Tim Hewson: Removing the Barriers To Preparing Estate Planning Documents

We remove the barriers to preparing estate planning documents. Allowing you to prepare your own Will in a convenient and affordable way.

Tell us about yourself?

I was a Product Manager for a large Canadian technology company before starting LegalWills.ca with my co-founder.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Work with mentors, and don’t let your business performance affect your personal wellbeing.

What problem does your business solve?

Most Canadians don’t have a Will, but everybody needs one. We are addressing the barriers to preparing a Will by making the process affordable and convenient.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

We happened to be together with 15 colleagues at a social gathering. One person mentioned that they didn’t have a Will in place even though they had a job, a house and children.

We went around the table and not one single person had written their Will. We were responsible, educated, and knew we needed one. There was clearly a problem with the traditional process that needed to be addressed.

What is your magic sauce?

We have bootstrapped our company and seen it grow every year for over 20 years. We have an outstanding development team and have built the best technical solution to the problem in the marketplace.

We are also able to price the most aggressively because we have always run the company in a fiscally responsible, and profitable way.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We will continue to develop new features to accommodate law changes (for example, with digital assets and electronic signing of documents), and target more B2B partnerships.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Changing people’s mindsets around the need for a Will and when it should be written. We encourage everybody to write a Will when they are young, and update it throughout their life. Traditionally Will writing is seen as an end-of-life task, and we want to change that.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

We want to work with financial advisors, insurance agents, funeral homes, and other industries where their clients need to have their estate planning documents in place.