Student by day, re-imagining pet food by night

Zach (Yuzhe) Sheng had a side hustle about a decade before side hustles became trendy. 

“I’ve had side businesses since I was 14 or 15. My first ‘lemonade stand’ was a boarding facility where people could drop off their pets and watch them play through a live camera. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur.” 

A love of pets has followed Sheng throughout his entrepreneurial career. Sheng is currently a Global Management Studies student at the Ted Rogers School of Management, but he prefers to introduce himself as Co-Founder and Chief Taste Officer of Charmy (external link) . Named after his second dog Charm, Charmy describes itself as the “first herbal pet food in North America,” with a mission to help pets live longer, healthier and happier lives. 

“I grew up benefiting from Chinese herbs and understanding how beneficial it is to humans,” explains Sheng. “The question [is], what if we apply this to pets? So I started to partner with nutritionists like Dr. Kate Shoveller (external link) .” 

Charmy is unique through its “East meets West” product offering. On its Kickstarter page, the company highlights herbs such as ginseng, goji and astragalus root, with benefits ranging from weight management to immune system modulation. Charmy offers two dog recipes, the Beef & Goji Berry Harmony Recipe and Salmon Duck & Ginseng Balanced Recipe. 

“Imagine eating a Big Mac for ten years—it’s boring and unhealthy. The life expectancy for pets has gone down about 20% in the last two decades, and that’s because the majority [of pet owners] use low-quality kibble,” says Sheng. “This is where we see a market gap, as a healthy alternative for pet owners.”

To further diversify product offerings, Charmy is actively fundraising and hiring. Sheng turned to his peers at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) for additions to the team, including Kevin Parekkattil as a Community Manager and Shrey Gandhi as a Data Analyst. 

In his first year at Toronto Met, Sheng learned about the DMZ, one of the world’s leading startup incubators. After being accepted into the one-month Bootcamp, Charmy has since integrated into the 18-month Incubator program. 

“The DMZ has supported us from all aspects, everything from supply chain management to digital marketing,” says Sheng. “There’s great synergy when you’re in the space. I’ve been able to book meetings with in-house mentors and further adopt an entrepreneurial mindset.”

“[We] act as cheerleaders when we are down or when we win,” adds Sheng of his experience around other entrepreneurs in the DMZ. “We each have domain knowledge, but we still learn from each other.” 

Balancing his education and scaling his business has been easier than Sheng expected, but resources such as the DMZ offer learning opportunities that only come from running a business. “A lot of technical skills can be learned in business school, like accounting. When it comes to building relationships with manufacturers, how to be persistent with follow-up calls—this is where a place like the DMZ can help you learn.”