12 lessons Entrepreneurs can learn from picking mushroom.
Picking mushroom makes you a better entrepreneur, it makes you realize some facts about entrepreneurship. But just in case you are not really into this type of hobbies, let me sum for you what you should learn.
The 12 Lessons Entrepreneurs can learn:
1. Patience:
Finding edible mushroom needs patience, the same applies to launching a start-up or starting a business.
Don’t expect to fill your basket in 30 minutes, sometimes it happens but often you’ll need to spend a couple hours to return with a descent bounty!
Building a business needs a lot of patience as well, expecting immediate success is naive for both traditional businesses and start-ups.
2. Good observation:
Needless to say, you’ll need to have a good observation to find your target species.
Business wise a good observation is not only essential to keep track of competitors but also to understand the needs of your customers or users.
3. Keep an eye on the big picture but focus when needed:
Finding mushrooms requires a continuous scan of the surface around you, Pro tip: when you look around you scanning for the fungi, go for the medium and medium-long type of scanning, it allows you to have a higher detection and discovery rate. But when you are in an area where you expect to find the mushrooms, switch to focused scanning.
In business you should be able to see the big picture while not forgetting to focus on details when needed.
4. Go where others didn’t – innovate:
One of the best ways to find plenty of mushrooms is to go where others didn’t, and sometimes that requires going through heavy bushes or difficult to access places, few to no mushrooms were picked in these specific regions, this way you will pick more due to the higher concentration.
Business wise, don’t be afraid to innovate or think outside of the box , when you innovate you have less to no competition, and thus you can have a higher probability of success!
5. Know your product :
I can tell you know your product as if your life depended on it, and in this case it literally does! Picking the wrong mushrooms can send you to the emergencies or even to your grave! Know the types and looks of edible mushroom in your region before venturing, as many mushroom look very similar, and what might be edible in one country can have a similar poisonous cousin in another country!
Business wise don’t venture outside your zone before knowing exactly what to expect and doing an extensive market research!
6. Opportunities can be found in nearby area:
When you are picking the mushroom you’ll often find one then find few others near it.
Business wise make sure to take advantage of most opportunities in a specific and nearby areas, for example when you are selling soda cans, you can easily sell chips and gum as well!
7. Stop frequently and look around:
You just can’t pick mushrooms while walking all the time, you need to frequently stop and look around you, more than half of what you would pick are the result of these pauses!
Running a business require every CEO, business owner and founder to stop from time to time to find ways to expand the business.
8. Follow your intuition:
Each mushroom have a specific set of conditions that it prefers, with experience you start to know where to expect each to be found, even if others tell you this is not a good place for finding mushroom, if your intuition or experience tells you otherwise, you should ignore the naysayers as they often have no idea about what they are saying!
Business wise, your path is filled with people that tells you it’s not possible, or that’s not the way we do it, or we have always done it this way … You just have to follow your intuition if you have previous experience or reasons to believe otherwise!
9. Avoid getting lost:
Unless you are picking mushroom in a small forest, there’s a possibility of getting lost, mostly due to focusing on the picking and forgetting to keep an eye on the road.
Entrepreneurs should try to analyze their business and do major changes when necessary, especially when businesses grow and getting lost in the management details becomes a possibility.
10. Stay connected with your group:
Going mushrooming solo is different than going with another person or with a group, especially when it is a big forest, you’ll have to call one another every few minutes and stay close to one another geographically.
As an Entrepreneur it is very important to stay connected with the co-founders and top managers, management going in different direction means certain failure to any company.
11. You should love it:
If it’s not your hobby, you will probably quit doing this when the first scarcity appear.
Doing what you love is essential in business too, because time will come when you have many obstacles and unless you fight for your company it will fail.
12. Investment of your time:
Like mushrooming, entrepreneurship is not for everyone, if you enjoy it you will probably like doing it, otherwise you would most likely invest your time in what appeal to you more.
