I have so much fun on ScaleUp Radio with my guests and I absolutely loved my conversation today with Zoe Henderson who is the founder of Fungtn – pronounced Function and Zoe explains the origins of the name. 

Zoe is just such a lively personality and really passionate about what she does. And this is such an unusual idea, it seemed it to me anyway, because Zoe is on a journey of creating a brand around an alcohol free craft beer that's brewed with functional mushrooms.

We talk about all different aspects of it, and the benefits of something called adaptogenic compounds that are found in functional mushrooms and how they work in line with the body's natural rhythms. But we had so much fun talking about this and then talking about the different parts of her journey so far. 

Zoey started her business during lockdown, self funded with a small startup loan and some credit cards. Zoey then successfully launched the product initially through direct to consumer sales and then expanding into retail and on-trade raising angel investment crowdfunding scaling the business now to 200 independent stockists in the UK and with distribution in the US and Canada. 

So some great success already, and we discuss all sorts of things like pricing point, market positioning, also things around the early stages of launching Fungtn including the importance for her focusing on DTC, partly driven by the changes around lockdown, but some key milestones around getting Planet Organic on board, the importance of LinkedIn to her.  All sorts of things that we discussed here is just action packed with benefits much like her drink, I think. so you're going to really enjoy this episode. so let's just go straight across and listen to the conversation with Zoe.

 

Zoe can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/zoey-henderson-b9848b9a

https://www.fungtn.com/

[email protected]

https://www.instagram.com/fungtn.brewing/

 

Resources:

Fantastic Fungi on Netflix - https://www.netflix.com/title/81183477

Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets - https://www.waterstones.com/book/mycelium-running/paul-stamets/9781580085793

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake - https://www.waterstones.com/book/entangled-life/merlin-sheldrake/9781784708276

The Mushroom Hour - https://www.welcometomushroomhour.com/blogs/podcasts

Mushroom Revival - https://www.mushroomrevival.com/blogs/podcast

Google Maps - https://www.google.co.uk/maps

 

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