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

Hi Zachary, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Even as a young child I always had a love for biology and animals or all types. It was not until my undergrad that I realized that I could persue Biology. It was not long after that I decided that I wanted to focus on reptiles specifically. Over time I began to love Biology more and more but during my Master’s degree I realized that the pressures of academia were not right fopr me and started to look for another outlet to share my love of Biology, Ecology and reptiles. Since over the years I had acquired several pet reptiles and spent a lot of time with them it was a natural fit to try and work with them to help teach others about these topics.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I mostly started doing education and outreach to help others appreciate the sciences and animals that I love so much already. I have done all sorts of presentations including reptiles in general, identifying venomous snakes and personalized presentations. I like to share information that is digestible and exciting at the same time while offering hands on opportunities to appreciate and understand the species I work with. In the past I have done a lot of presentations at parks, schools and birthday parties but I would love more opportunities to reach people that aren’t already interested in biology and reptiles. I love to hear people tell me how much I have changed the way they look at different species or ecosystems. I especially love when someone starts out afraid of an animal and by the end of the presentation can’t get enough of them.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I have actually found that I do best through word of mouth. I think that is in part because I don’t find much joy in marketing and have a tendency to put it off as a result. However, I think another big reason word of mouth is so effective is because you can really see how excited and passionate someone is when they have a great experience.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Unfortunately, this is still something of a side hustle and I don’t know if it is something that will ever turn into a full time career. While I would llove the opportunity to do outreach full time, I got into outreach because its something that I truly love to do and am passionate about eduacating others. It alomost feels like a responsibility and hobby to me more than a source of income. I think that no matter what I have going on, I will always want to help others to learn to appreciate the natural world around them

Contact Info:

• Website: exploringecology.net
• Instagram: instagram.com/exploringecology/