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It's been a while since I checked in here. I originally posted a few months ago about a couple of ideas I had and got a few responses recommending I go with a gourmet mushroom idea. Well I've spent the last few months working on that, and on Monday I was finally able to set our online store live.
To be honest, it's been possibly the most challenging period of my life. I finally quit the 9-5, had some big health issues and bought my first house. That last one really created a lot of stress, and while we're now moved in, there are still some big building issues that need fixing, which is difficult as builders and materials are in short supply right now. Anyway, that's another story. Back to the business.
There've been plenty of ups and downs with this too. The original idea was actually brought to me by someone I've known for a while. He'd been growing gourmet mushrooms at home for fun during the lockdowns, and he said he thought it had legs as a business and would I like to help him make it a reality. It was good timing to be honest, as I really needed to leave the ecommerce job I was in. I'm very aware in MJ's book he recommends going it alone if possible, and this was always at the back of my mind, especially as, by this guy's own admission, he's not the easiest to get along with, but at the end of the day it was this guy's idea. I was willing to run with it for now. The plan was to create an urban gourmet mushroom farm in our city, as no one else was doing it, and then we could have related mushroom products, such as mushroom coffee, or maybe products for customers to grow mushrooms at home.
So he ended up finding a local company that offers space to green/eco startups, but soon a lot of the admin fell to me. There was also a huge amount of bureaucracy to deal with at this place - manoeuvring people and situations so that we could have our plot of land and a shipping container to start with. We also had to clear the space and buy a couple more shipping containers ourselves, but the space was essentially free, which was a big plus. We were also going to benefit from the company's visibility in the local community and links to education/schools, as that's something we planned to branch out into.
It soon became apparent we'd probably need someone else involved to do a lot of the labour on the farm, so we ended up bringing in a friend of mine who I've known since childhood. Me and said friend ended up clearing all the space and just generally making preparations for the business. He's also a chef, so he started work on some culinary mushroom products as well. You can see a lot of this on my YouTube channel which I'll link to below.
I was also building the website, branding and social media in the background, and we'd started to reach out to a local coffee supplier to help make our coffee idea a reality. We got closer and closer to being ready but just as we were about to get truly going, the initial partner, who'd been off ill for a while, ended up wanting to change the partnership arrangement which had been founded on equal splits. Yes, there'd even been a contract drawn up initially between him and myself, but now he wanted to essentially be in charge, along with a few extra rights. I wasn't 100% against it and saw where he was coming from to a degree, but he said one thing which helped me make up my mind: "you're essentially replaceable." He'd said a similar thing to my friend too, and we both had a quick chat and decided we couldn't be a part of this anymore. It really wasn't in our best interests.
However, we had put months of both desk and physical work into this project and started to rearrange our lives to make this work, and we were pretty excited about the whole idea. We had a meeting with him and said "I don't think this is for us/I think we need to split off". We came to an agreement where he could keep the farm we'd started building, and me and my friend would keep the branding, social media and relationship with the coffee supplier.
Before I get the 'I told you so' comment about working with other people - yes, I know haha. I've learnt a lot throughout that process, and the initial idea was not mine, but in the end I felt I'd put in enough work to deserve the split we negotiated above. And yes, I'm still working with the one other partner now, but so far things have been really great. And yes, we have a signed contract in place.
Since the split we've found a new room to use. We pay rent on this one, but I feel all the decisions can be made and implemented a lot quicker. We've mainly been working on our two dry products up till now: a mushroom umami salt and a mushroom coffee. We wanted to get the store online in time for Christmas and we managed that on Monday. Yesterday we went and bought some of the equipment for the actual farm side of the business, and as my partner is a chef, he has a lot of connections with restaurants in our city. There's already quite a demand for fresh mushrooms, so we're conscious we need to get up and running soon to supply this. Especially because an already-established microgreens business here is starting to venture into mushrooms, so we already have competition.
I'm confident in the fresh mushrooms idea though, and excited to get growing and see where it goes. The dry food side is also showing potential. In fact, as you can imagine the profit margins there are bigger, but it will need a bigger marketing push. We've already had a few orders, but mainly from family and friends. I'm glad we'll have two aspects to the business going forward and I imagine the business will eventually lean in one direction.
Here's the current WooCommerce store:
sevenmushrooms.co.uk
We've also been documenting things on a YouTube channel. I'm hoping this will take off a bit once we get the fresh mushrooms on camera.
I'd like to check in here and document how things are going periodically.
I'm also very much open to thoughts and advice from all you more experienced people. I'm especially conscious that I need to get some kind of marketing strategy in place to get the word out about our brand and dry products starting in the new year, and we're going to have to do it on a shoestring budget. Any tips on that whole issue would be gladly received. The fresh mushroom aspect really will help in creating awareness for us locally, but I will have a lot of work to do, probably online, in spreading the word about our company in general. There is potential though, as there are already other bigger brands doing similar things, such as Four Sigmatic, and I truly believe interest in mushrooms is going to grow rapidly over the next few years.
It's all been a bit unnerving at times, especially knowing I have to make this work to put bread on the table and all the doubts that come with it, but I'm feeling positive. Thanks for reading, and once again, thanks to MJ for the book and this community. I'm going to read the book again over the Christmas break and hang out here more now the initial groundwork on the business is out of the way.
To be honest, it's been possibly the most challenging period of my life. I finally quit the 9-5, had some big health issues and bought my first house. That last one really created a lot of stress, and while we're now moved in, there are still some big building issues that need fixing, which is difficult as builders and materials are in short supply right now. Anyway, that's another story. Back to the business.
There've been plenty of ups and downs with this too. The original idea was actually brought to me by someone I've known for a while. He'd been growing gourmet mushrooms at home for fun during the lockdowns, and he said he thought it had legs as a business and would I like to help him make it a reality. It was good timing to be honest, as I really needed to leave the ecommerce job I was in. I'm very aware in MJ's book he recommends going it alone if possible, and this was always at the back of my mind, especially as, by this guy's own admission, he's not the easiest to get along with, but at the end of the day it was this guy's idea. I was willing to run with it for now. The plan was to create an urban gourmet mushroom farm in our city, as no one else was doing it, and then we could have related mushroom products, such as mushroom coffee, or maybe products for customers to grow mushrooms at home.
So he ended up finding a local company that offers space to green/eco startups, but soon a lot of the admin fell to me. There was also a huge amount of bureaucracy to deal with at this place - manoeuvring people and situations so that we could have our plot of land and a shipping container to start with. We also had to clear the space and buy a couple more shipping containers ourselves, but the space was essentially free, which was a big plus. We were also going to benefit from the company's visibility in the local community and links to education/schools, as that's something we planned to branch out into.
It soon became apparent we'd probably need someone else involved to do a lot of the labour on the farm, so we ended up bringing in a friend of mine who I've known since childhood. Me and said friend ended up clearing all the space and just generally making preparations for the business. He's also a chef, so he started work on some culinary mushroom products as well. You can see a lot of this on my YouTube channel which I'll link to below.
I was also building the website, branding and social media in the background, and we'd started to reach out to a local coffee supplier to help make our coffee idea a reality. We got closer and closer to being ready but just as we were about to get truly going, the initial partner, who'd been off ill for a while, ended up wanting to change the partnership arrangement which had been founded on equal splits. Yes, there'd even been a contract drawn up initially between him and myself, but now he wanted to essentially be in charge, along with a few extra rights. I wasn't 100% against it and saw where he was coming from to a degree, but he said one thing which helped me make up my mind: "you're essentially replaceable." He'd said a similar thing to my friend too, and we both had a quick chat and decided we couldn't be a part of this anymore. It really wasn't in our best interests.
However, we had put months of both desk and physical work into this project and started to rearrange our lives to make this work, and we were pretty excited about the whole idea. We had a meeting with him and said "I don't think this is for us/I think we need to split off". We came to an agreement where he could keep the farm we'd started building, and me and my friend would keep the branding, social media and relationship with the coffee supplier.
Before I get the 'I told you so' comment about working with other people - yes, I know haha. I've learnt a lot throughout that process, and the initial idea was not mine, but in the end I felt I'd put in enough work to deserve the split we negotiated above. And yes, I'm still working with the one other partner now, but so far things have been really great. And yes, we have a signed contract in place.
Since the split we've found a new room to use. We pay rent on this one, but I feel all the decisions can be made and implemented a lot quicker. We've mainly been working on our two dry products up till now: a mushroom umami salt and a mushroom coffee. We wanted to get the store online in time for Christmas and we managed that on Monday. Yesterday we went and bought some of the equipment for the actual farm side of the business, and as my partner is a chef, he has a lot of connections with restaurants in our city. There's already quite a demand for fresh mushrooms, so we're conscious we need to get up and running soon to supply this. Especially because an already-established microgreens business here is starting to venture into mushrooms, so we already have competition.
I'm confident in the fresh mushrooms idea though, and excited to get growing and see where it goes. The dry food side is also showing potential. In fact, as you can imagine the profit margins there are bigger, but it will need a bigger marketing push. We've already had a few orders, but mainly from family and friends. I'm glad we'll have two aspects to the business going forward and I imagine the business will eventually lean in one direction.
Here's the current WooCommerce store:
Seven Mushrooms - gourmet mushrooms
Gourmet mushroom farm based in Sheffield, UK. We also produce mushroom related dry goods, such as our Umami Salt and Lion's Mane Coffee!
sevenmushrooms.co.uk
We've also been documenting things on a YouTube channel. I'm hoping this will take off a bit once we get the fresh mushrooms on camera.
I'd like to check in here and document how things are going periodically.
I'm also very much open to thoughts and advice from all you more experienced people. I'm especially conscious that I need to get some kind of marketing strategy in place to get the word out about our brand and dry products starting in the new year, and we're going to have to do it on a shoestring budget. Any tips on that whole issue would be gladly received. The fresh mushroom aspect really will help in creating awareness for us locally, but I will have a lot of work to do, probably online, in spreading the word about our company in general. There is potential though, as there are already other bigger brands doing similar things, such as Four Sigmatic, and I truly believe interest in mushrooms is going to grow rapidly over the next few years.
It's all been a bit unnerving at times, especially knowing I have to make this work to put bread on the table and all the doubts that come with it, but I'm feeling positive. Thanks for reading, and once again, thanks to MJ for the book and this community. I'm going to read the book again over the Christmas break and hang out here more now the initial groundwork on the business is out of the way.
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