Howdy Mycopreneurs,

Welcome to the Mycopreneur Newsletter - The big news this week is that I published my third article for the legendary High Times Magazine on Tuesday, using the opportunity bestowed upon me by the editor to highlight 15 unsung heroes of the global mushroom entrepreneurial space.

It was my third article for the legendary media brand, and I used the opportunity bestowed upon me by the editor to platform as many devoted mycopreneurs from as globalized a talent pool as I could possibly successfully manage. In many ways, this article is an extension of what the Mycopreneur brand is all about: Shine a light on the myco homies who are making a sizable impact through sheer vision, sturborness, and diligent execution with a bootstrapper ethos.

High Times was first founded in 1974 and is the most iconic and recognizable cannabis and psychedelics brand on the planet. Luminaries who have published their writing in the platform include Hunter S. Thompson, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski and Truman Capote among many others.

Here’s a little ‘Behind The Scenes’ on this legacy media brand and how this particular article came to be:

High Times was owned by Trans-High Corporation (THC) from 1974-2016. In 2017, High Times Holding Corp acquired Trans-High Corporation and it’s assets, including High Times Magazine. Over the next 7 years, a slow unraveling of the brand took place. High Times Holdings looked to capitalize upon the emergent legal cannabis industry and expanded from media into physical retail dispensary locations, as well as launching various other new ventures. They aimed to raise $50 million in an IPO (Initial Public Offering), yet managed to scratch together somewhere around $20 million.

During the course of their fundraising and new ownership strategy, according to a piece published on the platform yesterday, “Debts grew. Deals fell through. Mistakes were made.”

At this point, the government got involved - the DOJ, the SEC, and various lawsuits and investigations stemming from jilted investors all slammed the brakes on the expansion of the storied brand.

Of course all of this was generally unknown to people on the outside, including me. In the Summer of 2023 I was in Lisbon, Portugal when I got spontaneously introduced to the then editor at High Times. I was invited to pitch a rant for their W.E.I.R.D.O.S. column, and I wrote the whole text in about an hour on my phone while drinking vino verdes (green wine) in the historic Alfama District. To my surprise, that piece was published as is on the homepage of High Times within a week. Here it is below.

Shortly after my first piece for High Times went live, I pitched another one - a wrap summary of the first mushroom festival in India, which I spoke at in mid-September. This piece was also greenlit (pun intended), and published shortly thereafter.

But then almost immediately after it appeared, the High Times trail went cold for me. My next few pitches went unanswered. My invoices for the articles went unpaid. It was baffling given that the previous communications had been so direct and productive.

Behind the scenes, the end of the road for that particular era and ownership group of High Times was coming down the tube fast. The website went offline. The High Times social media went dark. By April of 2024, High Times Holdings entered Receivership, a process whereby a company and its assets are placed under the control of a court appointed insolvency practitioner to satisfy outstanding debts. High Times stopped publishing journalism for the first time since it launched in 1974, and it appeared that it’s substantial archive of journalism was lost to the void. I couldn’t even access my own articles I was never paid for to include them in my portfolio.

Then in July of 2010, a stroke of good fortune found the legacy brand: Josh Kesselman, the RAW rolling papers kingpin, purchased the intellectual property rights to High Times Magazine for $3.5 million, rescuing the core pillar of the brand from receivership. He announced his vision to restore High Times to its former glory, reclaiming the spirit of independence and community morale that the brand had lost to its profit-oriented corporate overlords throughout the past decade. And within weeks, High Times was publishing journalism again.

The acting ‘Editor-In-Keef’ that was appointed to oversee the journalistic arm of the next chapter of High Times is Javier Hasse, Co-founder and CEO of Spanish language cannabis journalism heavyweight El Planteo and contributor to Forbes, Benzinga, and numerous other publications. I know Javier from our mutual presence at various cannabis and psychedelic industry conferences and a number of mutual colleagues and friends - almost immediately, he told me it was time to get some myco content published in the new era of High Times.

From our sponsors: Speaking of legacy brands in the mushroom world, have you checked our Real Mushrooms yet? With over 40 years of experience and unmatched scale, Real Mushrooms has been a supported of the Mycopreneur platform for several years while continuing to produce the best extracts and supplements in the game:

Over the last few years, I’ve learned firsthand how responsive and expedient one has to be to be featured in a major publication.

For example, when I was contacted to place a quote in Forbes in 2023, I was literally on a bus in Borneo and asked to provide a quote about the meaning of Bicycle Day (4/19) for an article ASAP. Rather than trip over words and take my sweet time perfecting the analysis, I responded rapid fire and top of mind while furiously typing away with clumsy thumbs on my phone before we lost service en route to a remote jungle lodge to make sure I got my quote in before the deadline. The piece was published the next morning, and given the time zones it seems like I only had a window of 2 hours or so to have submitted the quote.

This kind of thing seems to happen a lot -

When I saw that the door was open to publish another article for High Times, I didn’t wait around. I pitched an article about Mycopreneurs across the world, got the green light, and went to town. I wrote it, rewrote it, and rewrote it again over the next4-5 hours. Then I submitted it at 1 am. It was the top article on the High Times website within 8 hours. The passing of Ozzy Osbourne later that day rightfully knocked me down in the queue given that High Times republished a magazine cover article featuring Ozzy from 1999.

My goal with this article was to platform as many unsung heroes from the global mushroom entrepreneur space as I could possibly get away with - in a growing industry filled with well-capitalized startups and entrepreneurs with flashy PR teams, so many essential contributors to the culture of mushroom entrepreneurship, advocacy, and research globally get completely overlooked despite decades of devotion to their craft and meaningful contributions to the space. Especially given my intent to represent mushroom entrepreneurs from all over the globe - the types of impact entrepreneurs who get zero press at all, let alone high profile press - I simply couldn’t fit even a fraction of the people I wanted to feature in this article.

What came out was a spotlight on 15 mushroom entrepreneurs from 8 countries on 5 continents - many of whom have been featured on the Mycopreneur Podcast as their first media exposure until this piece. 6 of the people featured have been present at the Mycopreneur Incubator, and the rest I’ve collaborated or worked with in various capacities on myco projects and interviewed over the last 5 years.

If you haven’t read it yet, here’s the article below.

Mycopreneur in Head Magazine

The day after the High Times piece went alive, I had another article published in an iconic counter-cultural media platform: Head Magazine was first launched in 1976, and continues to publish journalism to this day. It’s been awesome to help breathe new life into their storied legacy as well.

Mycopreneur Incubator

There are a lot more things happening right now, but we’ll close today’s newsletter with an invitation to today’s Mycopreneur Incubator. It’s our weekly mentorship and networking accelerator for mushroom entrepreneurs, researchers, advocates, and professionals around the world.

Time: Jul 24, 3:00 PM East Coast U.S. / 12 PM West Coast U.S.

Link to join zoom:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86178901823?pwd=A9QUnsbvSsnyBh7Vo7t4XnZGAhbmOO.1

Meeting ID: 861 7890 1823

Passcode: 204079

Please considering making a financial contribution in the amount of your choice if you plan on attending the Incubator, have benefitted from the service in the past, or generally want to support the 100% independent Mycopreneur platform -

PayPal: [email protected]

Hit me up in the replies here if you’d like to discuss sponsorship of this newsletter, the Incubator, or other ideas.

Thanks for reading and see you at the Incubator today -

DW