At the time, neither of them had much professional experience, but they had a shared interest in creating an innovative product.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve always been passionate about disrupting the status quo and creating something from nothing,\u201d says Willows. \u201cCombining Zach’s passion for winemaking and my dreams of taking over the world helped shape the business plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, despite having the passion and the entrepreneurial drive, their age was a big barrier when it came to raising capital for their business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you’re 18 years old and you walk into a bank and you say \u2018Hey, I’ve never had a job, never run a business, have no credit history, no assets, and want to start a business about getting drunk (is what the bank hears)\u2019 \u2013 it’s a little hard to get funding,\u201d says Zach. \u201cWe’ve really had to use our ingenuity and spirit to bring the business from nothing to what we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Shrugging](\"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/ShrugDoc_Primary_Logo_RGB.png\"){kind=logo}
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Futurpreneur Canada<\/a> also helped give their fledgling business a boost by providing them with financing, resources and mentoring when very few others would.<\/p>\n \u201cThe entire experience has been fantastic,\u201d says Zach about working with Futurpreneur. \u201cEverything from helping us write our business plan, to setting us up with lawyers and accountants, plugging us into events and answering our tough questions and working through our tough problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Zach and Willows were also set up with a business mentor through the Futurpreneur Start-Up Program, who they meet with at least once a month.<\/p>\n \u201cHis input is great because we often get tunnel vision with our business and having an outside opinion usually helps us get over hurdles,\u201d says Willows.<\/p>\n Today, their products are available in 40 stores across the province, including 25 locations in Winnipeg. They also celebrated their first business anniversary in January and have partnered with SkipTheDishes<\/a> (another Futurpreneur success story!) to help expand their reach. They are also the first Canadian winery to accept bitcoin<\/a> as payment for their products.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve created something and continue to grow in an extremely restrictive industry,\u201d says Willows. \u201cWe are very proud of our progress.\u201d<\/p>\n For all other aspiring entrepreneurs out there who might think they are too young to start a business, Zach and Willows have this piece of advice:<\/p>\n \u201cStop thinking and get to work. 95% of success is showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n Zach Isaacs and Willows Christopher are not your average entrepreneurs. At 18, they founded Shrugging Doctor Beverage Company \u2013 Winnipeg\u2019s only winery and one of the first in the province to offer home liquor delivery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-futurpreneurs-and-partners"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Written by: Jasmine Williams, Social Media and Content Specialist, Futurpreneur Canada<\/em><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"