I’ve Sold $10M Online – Here’s What Worries Me Now

  Sam Vander Wielen: Good morning, and welcome back to On Your Terms®. I’m your host, Sam Vander Wielen, and On Your Terms® is a podcast for online business owners who wanna be as present in their lives, as profitable in their businesses. We do both around here. And, you know, this year, 2026, has been an interesting year in the online business space.

And I’m not one to usually get too hyperbolic or hysterical about things, but as a lawyer for online business owners for the past 10 years who has helped hundreds of thousands of people now learn what steps they need to take to start and protect an online business, I am very concerned about at least these three things that I’ve seen happening lately in the online business industry.

For one, I’m deeply concerned about a lot of what’s going on with AI, right? So from my perspective as a lawyer, I think the thing that freaks me out the most is that there aren’t a lot of laws that are direct, right? Like, directly speaking about what to do if someone clones your face or someone steals your voice or they’re using your content or whatever, or, like, you putting content into an LLM like ChatGPT or Claude, and then, like, what happens when they share that with other people, and then, like, what does that mean about your copyright?

Essentially, the law hasn’t caught up to, like, what’s happening, right? So that’s very concerning to me. But on the other hand, when it comes to AI, we actually do have some new laws that are coming for our industry, including a couple that would require content that’s been created with AI at, like, any step in the process, like editing or, you know, cutting, cutting, um, video or something like that, to be labeled as having been made with AI.

You know, I just came back from James Clear’s mastermind, and it was so interesting talking to, like, the other creators who were there, and some of them were, you know, pulling up Instagram as we’re sitting there, and they start to follow me, and they saw my video that I had just done about AI and this labeling law.

And it was so funny to talk to people ’cause the room was split. Like, half the people would be like, “Oh, I’m so glad that you’re doing that because everything should be labeled.” And then the other half, I don’t know if they thought that this is what I was saying or i- if they even knew what I was saying, but they were just like, “Ugh, I hate this because it’s like a witch hunt, and I don’t think there should be any labeling.”

So it’s really interesting. I, I… People, people are all over the place about it, and I’m not really making a statement about it one way or the other. It’s just that there are laws that are actually coming into place very, very soon around this issue. The second thing that I’m seeing is a huge uptick this year in ADA lawsuits.

What’s really happening, and I’ve talked about this before, is that people are getting sued because their websites are not accessible. They’re not compliant. People are generally calling this the ADA lawsuits. It’s not really what it is on its face, but we can call it that for the sake of, of this conversation.

The thing that really annoys me about this one is that… Well, there, there are many things, but one is that websites should be accessible, period, full stop. Everyone should be able to access whatever they need on the internet, regardless of their abilities and their situation, right? So there’s that. But the other thing is that it is just so easy to make your website accessible.

Like, it’s not hard, and I don’t want this to be something that deters anybody from starting an online business or has anybody feeling like they shouldn’t share their work online because then, you know, they’re afraid that people will see their website and see that it’s not accessible. It’s really easy to fix, and, like, we can do this in, in a snap And third, I think that you, rightfully so, are more concerned about your privacy than ever.

Um, and I think that there have been more issues regarding your privacy than ever. There’s more reason to be concerned. And I think that a lot of people, and you might be one of them, are feeling like you don’t wanna start a business in today’s day and age because you’re worried about what that means for exposing yourself, where you live, your kids, your husband, your partner, your job, your whatever, because you feel like everything’s getting blasted all over the internet.

And you might also feel like unless you tell everybody about your partner and your kids and y- all your personal details and your family, that you can’t have a successful online business, and that is just not true. And there’s a lot we can do to protect your personal privacy. You don’t have to not start an online business because you’re worried someone’s gonna find out your address.

We can handle all of that on the back end. Look, it has never been easier to run or grow an online business. It feels like with n- almost, like, the click of a button and a quick Google search or a ChatGPT or whatever everybody’s using, that you can get an online business up and running, but it also feels a little bit more hectic and scary to me, as somebody who’s been doing this for over 10 years, than ever.

And that is why I’m actually hosting a live free legal workshop on Monday, October 19th. It’s my last live legal workshop of the entire year, and it’s called How to Start an Online Business Legally Before 2026 Ends. In it, I’m going to talk about all of the legal changes, all of these trends that I’m seeing going on that are coming for the online business industry, and how to very quickly and easily handle them so you don’t have to waste another second worrying about it.

But I’m also going to teach you how to actually start an online business, whether you need to do it from scratch or you need to legally protect the one that you’ve already gotten up and running but kinda accidentally forgot to take care of the legal stuff on the back end. Registration just opened for my last live legal class of the year, so I’m gonna drop a link down in the show notes below for you to sign up now.

It’s completely free to attend, and if you can’t make it live, I’ll send you the replay both by video and audio version, but you’ve gotta sign up. Seats fill up so fast for this live training, so just click the link down in the show notes right now to sign up or head to samvanderwielen.com and click the link at the top of my website and sign up for free right now.

If you know somebody who also needs to attend this class, go ahead and forward them the link. I will forever and eternally be grateful to you to help spreading the word about how to start an online business legally before this year ends All right, with that, don’t fret. I’ve got you covered. I’m going to cover all of this stuff in class.

People love my live trainings. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people have come to my live workshops in the past and gotten so much out of it. So I hope you’re the next one to send me a DM being like, “That was the best workshop I’ve ever attended,” or, “You gave away so much stuff for free. I can’t believe you did that.”

So make sure you come live. I can’t wait to see you there. And if not, sign up anyway so that I can send you the replay. It’s the only way I’ll know that you’re interested. Click that link down in the show notes now, and I’ll see you at my last live legal class of the year on Monday, October 19th.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps To Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at Samvanderwielen.com and to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.