw they needed because they were constantly asking me for help with one thing or another. I also saw what happened when they didn’t get the right contracts or policies in place… it wasn’t pretty. I saw too many friends get badly burned by not having the right legal in place in their businesses at the right times and knew there was another way!
In 2015, I decided to settle back down in Chicago. Having previously been introduced to coaching by a life coach I had met at an event, I took a leap of faith and decided to work with her. I was exposed to how many people were doing such amazing things in the coaching world but without the legal protection they needed, and later that year, Destination Legal® was born.
I knew I could make an impact by helping online entrepreneurs build their businesses on a solid legal foundation… and that’s exactly what I do today both through providing downloadable legal contract templates and by helping businesses protect their brands through registered trademarks.
I spent the new few years building Destination Legal, meeting and marrying my husband, and having my first child (it was busy)!
It has become my passion to help them protect their passion (in fact, one of my registered trademarks is #protectyourpassion®)! The more women build lives and businesses they love, the better off we all are as a society.
I’m proud to be a part of creating that bigger impact by ensuring the businesses, livelihoods, and passions of as many people as I am fortunate to help are legally protected in all the right ways. Destination Legal helps coaches and online businesses with legal support for “wherever your business adventures take you.”
We do this through our template shop that has DIY contract templates, terms, and website policies and then I provide services, such as trademark registration packages. The result is our people then feel empowered to put themselves out there, make more money and confidentially build (and keep) a freedom-based business they love.
I am known for being one of the first online attorneys in the space and for really understanding the ins and outs of the coaching industry (which is projected to do $20 billion this year by the way)! My audience tells me this and I’m happy to hear it, and that’s that I make legal easier to understand and not so scary.
So many small business owners are intimidated by big law firm rates and old-school legal practices (like crazy hourly rates and lack of transparency). I wanted my business to be different so our contract templates are super affordable and all of our services are a flat fee. I will tell you exactly what you need and when – I won’t just try to get you to buy a bunch of legal documents you won’t need for a year.
I’m proud of the brand Destination Legal has become and also how it’s evolving.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

When I first started the business I was trying to do too much. I was hesitant to go “all in” on legal since I didn’t love being a lawyer in the traditional sense. I was adding some business consulting and coaching into my offers but I think that confused people and what they really wanted from me was legal help. I was down to my last dollar and literally had to ask my parents for help with rent that month. My dad was sending me law firm contacts and basically saying “Sarah, this isn’t working, you need to go get a job.” He wasn’t wrong and I started to polish my resume. But as I did so, I had such a sour feeling in my stomach. I had been out of a 9-5 job for almost 3 years at that point and couldn’t imagine going back. The threat of that was enough to put me into action. I went ALL IN on the legal side and within 6 weeks had a few sales and money in the bank. I never looked back and am grateful to this day that I listened to my gut and kept going.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I definitely didn’t take a traditional route of finding cash or financing, instead I worked as a consultant for two other businesses. This cash allowed me to “live” and pay basic expenses while building the business. As I made more money I was able to let those go and then start reinvesting back in the company. Something that has also been really helpful was PayPal Capital, this is a flat fee loan and then you pay it back with a percentage of each sale. While it’s not ideal to have to do this, having access to this type of cash at certain points has been really helpful.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.destinationlegal.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/destinationlegal
• Facebook: facebook.com/destinationlegal
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-waldbuesser/

Image Credits
All images – WorkPlay Branding