The Challengers – Erin Bury, CEO, Willful

We launched a brand new series here on EQ that we call The Challengers. After all, we're a Challenger Bank, and we want to showcase some other incredible people who we feel live and breathe what it means to be a Challenger. But first, you’re probably wondering what does it mean?To be a Challenger is a mindset – a way of life. It’s not about challenging what others are (or aren't) doing; it’s a challenge to ourselves to cut through the nonsense and provide more value to Canadians.

This month, we chatted with Erin Bury, CEO and Co-Founder of Willful, a do-it-yourself platform that breaks down the estate planning process into simple steps so you can create your will and power of attorney documents in 20 minutes or less. Here’s what Erin had to say about being a Challenger.

Can you describe the moment that made you say "the process of creating a will needs to be improved"?

When my husband’s uncle passed away, he had been married for over 40 years but never spoke about funeral planning or burial wishes. So at a time when his family should have been grieving, they were instead arguing about what Uncle Dave would have wanted, and trying to talk to anyone in the family who might have had the answers to these tough questions. That was really the moment that both of us started thinking “what’s out there that can make this process easier?”

A lot of Millennials or Gen Z may not be thinking about estate planning, what's your advice to them?

I was one of those people. At the time when we got the idea for Willful, we were in the exact category of people who should have had a will. We were home owners, we had assets, we were married … But this isn’t something that is taught in school, and it’s not something that a lot of people talk about at home. I think most people in general don’t really think about creating a will until they go through one of those big life moments and someone tells them about it; a real estate lawyer, financial advisor or maybe a family member. Most of our customers are between 25-45 years old with pets, children, and assets. And assets doesn’t have to mean millions of dollars. It can be a car, or $1,000 in an RSP or Savings Account. These clients want to make sure they have a plan in place. That’s really the point. A will isn’t for you, it’s for the people you leave behind.

What was an obstacle you had to overcome when building this business, and how did you overcome it?

Finding lawyers was a big one. We’re not estate lawyers. So we had to find lawyers who would draft our legal content because we’re selling legal documents, and they have to be really high quality. It took a lot of cold calling, but we eventually found some really great partners and now we’re in eight provinces and we have estate law partners across the country.

This series is called The Challengers ... what is your advice for someone who is looking to challenge the status quo and do something that involves out of the box thinking?

There’s probably a reason one of the big players hasn’t done it. Big companies take a long time to do things. They’re very risk-averse and they can’t just jump into things and move quickly. As an entrepreneur working on an idea, you can move so much more quickly. It’s an opportunity to be a challenger. Even though you might be the David to their Goliath, you can actually kind of fly under the radar for a while until they notice you. And by then, you’re so far ahead that they’re more likely to want to partner with you than squash you. That’s how we’ve always looked at it; being an entrepreneur, being a challenger, moving quickly, it’s such an asset. The faster you can move, the faster you can stay ahead of the people who are trying to play catchup.

Watch the full interview with Erin here, and stay tuned for interviews with future Challengers!