We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nico Spadafora. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nico below.

Nico, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Fossil Team was, and still is, a giant undertaking. When I was younger, I always wanted to be a paleontologist. I knew early on I wanted to make it my career. I was given a small collection of bones and fossils by my dad. I loved them so much that I wanted to share them with others. As my collection grew slowly, I decided that making it more accessible would not only increase the amount I got to do it, but it would help achieve my goal of opening up a natural history museum of my own.

But is it worth it? Absolutely.
I don’t know if Fossil Team will ever get to the point I dream of it getting to, but being able to teach paleontology through online classes, in person presentations, and grow my little childhood collection into a full on museum set up has been an honor and a privilege in my life, and I am thankful for all the opportunities I have had to grow the business and myself.

Nico, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Fossil Team is a education company that teaches the public about the ancient past, present, and even the future. Through the use of ancient fossils and modern animal bones, we talk about life, what it was, what it is, and what it could be. Through our classes and presentations, you will learn about ecology, paleontology, geology, biology, theories, and evolution with fun and interactive lessons taught by passionate and engaging teachers.

I personally specialize in dinosaurs and ancient mammals such as mammoths and sabretooth cats. I teach a month long online class all about the age of dinosaurs from their humble beginnings to their dramatic end, as well as their surprising continuation!

We also have an online store where all the proceeds from the merch you can buy go right back into helping Fossil Team achieve it’s goals. In fact, all proceeds in general go towards our goal of opening up a natural history museum! All “staff” including myself, are volunteers!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Fossil Team’s start was and basically still is funded out of our own pockets. Now that we have our classes and small amount of retail, we are able to add a bit more to the revenue, but starting the business was funded through working other jobs, birthday and holiday gifts from friends and family, and even finding some specimens while out in the field tracking and exploring. We have not taken out loans or borrowed from anyone, it was all perseverance, passion, and a fantastic community of support that got it going!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

There was a major change in how we ran fossil team about 2 years ago when we decided to focus on it more. When I originally started the business, it was more of a passion project, just to see where it would go. After a while, I had an amazing opportunity to really grow fossil team and give it the attention it deserved, and so that lead into making a website and producing some merch and more actively travelling to schools and shows to lecture. It has been a crazy ride ever since and we are not done yet!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fossilteam.com
• Instagram: the.fossil.teampdx
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the.fossil.teamPDX/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-spadafora-b10022b5
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheFossilTeam