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Imagine spending years planning and building your dream business—only to discover a potentially catastrophic problem two weeks before opening day. In this episode of From The Ground Up Show, Damien and Jessica Zouaoui share the unbelievable story of how a simple oversight nearly derailed the launch of Oakwell Beer Spa. As they prepared for their grand opening, their commercial hot water system kept shutting down.…

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Imagine spending years planning and building your dream business—only to discover a potentially catastrophic problem two weeks before opening day.

In this episode of From The Ground Up Show, Damien and Jessica Zouaoui share the unbelievable story of how a simple oversight nearly derailed the launch of Oakwell Beer Spa.

As they prepared for their grand opening, their commercial hot water system kept shutting down. After days of frustration, they discovered the building's gas meter was sized for a single-family home—not a business that needed to fill multiple 200-gallon tubs all day long.

With the mayor scheduled to attend their ribbon-cutting ceremony and opening day rapidly approaching, they were told the fix could take months. What happened next involved an emergency gas call, a creative LinkedIn search, a cold call to a utility executive's personal phone number, and a last-minute solution that saved the business.

This is a masterclass in persistence, problem-solving, and refusing to accept "no" when everything is on the line.

In This Episode:

✅ A startup crisis just days before launch

✅ The construction mistake nobody caught

✅ Why the business couldn't get enough gas

✅ Creative problem-solving under pressure

✅ Using LinkedIn to reach decision makers

✅ How persistence saved the grand opening

✅ Lessons every entrepreneur should learn

Every business success story has moments where everything seems ready to fall apart. This is one of those moments.

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Two Weeks Before Opening, a Gas Line Disaster Nearly Killed Their Business

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