We were lucky to catch up with Eric Gauthier recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Eric thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Fungi have been held close to my heart since my mid-20’s. I’ve always found them to be interesting and fascinating life-forms, most people do when they take the time to get to know them. If there’s one thing I can say its the more than I learn, the more fascinated and intrigued I am by the magical world of fungi and the potential impact they can have on so many levels. Today we know mushrooms have the ability to produce food and beverage, medicine, construction materials, paper, clothing, biofuels, and many other valuable resources to humanity. They have even proven to be useful aids in cleaning up the environment in a number of ways. Not to mention that most fungi survive primarily off decaying or dead matter, and generally do not intrude on other lifeforms, they really are surprisingly intelligent. Aside from my appreciation for all of the amazing things fungi can do for us and the world, I’ve also had a series of transformative experiences of my own through the aid of psilocybin mushrooms, during my early to mid 20’s. It was then that my relationship with fungi truly began. Fungi-culture (the cultivation of fungi) in particular has always interested me because it is a true balance between science and art. In order to be successful, you need to pay attention to the details as much as a painter working on a great masterpiece, and as much as a scientist working in a laboratory.
My business venture actually began in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. While much of America was stuck at home for months on end, it gave people like myself more free time than I knew what to do with. I was laid off from my day job, everything was closed, and I was looking for any sort of project I could do at home to keep myself busy and entertained, something that didn’t involve staring at a screen for countless hours. Before long I decided it could be worthwhile and fun to grow my own mushrooms right at home, and so that’s what I did. It took me a few days to a week to get the few resources I needed to get started, and the whole process took about 8 or 9 weeks start to finish. My harvest was substantial and of excellent quality. Very pleased with the outcome, I realized I really knew what I was doing when it came to fungiculture, I’d proven that to myself. At this point the gears in my mind began to turn, as I wondered how I might take my interest in fungiculture a step-further. I had the idea of growing mushrooms on a large scale but unfortunately I was living in a condo and had zero space for such a project. It was a few days after that great harvest, I was looking at one of my jars of substrate (essentially the ‘soil’ mushrooms begin to grow in), and wondered, if I might be able to sell my substrate jars. They worked well for me, I knew that was certain, so why not? I knew of a couple big companies that were selling, them, and mushroom grow kits and all sorts of related products. Not knowing where I should start, I quickly came to Etsy, a store mostly for very small/home businesses and DIY’er’s selling their crafts and art and things of that sort. Right away I saw other people selling mushroom substrate jars, just like mine, with lots of positive reviews and lots of sales. Instantly, I knew I had to give it a try, what did I have to lose? So I opened up a free seller account, made a listing for my first item: Wild Bird Seed, Mushroom Substrate, 12-Pack of Half-Pint Mason Jars. My photos were absolutely horrendous (took them on our kitchen table with items in the background and terrible lighting) but I made up for it in my description, with accuracy and friendly/attractive wording. Sure enough, within 24 hours, I sold my 12-pack of substrate jars. It was very exciting to get that first sale and even more exciting after I got that first 5-star review! Now with proof that I could be successful, I couldn’t stop,, since that point I’ve slowly added more, and more products, and eventually built a website/online store www.fungicultureco.com, that has now gone through 3 or 4 re-constructions. I’ve put a lot of time, sweat and energy into my store and the way it is presented to the online world and the rest of the fungi-community. What’s most exciting is when people share the same success that I myself have had when cultivating mushrooms using my own products, it gives me a strong sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
Eric, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
The idea of fungi never crossed my mind, as far as I can recall, until after going through a series of transformative experiences with psilocybin, over the course of many years. It was only then that I began to really take notice of them, and pay attention to them, and learn about them. As I got into fungiculture (the cultivation of fungi) as a personal hobby and interest , I always made it a practice to progress through each step of the cultivation process to the best of my ability while paying close attention to details, so that my final product was of the highest quality possible – as I do with most things in life. Once I had a quality product in my hand, I couldn’t think of a reason not to share it with those who didn’t have the skill or ability to produce their own. There were not many notable companies involved in the fungiculture marketplace at the time and the ones that were seemed to have a similar level of quality as my own products, and some appeared lesser than my own.
My online shop, FungiCulture Co., was born out of sheer passion for fungiculture. In a nutshell, we provide customers with premium products for home-cultivation (substrate, fruiting chambers, liquid cultures, grow kits, and other various supplies) and have since expanded into apparel. I pride myself in providing hand made-to-order products that I know can and will deliver success, and our reviews from our many satisfied customers prove just that. Although I am confident, I constantly critique my products, the product listings, and the appearance and vibe my online store gives, as I always strive for perfection. I want my customers to enjoy their experience while browsing my shop, enjoy learning about fungi and our products and reading about us and our story, and most importantly; be so satisfied with their fungiculture co. products that they want to keep coming back for more (and many do).
With small success of course came the idea of doing more, and growing the business, the brand, and the product line. Along with my wife, we together came up with an idea for a T-Shirt line which has now expanded into an entire Apparel collection that is constantly growing. Each T-shirt in our initial line features a particular mushroom or fungi with a unique and colorful, hand-drawn image, and below it the common name, scientific name, and a few notable or interesting facts about the specified fungi. This vibrant T-shirt line being worn by fungi-lovers, we realized, was such an amazing way to display the beauty of all the different fungi of the world, and also inform and educate people at the same time. We realized that we were really ‘spreading the culture’ of the fungi-world, one T-Shirt at a time. Our shirt line inspired us to launch another website dedicated to uniting the fungi-community. Although in its very early stages (launched only a couple weeks ago), our hope is that we together with our fellow fungi-enthusiasts can build an ever-evolving community of individuals, all of which are active contributors in the fungi-community, all of which are ‘spreading the culture’ to the rest of the world in some way, shape, or form. To sum it all up, all I can really say is we just love fungi, and we want to spread all our mushy-love for this culture however we can, and with anyone who shares our passion.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to turn my side hustle into a main/full time career, as much as I would like to do so. I believe there is plenty of possibility although having a small family (A wife, 2 year old and 2 dogs) plays into the risk factor. Not to mention my day job comes with a lot of perks that aren’t easy to out-weigh (retirement plan, paid health insurance, paid phone plan, paid vacations, flexible schedule, to name a few). Once my store reaches a certain threshold consistently for at least a couple to a few years, I believe I will then feel comfortable and confident enough to break free and run my business full-time, leaving the day job behind. My daughter was born less than a year after the inception of FungiCulture Co., so since she came into the world I have not been able to put in as much work as I would often like, and not take as much risk as I would like- as compared to if I was a single guy without all the responsibility of owning a home and having a family.. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter is the absolute most important, beautiful, amazing thing in my life and I wouldn’t trade her for the world or put anything before her. My decision to keep my day job as my primary is so that I can be absolutely certain I am providing the best possible life for my daughter and my family, and I know that one day when the time is right, I’ll be able to put the extra work into the business and I will remain patient until that day comes. Until then I am constantly thinking of ideas, plans, goals, dreams, and working on the things that I am able to squeeze into the little free time that I have in my day-to-day, to keep building and growing the business, little by little.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
I never had plans of starting a business, in a way it happened very organically and perhaps with a stroke of luck. I didn’t have much money saved initially and really didn’t have any startup costs because my first product was made from the resources I already had, and my first sale was made online on Etsy, which I believe only costed me .20 cents to create my listing, I didn’t spend any money on advertising. So I listed and sold my first product on a bit of a whim just because I knew I had a solid, quality product that could potentially compete with large companies, so my thoughts were more or less “why not?” and “what have I got to lose?”. I knew the worst that could happen is it wouldn’t sell and I would go back to the drawing board, or just forget about the idea and move on with the rest of my life. But it did sell, and very quickly, so I decided to take that money and reinvest it to purchase more supplies so I could offer and sell more products. And this is the way I eventually funded my business and built capital, nearly out of nothing. My income earned from my business has always been re-invested back into the business, whether it be for more supplies, research and development of new products, advertising, to pay the electric bill for my work space, stickers for my customers, etc.. it all goes back in, since day 1. Whatever income goes unused is set aside and saved for larger, future business investments; for purposes of growth and expansion,
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fungicultureco.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fungicultureco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fungicultureco
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@fungicultureco/
- Other: www.spreadtheculture.org
Image Credits
Photographer: Bryan Dahmen Model: Taylor Sullivan Photos of self, captured by self (Eric Gauthier)