- Published on
From Dial-Up to Deep Roots: My Journey to Founding WeMush
- Authors
- Name
- Mark Beacom
- @mbeacom
Life has a funny way of leading you down paths you never expected. If you'd told me as a kid, growing up in a dilapidated house in a slum, literally an industrial park not fit for residential zoning, that I'd one day be an entrepreneur merging passions for high-tech and deep-earth fungi, I’d have been baffled. But the search for something solid, something to anchor to amidst the chaos, has been a constant thread in my life, leading me from the glow of a CRT monitor to the intricate world beneath our feet.
The First Sanctuary: Discovering Technology
Stability wasn't a given; our household income was low, my father a metal fabricator refusing handouts, meaning we often went without. Home life was frequently turbulent. But then there was my grandfather's computer, an old machine running Windows 3.1 and DOS. Later, my dad got a Compaq – a machine my mother bought on a Fingerhut credit account, a move that, while well-intentioned, added to our financial strains. For me, though, these machines were gateways.
Dialing into a BBS for the first time felt like stepping into a world of infinite possibilities.
It was a magical moment, an escape from the often-grim reality of playing in industrial parks, abandoned warehouses, and around biker bars. This burgeoning fascination with what technology could do lit a fire in me. I devoured everything I could. My elementary school self was so proud of my first handle, "TrenchClone." Watching "Pump up the Volume" only fueled that desire to explore, and reading about the exploits of Kevin Mitnick and Kevin Poulsen was intoxicating. I was hooked, religiously reading my 2600 Magazine.
Forging a Path: Resourcefulness and Early Hustles
This passion for tech became a lifeline, a way to make sense of the world and my place in it. It was the drive that led me to eagerly accept my first real IDE and compiler from my youngest sister when she started at Kettering University. It fueled my early attempts at programming, security, and yes, even cracking and phone phreaking – the "black hat/grey hat" side of things before those terms were mainstream. It wasn't just about mischief; it was about an insatiable curiosity to understand systems, to push boundaries. I remember the pride of writing my first article on acoustic couplers for a hacker forum, hardware I'd often scavenged or traded for, thanks to my dumpster diving finds like residential phone boxes and schematics.
This drive even translated into survival; I’d bring floppy disks to middle school breakfast to sell digital Pokémon card templates and unreleased graphics, just to make my own lunch money. I might have smelled like cigarettes and been seen as "odd," but I was learning, building, and surviving. My father would lose it over me "tying up the phone line," but I'd just find creative ways around his restrictions, often skipping school to pull down assets or build programs to cheat online games like Ultima Online and Tibia.
A Different Direction: Re-evaluation and Resolve
That intense, sometimes obsessive, focus on technology is what ultimately pulled me out of the ghetto. After my parents divorced, my mother moved us to another slum, but it was a step up, a place with slightly better influences, though gang activity was still rife. I knew how close I came to a different life, like many kids I grew up with who are now living incredibly hard lives.
The tragic loss of one of my closest childhood friends when we were still young—a victim of the destructive environment we were trying to escape—served as a brutal wake-up call.
His passing forced me to truly re-evaluate the dangerous path I was on and solidified my resolve to find a different way.
For me, technology, and the passion for learning and doing things that seemed impossible, became that way out.
Professional Ascent: Military, Education, and Enterprise Tech
This drive eventually propelled me to join the military. It was a stark shift, from a kid on the streets to an anti-tank specialist, a machine gunner on an M240B, and a Bradley gunner. But even there, my tech affinity found an outlet, and I eventually fell backwards into Information Assurance Security within my unit.
Each step, however unexpected, added layers to my understanding of systems, discipline, and solving complex problems under pressure.
After the military, this passion fueled my journey into professional IT, software engineering, co-founding a Web3 startup, and eventually to a role as a Senior DevOps Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS), working with large enterprises. Against the odds of nearly not graduating high school and having to transfer to a non-traditional school because I was working one or two full-time jobs since my sophomore year, I somehow managed to earn a Bachelor of Science degree and ultimately an Executive MBA.
Finding a New Anchor: The World of Mycology
But life, and the experiences within it – especially my time in the military and the trauma it brought – also carves out a need for healing and centering. There came a point when I found myself again searching for a way to ground myself, to find a different kind of connection. And that’s when I stumbled, quite unexpectedly, into the world of mycology.
I’ll be honest, I was never a huge fan of what I thought mushrooms were – basically, the button mushrooms from the grocery store. But discovering the sheer diversity, the ecological importance, the deep history, and the profound beauty of the fungal kingdom was like discovering another hidden, magical world, much like those BBSs of my youth. I started with growing hydroponic vegetables, using tech to monitor and control the environment. Then I found fungi.
It centered me in a way nothing else previously had.
There was a quiet magic to it, a connection to natural systems that was both grounding and exhilarating.
Full Circle: The Genesis of WeMush.com
The more I learned, the more I realized that my two great passions – technology and mycology – weren't so different. Both are about intricate networks, unseen potential, cycles of growth and decay, and the incredible results that can come from nurturing the right conditions. My tech background, honed through years of professional practice and relentless self-teaching, could bring so much to the world of mushroom cultivation, helping hobbyists and cultivators achieve better results, share knowledge, and build community.
And so, WeMush.com was born.
It’s more than just a platform; it’s the culmination of my journey. It’s about taking that early fascination with building and creating in the digital world – a fascination that literally saved me – and merging it with a deep respect for the natural world and its power to heal and connect. It’s about using technology to empower a community built around something as fundamental and fascinating as fungi.
My path has been anything but conventional. It’s been shaped by squalor and success, by delinquency and discipline, by code and by spores.
It’s been a journey of navigating dark tunnels, both literal and metaphorical, to find the light. Now, with WeMush.com, I hope to help others find their own passion, connection, and success in the amazing world of mycology. It’s a new chapter, but in many ways, it feels like I’ve been heading here all along.
What Are Your Thoughts?
- What part of this journey resonates with you the most?
- Have you found unexpected connections between your passions?
I'd love to hear your reflections in the comments below. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn or learn more about our mission at WeMush.com.