Meet These Mushroom Entrepreneurs

When is National Entrepreneurs Day?

On November 17, it’s National Entrepreneurs Day! It’s important to celebrate entrepreneurs. They bring innovation and creativity to everyday problems, working outside the box to solve some of society’s most challenging issues. Many entrepreneurs go through several failed attempts to launch a business before they find success. But great entrepreneurs know that failure is just part of the process, and they learn from every experience along the way. We will help you meet these mushroom entrepreneurs.

Some entrepreneurs are especially focused on fungi projects. Fungi have a variety of social, ecological, and nutritional benefits that make them very interesting topics for research. Ancient peoples have used mushrooms as medicinal and ritual tools for millennia. Modern peoples are just beginning to catch up to ancient knowledge, and scientists are applying all the modern scientific tools to demonstrate just how powerful mushrooms really are.

Important Fungi Entrepreneurs

Paul Stamets is one of the most well-known citizen scientists working on fungi projects. Based in Washington State, Stamets and his team are changing the world by cultivating and studying the effects of mushrooms. As an author, he writes about the role of mushrooms in healthy ecosystems and encourages people to incorporate the lessons of fungi into their daily lives.

You can find out more about Paul by watching Fantastic Fungi and you can see his great Joe Rogan appearance here:

“Citizen scientists all over the world can take action to be able to help bee colonies from collapsing,” Stamets explained. “Bees can pollinate up to a thousand flowers a day … Every almond you eat was visited by a bee.”

William Padilla Brown is one of the most active fungi entrepreneurs today. Brown is a mushroom researcher and farmer who grew up traveling and benefited from a non-traditional education. He runs a company devoted to studying mycoremediation and exploring the ways that mushrooms can be used for medicinal and food production purposes around the globe. Brown regularly leads workshops and contributes written content to major publications.

He told his story in Fantastic Fungi:

“I was a city kid, I just played video games. My parents never really took me on hikes or went outside. So finding mushrooms to me was like a spiritual journey.”

Finally, there are groups supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs. In our How To Support African American Farmers post, you can find ways to donate to organizations helping future leaders.

Citizen scientists are some of the most important entrepreneurs working today. You may not hear about them on Forbes or in The Wall Street Journal, but their work is changing the world one experiment at a time. Celebrate National Entrepreneurs Day by exploring the work of these fungi scientists today.

We hope after reading this article, you get a chance to meet these mushroom entrepreneurs!