I just spent the entirety of my lifes savings on a mass order of mushroom protein bars.

This is how I got here.

Almost a year ago in October of 2023 I went on a month long trip to Eastern Europe.

Early in the trip, while hiking in the mountains of Slovenia, the idea of putting mushroom adaptogens into a protein bar suddenly popped into my head. I began daydreaming about all the possibilities for a company I would call Shroom Bar.

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve always come up with dumb business ideas that never lead anywhere. But for some reason, this idea wouldn’t go away, and it consumed my thoughts for the rest of the trip.

Throughout the trip I kept having the fear that this was going to be just one of those dumb business ideas , and I was going to forget about it when I got home.

I got back from Europe at the end of October and that was exactly what happened. I didn’t take any action in the next month in a half, and it was starting to become just one of my dumb ideas.

Then, on Christmas Eve, I got a little drunk at my parents’ house. After retreating to my bedroom, I started thinking about Shroom Bar again and wrote this in my journal:

“Okay so I think that the whole universe is pointing me toward pursuing this Shroom bar idea, I don’t know if it will succeed but i need to start this shit asap”

I then spent the next four hours coming up with this plan:

Step One: Find a Chef

Step Two: Make the bars in my own kitchen

Step Three: Make a bad ass logo

Step Four: Make bad ass packaging

Step Five: Find manufacturer to mass produce

Step One: Find a Chef

I of course knew absolutely nothing about making bars myself, so I had to find a qualified chef to make the recipe for me. I did a bunch of research over the next couple of days , called a bunch of different chefs, and eventually, I found a chef out of Beirut Lebanon who I really liked, so, we came to a deal which consisted of me paying her to make a recipe herself, making the bars in her kitchen, then sending me prototypes until I got the bars how I wanted.

Once I got the bars how I wanted; it was time to make them myself.

Step Two: Make the bars in my own kitchen

After the chef gave me instructions on how to make the bars myself, I ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of ingredients and cooking materials, and tried to make them in my kitchen.

I had no idea what I was doing, and the first batch was a total disaster.

By the fourth batch, I could actually make them start looking like protein bars, all the mushrooms inside made me feel amazing, and I started getting excited about the fact that this could actually work.

After a few more batches I became confident that I could consistently make the protein bars good, make them taste good, and make them make you feel good, and I started giving them out to a bunch of friends.

Step 3: Make a bad ass logo.

Creating the logo was surprisingly easy. It came to me while I was working on my third or fourth batch of bars. After eating one, I felt great—energized and creative with all the mushrooms in my system (Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Turkey Tail, and Reishi). As I headed to work that day, the image of a gorilla meditating, holding protein bars, popped into my head.

So, from there I did a bunch of research, talked to a bunch of different artists: found one and paid him to create a logo.

Step Four: Make bad ass packaging

This step was similar to designing the logo. I found an artist who could integrate it into a complete package design and make everything look great. Here’s the result.

Step Five: Find a manufacturer

This is where shit started to get real.

Everything up to this point took about 3 months, and I started looking for a manufacturer at the beginning of March 2024. This step was way harder than any of the previous steps.

At first I just started submitting quotes to a bunch of random manufacturers across the country, and eventually I found one that I deemed a good fit.

At first, I paid them several thousand dollars just to adapt the recipe for large-scale production. After that, we went through several rounds of prototypes to get the flavor just right.

The issue with this part of the process is every step took way longer than I was expecting. Originally I was hoping to have the bars completely ready to sell at the beginning of May, but by the time May rolled around, I hadn’t even confirmed the final prototype, and the timeline kept getting pushed back further and further.

I eventually confirmed the prototypes by the beginning of June, and at first I thought that was the end of everything, and I was going to be able to put in the final order, but of course way more goes into getting the bars on the market than I thought.

I had to pay for all sorts of different tests and services, and wait for them all to be completed.

All in all these extra steps cost me around $10,000 more than what I was expecting, and took the remainder of the summer.

It was finally time to place the order for the bars. I had already spent more than I’d budgeted, so I sold all my stocks, my Roth IRA savings, and my crypto. Even that wasn’t enough, so I had to take out a loan to cover the first batch, including all the packaging.

In short, I’m completely all in on this—so here’s hoping it works, lol.

The bars are set to be finished by the end of October. So, until then I have a website with presale available and I’m trying to get as many pre orders as possible before launch.

Let me know if anyone has any advice going forward or want to talk in general (:.