How NOT to run an Urban Mushroom Farm

Even though we had a lot of stress and anxiety, we still grew the business. In the spring of 2019 we had grown and sold more mushrooms than ever before. Moreover, we had created a great and ambitious plan for expansion and professionalisation. And we had found 2 new amazing people to join the Pad en Stoel team and make the expansion possible: Els and Isabel. 

Yet, before we started this plan, we took some well deserved rest. In the summer of 2019 we took some time for ourselves to replenish our reserves.

During that time, I started realising that I had been doing too much out of my comfort zone and that I wanted to do more of what I truly liked and enjoyed: Communication, vision, strategy and business development.  Moreover, I started distrusting the ambitious plan that we had made. I started distrusting the plan that we had put so much time and effort into. I didn’t believe we could do it.

I wanted to change the way I was involved with Pad en Stoel, but Bart realised he was completely fed up with doing Pad en Stoel, and wanted out. So instead of expanding, Els and Isabel would be replacing me and Bart in operations.

Joachim (the other founder) had a much tougher situation than Bart and me when it came to mistakes 3 & 4 (finances and social life), yet he also had mistake 5 to deal with. It caused a big deal of miscommunication and broken trust.

As a result, in full preparation for a new mushroom-autumn, Joachim went way too far out of his comfort zone, into the traumatic zone. Right at the beginning of the new mushroom-year he went into a burn-out, and fell into a depression. 

The engine of the Pad en Stoel bus had broken down, and it started rolling backwards down the hill. 

Although I wanted a different job-content, I did what needed to be done to stop the Pad en Stoel bus from running downhill. Together with Els and Isabel (the 2 new team members) we had to find a way to run Pad en Stoel without Joachim. Luckily, Els & Isabel were much more capable than we could have dreamed. They were the light in the darkness during these troubling times.

In November 2019, two months after the first crisis, Pad en Stoel seemed stable. Els and Isabel had done an amazing job of learning the mushroom business fast, giving it new ideas and spirit! Also Joachim was healing and would be back again soo, ready to start pushing the bus back into professional land.

It seemed like Pad en Stoel had overcome a great challenge.

One month after that, in December 2019, we had finished a new and more realistic business and financial plan with a lot of help from Philippe Poelaert. This new plan was based on all our numbers from 2 years of experience, from work hours and expenses, to all the good and bad production figures..

Andd…

Yeah…not much….actually,….

The financial plan was predicting a business that was….possible. With a lot of persistence and hard work we could get to a somewhat stable business in another 2-3 years. 

If we would have had this plan (and all the experience) in the beginning, when we still had lots of good energy and motivation, I’m pretty sure we would have done it.

Yet, we were not in the beginning. We were 2 exhausting years further down the line. We had made many mistakes and had suffered a lot.

And after 2 years like that, you want a happy ending. You want to see that all the effort and troubles had been for a reason.

Instead, what we saw was a lot more uncertainties and less-than-average chances for a decent financial return in the long term.

So by the end of december 2019, we felt that it was not worth it anymore to keep on pushing. We had given enough of ourselves and we had come to a point where we realised that self-respect is also an important part of life.

And that was it. With a lot of disappointment and heavy hearts, we made the difficult choice to pull the plug on Pad en Stoel.

There’s a lot of takeaways to this story. A lot!

We could have avoided or overcome all crisisses if we had done things differently. But they didn’t go differently. They went exactly as they went and we cannot turn back time. We can only learn from the mistakes:

1. Impulsivity has its benefits, but it can be damaging too. You need a decent amount of contemplation before leaping into an endeavor like this.
2. Find a healthy balance between building on what you know, and learning new things. 
3. Make sure the business doesn’t drain your personal finances, unless it’s an investment in that business.
4. Make sure you put enough focus on a healthy and stable personal life
5. It’s advisable to get consultancy from people with a lot of experience, even if that costs money

But there’s more. There’s a very personal lesson I want to add to this article.

In the toughest of times, when my body and soul were put under a lot of stress, I was shown many of my underlying emotional and psychological coping mechanisms. Some of them were cultural dogmas, some of them were rooted in childhood trauma. It doesn’t matter where they came from, it’s important to know that some were holding me back from living the life I wanted to live, and running the business I wanted to run.

Because all the above mistakes were fuelled by these dogmas or traumas, I learned a lot about myself. And although this undertaking feels like a failure, it has brought me an enormous amount self-awareness and insight.

Of course, the self-knowledge didn’t come instantaneous. After the downfall of Pad en Stoel it took me at least a year to heal from all of it. Now, February 2021, I can finally say that I am extremely grateful for all the mistakes, problems and crises that I went through with Pad en Stoel.

I also hope that next time that I meet someone that says: “You’re doing really amazing with your business”, that I can feel confident to accept the compliment.

I want to feel and believe that I am successful on the outside, because I am successful on the inside!

And I hope the same for you!

Muchos love

Zjef