What if a spare closet could turn into a farm, a warehouse, and 70 acres of land?

That’s roughly the path Kyle Beaver took. Kyle runs Ten Mile Mushrooms in rural Pennsylvania, along with Pro Grow Club, and he grows gourmet and medicinal mushrooms like oyster, lion’s mane, and reishi.

Before mushrooms, Kyle spent two years working state fairs in Pennsylvania, selling stuffed pretzels out of a food truck.

Watching people drive 3 hours for a pretzel taught him what he wanted in his own business: something niche, something nobody nearby was doing, and something he could run in a very small space.

A Google search for businesses you can run in a small space led him to a mushroom growing page from the UK. Almost 10 years later, that search has turned into a multi-six-figure operation.

Tune in to Episode 753 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

• how to start growing gourmet mushrooms for $300
• where to sell mushrooms and what they’re worth per pound
• how a $1,000/year farm can unlock a $600,000 land loan

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How Kyle Found the Mushroom Business Idea

Kyle wasn’t searching for mushrooms. He was searching for businesses he could run in a small amount of space.

The UK page he found broke down how much money you could earn per square meter each year. That got his attention. So did the fact that nobody in his area was growing these mushrooms.

He checked local farmers markets and found no competitors. Even the large supermarkets near him still don’t carry gourmet mushrooms today.

Kyle grows wood-loving species, the kind you’d find in the wild. That includes:

• oyster
• lion’s mane
• reishi
• other medicinal types showing up in mushroom coffee

“Nobody’s doing this in the area. I haven’t even heard of these mushrooms,” he said.

What It Costs to Start a Mushroom Growing Side Hustle

Less than almost any other agricultural business.

• Kyle’s actual startup cost: $300 – straw and poly tubing, oyster mushrooms grown in a spare room with no fans or coolers
• Farmers market setup: $200-300 – a tent, table, cash box, and a small business insurance policy (typically $1M, and cheap)
• A full grow-and-sell setup: a couple thousand dollars

He had no money and no credit when he started.

His advice is to get a few grows under your belt before building out a real grow room — a closet, spare room, or front porch is genuinely enough to begin.

How Much Money Can You Make Growing Mushrooms?

The grow tent behind Kyle on our call is 4 square feet. It produces 16 pounds of mushrooms every two weeks — and it doesn’t have a shelf in it yet.

• Farmers market retail: $24–$30 per pound fresh, sold in half- and quarter-pound packs
• Wholesale to restaurants: $10–$12 per pound, roughly half the margin
• Per grow block: a $10 block yields 2–4 pounds, producing $60–$80 of retail revenue

That’s north of 75% gross margin on cost of goods.

For comparison, Kyle cites industry figures showing an acre of corn nets negative $150.

Specialty mushrooms are one of the few crops where a genuinely small farm still clears a living.

Understanding Flushes and Yields

Grow blocks usually give 2 to 3 good flushes, or rounds of growth. The first flush is always the biggest.

Most commercial growers only take that first flush. After harvesting, you’d wait another two weeks before seeing any new growth, which creates a traffic jam in a small grow room.

If space is tight, there’s still a use for spent blocks. Bury them in the garden and you can get another pound or two.

Kyle also warned about the “infinite mushroom hack” you’ll see online, where you regrow mushrooms from scraps over and over.

Mushrooms get genetically weaker each time you do this. Commercial growers start fresh every week instead, which is how Kyle can count on 50 pounds a week.

Where to Sell Mushrooms: 4 Sales Channels

For a small mushroom farm, there are four main outlets:

• Farmers markets – the highest price per pound
• CSAs – subscription boxes for local produce
• Direct to customer – online sales of kits, dried mushrooms, and tinctures
• Wholesale – restaurants and other buyers

Farmers markets are where things took off for Kyle. Shoppers walk past table after table of familiar vegetables, then stop when they see something they’ve never seen before.

Kyle has never run his own CSA, but he’s been part of several. A mushroom-only CSA is tough, so it works better to team up with other farmers and offer a full box.

Why Selling Grow Blocks Beats Selling Mushrooms

Kyle’s revenue didn’t scale from mushrooms. It scaled from what he built around them.

• Tinctures came first – a $45 jar that sells instantly once customers hear it’s made in-house
• Dried mushrooms followed
• Grow blocks turned out to be more profitable than the fresh product

The real inflection point came a couple years into farmers markets, when another farm asked him to supply ready-to-fruit blocks in bulk.

That one request changed the trajectory.

He now ships starter blocks to small farms across the country — filling a supply gap Kyle didn’t know existed until somebody asked him to fill it.

How a Small Farm Can Unlock a USDA Land Loan

To be considered a farm, you need to:

• Sell $1,000 of agricultural products a year
• Register an LLC as a farm and show income
• After 3 years of tax returns, apply for a USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher loan through the Farm Service Agency
• Up to $600,000, zero down, very low interest

Kyle’s loan financed an 8,000 square foot warehouse and a 70-acre homestead at 3% interest — $1,900 a month. A conventional raw land loan runs 8–12%.

Mushrooms also qualify as urban farming, which sidesteps most state acreage requirements.

Agritourism and Airbnb: Making Farmland Pay for Itself

A handful of bookings a month covers Kyle’s entire $1,900 loan payment.

Current and planned listings:

• An Airstream-style trailer – the first unit
• A small camper out back
• A second-story apartment inside the warehouse itself
• A cabin under construction, bought cheap from a nearby amusement park campground

Location does much of the work. He’s 12 minutes from an amusement park, beside a UTV and four-wheeler riding area, and on the edge of Pennsylvania’s coal region — where land dilapidated by mining now draws quad riders.

The standard rule of thumb for short-term rentals: within an hour of a metro, 30 minutes of a regional destination, close enough to town to hire cleaners.

This connects to Episode 686 with Garrett Brown, the land hacking episode I recommend if this idea appeals to you.

How to Find Grants for a Small Farm

Grants have become a major revenue source. Kyle said they’ve been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars for the coming year.

One pending research grant could cover his salary and every employee’s salary for a year. He expects grant projects to nearly double revenue in 2027.

One catch: many grants are reimbursement-based. You spend first, submit receipts, and get paid back, so you need some cushion.

Here’s where Kyle looks:

• grants.gov – the biggest source for federal grants, though not the easiest site to use
• SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) – offices in all four corners of the country, with at least four grants a year that apply to most farmers
• Farm Service Agency and your local USDA office – once they know you, they’ll send opportunities directly. Kyle got a $15,000 marketing grant with a one-page application
• sam.gov — the government registration side of the process
• Local business development groups — Kyle’s is called SEDA CoG, and most areas have something similar with state or city grants for small farms

Tools/Tech

• AI tools – Kyle uses AI for grant research and for creating application materials. He says it’s easily doubled how many grants they can apply for
• Content Creator MACHINE – the all-in-one platform Kyle uses to post social media, run email marketing, build funnels, and manage customers as a CRM
• Go High Level and Pablo – similar all-in-one platforms Kyle mentioned
• YouTube – Kyle credits it with teaching him how to build his entire farm and fix nearly everything on it
• Grow fans and growing tech – makes the day-to-day operation of a grow room easier

A Day in the Life

Kyle is in the middle of stepping out of the operator role and into the owner role. They now have a manager and people in set positions.

Much of his day is spent talking with the other small farms his business supplies across the country, troubleshooting and walking growers through problems.

His mornings start at 5 a.m. with the gym, then email and computer work. Around 8 a.m. the crew arrives, and about ten minutes later something breaks.

“So then I’ll become a mechanic or a welder for an hour,” he said. You can also find him at @GrowMushMore on YouTube.

Mistakes or Surprises?

Kyle’s biggest surprise wasn’t about money. He set out to become a business owner and ended up passionate about ecology and small agriculture.

He didn’t expect the community either. Kyle was a lone wolf for years before realizing he needed mentors and people who had walked the path ahead of him.

He also sees where new growers get stuck, and it isn’t the growing. Mushrooms are fairly easy to grow, especially if you buy blocks from a supplier.

“A lot of folks are just getting tripped up at the we need to actually sell these things,” he said.

Sales and marketing is the skill that decides whether a mushroom farm works.

What’s Next for Kyle?

Kyle is focused on Pro Grow Club, the monthly grow kit program at progrowclub.com. Surveys from the past year showed that most of his audience are complete beginners who’ve never heard of these mushrooms.

He also runs a program called Farm Launch, which helps people start a profitable mushroom farm within six weeks.

He expects that within three years there will be success stories of people who started with one or two blocks in a closet and went on to buy their own property.

Kyle’s #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Don’t be afraid to try.”

Episode Links

• Ten Mile Mushrooms
• Pro Grow Club
• Farm Launch
• USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher loan
• Grants.gov
• SARE
• Farm Service Agency and your local USDA office
• Sam.gov
• SEDA CoG
• Content Creator MACHINE
• Go High Level
• Pablo
• @GrowMushMore on YouTube
• Episode 744: $0 to $100K in Year One: How This Anti-Inflammatory Coffee Brand Did It
• Episode 686: Waiter to Glamping Millionaire: How to Build a Six-Figure Luxury Camping Business with Garrett Brown

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

• Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
• Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
• Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.

Getting paid to eat at restaurants, tour apartments, and run your car through the wash 20 times in an afternoon? That’s mystery shopping — a $2 billion industry most people have never heard of.

Mercedes Eckert has been doing it for 13 years and has helped over 25,000 shoppers get started through her company, iShopAGP.com.

Her personal best: $600 in a single day without getting out of the car. 

She also runs ShopQuest, a free site where you can browse mystery shopper jobs in your city.

Tune into Episode 752 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

• how mystery shoppers actually get paid
• how to stack jobs together into a $600 day
• the common scams to watch out for

Sponsors

• Quo (formerly OpenPhone) — Try it for free!

• Shopify — Sign up for a $1 per month trial!

• Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

• Wealthfront — Start earning up to 4.30% variable APY today! Terms and conditions apply.

• Monarch — Get an extended 30-day free trial!

How Much Money Can You Make Mystery Shopping?

One of Mercedes’s shoppers recently did a few apartment mystery shops and made $850 in less than two days. She toured units as a fake renter and rated the leasing agent.

Based on iShop’s data, side hustlers average $200 to $500 a week. You’re paid by the job, not the hour. Mercedes’s best day was $600. Her easiest shop paid $300 for 30 minutes of taking screenshots on her couch.

If you want an hourly number, the low end is around $25 to $40.

Can You Do It Full Time?

Yes. Mercedes knows one shopper who makes over six figures a year doing this full time. Another shopper made $65,000 and change in 2025.

Most people fit it around a job, though. They shop after work or on their days off.

Who Hires Mystery Shoppers and Why

Big companies want to know what is happening in their stores from a real customer’s point of view. They cannot be everywhere at once, so they hire it out.

That feedback gets used in a lot of ways:

• Updating the training manual
• Hiring more staff
• Sometimes letting staff go

Mercedes says the goal is usually coaching, not firing.

One thing to know: the brand does not hire you directly.

Companies outsource their mystery shopping programs to separate companies called providers. You contract with the provider.

That means you are not going to roll up to Target and hand the manager a business card.

How to Find Legit Mystery Shopping Jobs

There are somewhere between 100 and 150 provider companies out there. You can research them yourself, or you can go through a mystery shopping organization that trains you and connects you with partners they have already vetted.

Once you are contracted with a provider, you can start picking up shops the same day.

Mercedes named Reality Based Group as a good one to look at. But she says the “best” provider changes depending on what you want to do.

Every provider has its own set of clients. One might specialize in the auto industry, with car dealerships and mechanic shops.

Another might be loaded with food shops — fast food, casual dining, fine dining. After a few shops, you will figure out what you like and which companies have it.

iShop, MSPA, and What an Organization Actually Does

I had signed up with MSPA (Mystery Shopping Providers Association) years ago and assumed it was some kind of industry certification.

Mercedes explained that iShop does essentially the same thing MSPA does. They are just newer.

Neither one is a provider. They are recruiters and trainers.

They give you a home base, train you, and connect you with legitimate companies. Most mystery shoppers are with one or the other.

Do Not Sign Up With 100 Companies at Once

New shoppers often want to see every single shop available. Mercedes says slow down.

Start with a handful, learn the ropes, then expand.

Signing up with 150 providers at once is like signing up for DoorDash 150 times. You will just get overwhelmed.

Skip the Apps, Go to the Websites

Mercedes does not send new shoppers to apps. There are a few mystery shopping apps, but they are third parties, not the actual providers.

Go to each provider’s website instead.

On an app, you will not see everything that is available, and what you do see tends to be the lower paying shops.

What Is Route Shopping?

Route shopping is how shoppers make the big money. You pick a day, string together several shops, and knock them out in one trip.

You can do the same type of shop at 5 different locations. Or you can mix it up, which is what Mercedes likes to do.

She would line up a few apartment shops, then drop a breakfast shop and a lunch shop in between so her meals were covered. Then she would add a gas station shop so her gas was covered too.

The important part: you build the route yourself. It does not come as a package. You can pull shops from several different companies into one day.

What the Work Actually Looks Like

One of Mercedes’s favorite routes was car washes. One day a month, she would go out and get her car washed about 20 times. She never even got out of the car. She made $600 and was home in time for dinner with her kids.

Each shop meant:

• getting the wash
• noting the name of the employee who greeted her
• snapping a few photos inside the car wash
• and filling out the report

The report usually took her under 15 minutes.

You can do reports from your phone, but Mercedes prefers a laptop. It is cleaner, there is more room on the screen, and she is not getting notifications while she types.

Most reports are questionnaires. Some ask for a written narrative in complete sentences, which trips up more people than you’d think.

Also, you almost never need a disguise. Providers use rotation instead, meaning a shop you do this month may be locked to you for 30 days.

Do You Have to Pay Out of Pocket?

Mercedes says sometimes. A car wash, restaurant, or movie theater can’t be judged unless you’re a paying customer. You pay up front and get reimbursed on payday.

Plenty of shops require nothing, while apartment shops are the best example — you tour, evaluate, and spend nothing.

Pay schedules vary by provider, and PayPal is the most common method.

Mystery Shopping vs. Merchandising

I tested an app called Hetal, where the job was to go to Target and scan the aisles.

One assignment covered about 65 aisles and took roughly an hour and 45 minutes. It worked out to about $20 an hour.

Mercedes pointed out that this is technically merchandising, not mystery shopping. A lot of mystery shopping companies offer both, so you will run into it.

The difference is simple. Mystery shopping is about evaluating customer service. Merchandising is about the merchandise — taking pictures, putting stickers on products, that kind of thing.

Merchandising usually pays less, and it is more likely to be paid by the hour. Some shoppers love it and some hate it. Given the choice, most would rather do a true mystery shop where they are getting paid to do something they were already going to do.

How to Build a Good Reputation as a Mystery Shopper

Mystery shopping is a $2 billion industry, but Mercedes says it is also very small. The key players all know each other, and word of mouth spreads fast.

There are really only two things you need to do.

1. Do good work. Do not flake on shops you agreed to take. Turn in your reports on time and follow the instructions.
2. Get in front of the company reps in person. That mostly means conferences. There are only two mystery shopping conferences, and Mercedes runs one of them.

When a shopper does good work, providers tell each other. It is not a competition between them. They will pass your name around for you.

iShop’s conference is in Vegas this year. The first was in 2022, last year drew over 100 people, and they’re hoping for 200.

Worried about saturation? A VP at one provider told Mercedes they release 35,000 to 40,000 shops a month and still need fresh faces.

Mystery Shopping Scams to Avoid

Two show up constantly:

• The check in the mail. Someone sends a check, maybe $2,000, and asks you to cash it. One of Mercedes’s shoppers did and had her bank account compromised.
• The gift card ask. Buy 10 gift cards, scratch off the codes, send them over. You’ll never see that money again.

The rule: if anyone promises you money before you work, it’s a scam.

One more check — look at the email domain after the @ symbol. If it’s Gmail instead of the company’s real site, walk away.

Tools/Tech

• MileIQ — mileage tracking. You’re an independent contractor, so miles are a write-off.
• ShopQuest — free directory of shops in your area. Launched 3 months ago with thousands of listings.

A single sign-up system across all providers is what her team is working toward. Shoppers used to mail in paper reports, so the tech is moving fast.

Can You Get Paid to Travel as a Mystery Shopper?

Yes, and Mercedes has done it. She has been paid to fly to other states and to stay at out-of-state resorts.

She has a friend who mystery shops all over the world — Dubai, China, the UK, and Hawaii. Mercedes brings her to the conferences to talk to shoppers about traveling for work.

About three weeks before this interview, one of her partner companies called to say they needed people for resort mystery shops in Cabo San Lucas.

The trick is finding the providers that specialize in travel, since not every company has those clients.

Is Paid Mystery Shopping Training Worth It?

Why pay for training when you can sign up with providers for free?

Mercedes’s answer comes down to three things.

1. Charging for training is industry standard – every mystery shopping organization charges for training.
2. Providers don’t train you – they’re there to get a job done and are slow to answer emails.
3. People who complain about the money – when someone complains that shops only pay $6 or $7, she asks if they started through an organization. The answer is always no.

iShop offers free training, paid training, and ongoing support. If you complete a shop incorrectly, you don’t get paid — so the details matter.

Mistakes to Avoid

The biggest is trying to figure it out alone. That’s how people end up with $6 shops and quit.

The second is sloppy work. Flaking, late reports, or a narrative that gets kicked back will hurt you fast in an industry where everyone talks.

What’s Next for Mercedes?

The conference and the new platform are the two big things right now.

But what she says she loves most is the testimonials. Shoppers who paid off debt, paid for a wedding, or got paid to test drive a luxury car.

One used her mystery shopping money for IVF treatments, got pregnant, and is now expecting her second.

On the business side, working directly with the provider companies has become a two-way street. The providers do not get paid if the shops do not get done, so they need shoppers who will actually show up.

One company rep told Mercedes they filled four hard-to-reach areas with her shoppers.

For finding new shoppers, iShop leans on word of mouth, social media, and ads. Her take is that you should never stop trying new marketing.

Mercedes’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Just show up.”

Episode Links

• iShopAGP.com
• ShopQuest
• Reality Based Group
• MSPA (Mystery Shopping Providers Association)
• Hetal
• MileIQ
• I Got Paid to Walk Store Aisles (Real Numbers): My Hetal App Review
• Field Agent Review

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

• Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
• Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
• Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.