My Trip to Vegas: What I learned

Mar 5

A Business Trip with a Twist

Usually, when someone goes to Las Vegas, it’s to have fun. My trip to Vegas instead was a business trip. On top of that the reason I was in Vegas was for the North American Mushroom Conference. I was going in place of a friend, who couldn’t attend (so my hotel and flight were paid for), and what I needed to do was learn about the shiitake mushroom market in the US.

First of all, I do not even like mushrooms, but I took the event as a chance to talk to CEO’s and entrepreneurs as my way of testing whether entrepreneurship is right for me. So, as I was learning about the shiitake mushroom market in the US, I was also talking to leaders of businesses asking them about their jobs. The experience overall was very positive, I took away a lot from the conference (which I will discuss), although the conference was mostly about the science of growing white button mushrooms.

Shiitake Vs. White Button Mushrooms

For those who do not know, shiitake mushrooms are often grown in sealed bags with an air filter, and shiitake mushroom fungus grows on hardwood. White button mushrooms on the other hand grow best in compost, the details of which I will not bore you with today. The key is that white button mushrooms consist 95% of American’s yearly mushroom purchases. The rest of the of the 5% is are called specialty mushrooms, which includes shiitake as well. So, there is not alot of demand of shiitake in the US which is a problem for my good friend, a Chinese producer of shiitake mushrooms.

My Friend’s Visa Denial

An an aside, my friend could not attend the conference because his temporary visa was denied. I do not know, what the US policies are on temporary visas, but it is apparent to me that based on what is going on at the US-Mexico boarder and the discrepancies that exist there should complete reform to how the US handles immigration across the board.

The Verdict for my Chinese Friend

Back to the convention, because there is not a lot of demand for shiitake in the US it makes it hard for my friend to find buyers of his product in the US. This is explained by a large amount of production of shiitake mushrooms around the world as it is the most popular mushroom in the world. In other words, there is a lot of supply, but not much demand relatively in the US. Additionally, the US disfavors Chinese grown products and favors home grown products which also puts him at a disadvantage. So, what I told my friend about the US market for his purposes was mostly bad news.

My Chinese friend is my closest friend and because of that we trust each other. He told me his situation about his visa getting denied and I offered to help him. That’s what led to this trip. He wanted me to be his US business partner, which I was intrigued because he does have a good product (he really produces Japanese shiitake mushrooms in China through the Japanese technology that he has and know-how). Although, I am just not interested in mushrooms, which I told him after the convention.

Next I will talk my experience getting to, staying in, and traveling from Vegas.

My Journey to Vegas

My trip began at the Columbus Metropolitan Airport, and because my friend was paying for the flight, he booked the cheapest flight available which was with Sprit Airlines. I wouldn’t recommend Spirit Airlines because they are not as cheap as they try to appear to be, which my friend did not understand, they expensively surcharge for bags and seats which make the ticket on par with their competitors. I ended up having to pick up the tab for the bag and seats, I was upset at first, but I decided to let it go.

When I got to the Spirit Airlines kiosk to print out my boarding pass and to check my bag I was minding my own business until I realized a man was asking for my help. He did not speak english well, and he likely did not read the best either but he explained that he was trying to make it to Los Angeles and he needed to first fly to Las Vegas. Fortunate for him, I was also going to Las Vegas but I really could not figure out what he wanted me to do for him because I did not understand him to well. I printed out my own boarding pass, and he pointed to my pass and then I understood. So, I helped him print out his boarding pass and he went on ahead to TSA while I checked my bag.

Afterwards, I went through TSA and began waiting for my flight. Before I boarded, the man from before asked me about how boarding worked, I explained he was on the last group to board, but funny enough he just followed me on to the plane (I was on the second group to board), but no one said anything. That was the last I saw of him.

On the Airplane, the seating is more cramped on Spirit. On top of that things like water, drinks, and snacks are expensive. I am reminded of the AT&T commercial where the woman complains that she has to pay for water, she must of been on a Spirit Airlines flight.

When I got to Vegas, I made it to the shuttle bus to the rental car facility after eating and getting my luggage. My friend was not paying for a rental car, as he wanted me to pay for taxi to take me from the Vegas Airport, to my hotel, and to pay for a taxi for back and forth from the hotel and the convention. Despite the flaws with this idea, I decided to at least calculate it to see how much it would cost, and it would be much cheaper to buy a Hertz rental car at 20% percent off (I have AAA) than getting Ubers back forth from the hotel and convention. Not to mention the tips that would be included as well. Plus, I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if I wanted to. The rental car cost around $240 for 5 days, so it was definitely the best option.

After getting on the shuttle bus, I had to wait awhile before getting to the the facility because of traffic, and as I quickly learned, driving in Vegas can be crazy. At Hertz, I had a choice of several rental SUV’s I could pick, but I decided I would try something different and drive the 2023 Nissan Rogue. I was pleasantly surprised by this car and driving it was a highlight of my trip because this was my first time getting my own rental. I found its safety features really helpful, like its blind spot detection and its lane departure warnings. The only thing I thought was weird was the gearshift, which took sometime to figure how to use it to switch into reverse, and it was not what I was used to driving.

When I got onto the road, the first thing I noticed about Vegas was just how many hotels there were and the flashing lights. There were lights everywhere. Traffic was not good either, I was thought I was going hit someone because I was so distracted. After making, a wrong turn I eventually made to my hotel which was the La Quinta Inn. Overall, this La Quinta Inn wasn’t bad. but would have much rather been at the JW Marriot that the convention was held at.

I finally made it to my room, and there was a nice sized work desk in there (which is not always something rooms have) and the room was nice sized for around 100 dollars per night. I was pretty tired, so I went to sleep pretty early around 9 PM.

The Conference Days 1-5

The first day I woke up at 6:00 AM to get ready for the conference. I got to the conference by 7:30 AM for breakfast. Every conference day began with breakfast provided by the Marriot hotel. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day so, I enjoyed it. A breakfast with bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns is my short of thing. After breakfast, there was an introduction and then there was the first speaker of the day, a professor from Penn State University. As it turns, out Pennsylvania is the mushroom capital of the world, and I just happened to be sitting with a bunch of people from Penn State as well. This professor discussed the cancer fighting properties of white button mushrooms, like I mentioned before, it is the most popular mushroom in the US. I don’t remember much else from that day as far as presentations go because it was mostly technical stuff about white button mushrooms, which I was not there to learn about.

One notable thing about the convention was that they fed you three square meals a day so even if I left the convention to skip parts that were going to bore me to death, I would make it back for lunch and the usually had a meal at the end of the day too.

I really learned everything I needed to know for my friend on the first day. I talked to some individuals from different US mushroom companies small and large and although it was understood my friend may have a differentiated product, the demand for it may not exist in America. I talked to one man in particular, a CEO of a small specialty mushroom producer based in San Fransisco. I had long conversation with this CEO about some of the obstacles he faces as a smaller US producer, and the two problems that were notable were the difficulty of selling spawn to farmers domestically, and the amount offers he gets from Chinese producers about wholesaling their shiitake mushrooms in the United States. The problem is he has nobody to sell them to. It was clear to me that my Chinese friend would have the same problem.

You might be wondering, what exactly is shiitake mushroom spawn. Simply put, a producer like my friend would take wood chips sterilize them but them in a bag with a filter put the mushroom spore or seed in the bag which has all the nutrients it needs to grow. The fungus develops a network within the wood chips called mycelium that is fully cultivated in about 90 days. Then it will began to develop mushrooms which are called the fruiting body. So spawn are mycelium mixed with wood substrate called a log and is what the mushrooms grow out of, hence the name, and that is a quick overview of what spawn is.

The rest of the convention went the same way but there were three highlights of the convention which for me made it worth attending.

The Agriculture Tech CEO I talked to.
The company Evocative’s presentation.
Ron Jonwarski’s presentation (JAWS).

If I were to summarize all of it for you. First, I was impressed with how young the Ag Tech CEO as he was not much older than I was. His journey was interesting because he was a music major and then he got an MBA. I was able to pick his brain about some of the difficult aspects of his job, and was able to better understand what I am getting into if I decide on entrepreneurship as a career path. One thing, I noticed about him was his personality, he had a very strong personality and although I am not sure I would want to work for him, he was the type of person who was a natural leader. Now, that doesn’t make him a great CEO automatically because it is a complex job, but I thought he had some good traits of someone who runs a company. I won’t get into details about his company, but his company has a product in the area of synthetic biology that could be applicable to multiple crops.

Second, I was impressed with Ecovative, and I see how they recently received a 100 million dollars worth of funding. I did not know that someone had engineered a composite material out of mycelium (the stuff that mushrooms grow from). One of the co-founders of the company gave the company’s presentation and he give the best delivery of any presentation of the conference, and is the kind of person who can create inspire confidence just through his ability to communicate. I think the word I am thinking of is gripping, it was a gripping presentation and and it made the third day of the convention the best in my opinion.

Third, I found Ron Jonwarski’s presentation enlightening. His message was simple, he had seven must haves for a winning team. If I were to sum up the several points, it would be to keep your plans as simple as possible as a company, because it boils down how well you excecute the plan at the end of the day. He illustrated, his points with great stories and I appeciated his wisdom and will apply what I learned from him in my own life. By the way Jonwarski was a QB in the NFL for 17 years and played for the Philadelphia Eagles 10 years. He was also an ESPN football analyst for a long time as well, which I remember watching.

I ended up skipping the end of convention cocktail party to get a 86th Street Square Pie from Metro pizza. Well, I went to the party but then I b-lined out of there because I realized it was just people who all ready knew each other drinking, and no real food. I do not drink anyway. Anyway, I kind of liked the pizza, but unfortunately mine was badly made so it took away from the experience.

I had late flight the next day back to Columbus, so I had a whole day after the convention to myself.

My Last Day

If you wanted to learn about what I actually think about Vegas you are in the right section.

By my last day a few things had happened outside the convention. One thing I realized about the Vegas is that it is a crazy place.

Why do I say that?

Well, on one occasion when I driving out from the Marriot to go back to my hotel, I witnessed a car accident occur right in front of me. This young man was almost T-Boned when he was turning. The next thing I saw was the man get out of his car holding is wrist which looked dislocated or broken to me. He clearly was in pain and needed help, but people drove by him like nothing happened. I had to make U-turn because the two cars were blocking my left turn completely. It’s crazy, the whole reason I was on the road in the first place was to get air in my tire which had gotten very low over night. Nevertheless, I had to turn around and head back to intersection the accident happened in turn right, I did ask the dude if he was alright which he then shook his head. I honestly just wanted to let him know that somebody cared. Ohio, is significantly different than Vegas in how the people treat each other, but Vegas does fall in line with what I have experienced in the West Coast and the biggest cities about the people being colder and more detached. I then went on my way to find air, and lost more air than anything. Thankfully, AAA helped me out and filled my tire with air in which the mechanic said “at stations around here they’ll take out more air than what they put in”.

My flight my last day was at 11:30 PM, so I had some time to kill. I began my day by waking up pretty early and going to this place called Yolks and Stacks for breakfast. The had some of the best French Toast I have ever had, it was called the churro french toast which basically french toast covered in cinnamon and sugar.

The rest of the day was me just trying to kill time and have some fun. I thought visiting the botanical gardens was a good idea, but it turned out that you likely needed to be staying in one of the hotels on the strip to see the gardens. I went shopping instead, and tried to see a 5 dollar Oppenheimer movie. The movie ended up being canceled due to technical difficulties, which is something I have never had happen to me before. After I left AMC theatre, I ended up at the Las Vegas South Premium Outlets. I went to Nike Outlet Store mainly, and did some looking around. Everything in the outlet store is pretty cheap so I found I couple of steals I took home with me.

My Journey Home

To begin my trip home, I had to return my rental to Hertz which was a seemless process. When I eventually went to check my bag, I realized that Sprit has self-check in for bags. Basically, you are not dealing with a person which was a first for me. It actually took longer, plus I was there too early and the system would let me do anything. Fortunately, I only had to wait 20 minutes to check my bag in. The rest of my time at the Las Vegas Airport was just waiting. The flight home back had a lot of turbulence, but it was otherwise uneventful. Although, the there was even less space for seats in the airplane than the first flight which was crazy.

Overall, I learned that sometimes there can be blessings hidden in places you wouldn’t expect. In fact, I got a good business idea out of the convention.

Of course, it is not related to growing mushrooms.

Justin Stoner