Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby (2019)

Hey everyone, just want to let you know that our team is taking a much needed break this month, but before we left, we put aside some really great bonus episodes for you. So later this week Be on the lookout for my conversation with Rashad Robinson, civil rights leader and president of Color of Change. Rashad and I spoke a few months ago at our virtual How I Built the Summit, and he shared some really powerful insights about how to make an impact in the world right now. And we're going to be putting that episode into your feed this Thursday. For today's show, we're gonna reach back into the archives to bring you my conversation with Roxanne Quimby of Burts Bees, which first ran back in twenty nineteen. Here you go.

We had a a great artist. and he did a woodcut portrait of Bert and we started putting that on the package. And that was a very conscious decision to use Bert's face. He had a long gray beard and long gray curly hair. You know, and as a woman who could never measure up

Ha. to this glamorous image in mainstream cosmetics and beauty products. You know, I felt like We're gonna put a picture of A guy that everybody is gonna feel.

More beautiful then. From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. Guy Roz and on today's show, how Roxanne Quimby took a roadside honey stand in rural Maine.

and turned it into birch bees. One of the biggest natural personal care brands in America. Every Sunday at my local farmers market There are people who sell homemade hot sauce and handcrafted wallets. There's there's even a woman who sells mohair scarves using the mohair from her Angora Goats. Imagine going to your local farmers market in say Maine.

back in the mid-1980s. And if you happen to be near Bangor You might have come across Roxanne Quimby and Bert Shabitz selling jars of honey. Honey from Bert's own beehives. Charming, right? Maybe you'd buy a jar and move on. Bert and Roxanne would keep on doing what they were doing, you'd do what you were doing. Except Roxanne thought.

Hey. Could we make and sell candles from all the beeswax we have, or could we use the beeswax to make Other stuff? Okay, so you can kind of figure out where this is headed, because that, of course, is what happened. And even though Roxanne and Bert never intended to build a billion dollar brand, or even a million dollar brand, Yeah.

just happened. Of course, a lot of that had to do with Roxanne's passion and drive, but the idea was never to build something massive. It was a farmer's market product. Today, walk into any drugstore in the US or even overseas, and you will find an impressive display of Burt's Bees products. The likelihood that Roxanne Quimby would build a massive company, or any company at all?

was so implausible back in the early 1980s when she was a single mom waiting tables at a diner. And a decade before that, she drove across the country from Massachusetts, where she was from. To San Francisco, seeking out a simpler life, a life without lots of material needs. It was uh adventure. to go all the way to the West Coast from New England and New York. It was a great unknown

And I had always wanted to be an artist from the time I was five, so it seemed like a natural Hm. I guess you got there in What, like nineteen seventy around then? Mm-hmm.

I crossed a great cultural Bridge. While I was out there. Mm. What what do you mean by that?

Um I learned Differently. And To probe more deeply.

And I think that the material world was Too important. And Really

It's not as important as I was taught that it was We were encouraged to Make a good living. Both of my sisters had MBAs like my dad did, and one's achievements were emphasized.

And I took a turn. To the extreme left. Yeah. when I went to art school and Rejected.

the pursuit of material comfort It was really quite wonderful. And What did you think? Did you think I don't need that life, I want a different life. What was what did you start to think about the life you wanted to have? Well I I wanted meaning and I wanted to live deeply.

I was Very influenced by Thoreau. Who wrote about it? Quite beautifully. I was looking for transcendence.

I just my world just got bigger. and I felt my relationship with it expanded. Um I I guess you had a boyfriend in San Francisco at the time And the two of you decided to like go off around the country to find a place to live? Yeah.

And this is George Saint Clair, your boyfriend at the time. Mm-hmm. And so w what'd you guys do? You just uh y you took off, you left San Francisco? Yep. Got a van, fixed it up. We had three thousand dollars. We went to Vermont. And the Vermont realtor that we spoke with said that You couldn't buy any land in Vermont for three thousand dollars, but try Maine. Huh. So we went to Maine. So so your intention was to go somewhere in the country with three thousand dollars and See what kind of land like how much land you could buy.

Yes. And why did you want to Do that. What were you gonna do on the land? There was a movement at the time, the back to the land movement, and those were people that had Left city Life.

And We're just like us. Huh. I was doing it. to kind of strip away everything that civilization had layered on me and see what was really important.

Huh. So the land that we bought we built a little cabin on it and had No running water, no electricity. And so You quickly.

became more aware of How those things affected your life when you didn't have them. So you had three thousand bucks. And how much land did that buy you? Like how many acres? Thirty. That's a lot. Yeah. And how did you n know what w what to do? Well, uh there were a few books that you could read about how to build a simple house and we would

Pick people's brains who knew more than we did. They were glad to see some young people moving to Maine because we've had quite an exodus of young people. So They were uh Very friendly and helpful.

Did you build a a cabin? Did you build like a house on this land? Yes. How long did it take? So I'm assuming this is you get there in the summer, this is like seventy, nineteen seventy five or so, something like that. Yeah. And then how long before you're actually living in a A place with a roof over your head.

Oh, it was way too long. We had built a little screenhouse. where we were sleeping, which was a little ways away from the house we were building, it was getting into December. And we were still sleeping outside. Basically it was outside. Out of the sleeping bag. But you know, everything that Could go wrong.

Did go wrong. Did you heat? We had a wood stove. Yeah. Man, this is like this is like pre-global warming Maine.

In in December. This is cold. Yeah, it's extreme. But there were others. Yeah. So you you build a house and you like still no running water, electricity, or any of that stuff, but ha but you do have to eat, so how how are you making a living?

Well The good thing about not having all the amenities is that it doesn't Take a lot of money. Yeah.

We had no Bills basically, other than food. We cut our own firewood and had a source of water. Which was the spring out and back. I waitressed a day or two a week and George worked at the local radio station for A day a week.

We were living on about four thousand dollars a year. A year. Wow. You how long I mean, you do this for a couple of years, right? You guys are living like this for several years. Yeah.

I think uh we probably lived out there like that for maybe seven years or so. Wow. I and and I guess a around like in the first few years you you actually had children there too, right? Children who are still you're grow they're grown now, but they they were born in this like homesteader kind of house them out in the middle of

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they have very fond memories of it. We never had to argue about T V shows. Yeah.

So I'm just trying to get into your head at that time. Was that your vision for life that you were going'cause it's kind of it there is something idyllic about it. I mean You're out there, you're far away from the rough and tumble of civilization cities. Was that your vision for the way you were gonna live your life? I think it was a very idyllic Kind of dream.

Yeah. But ultimately It didn't provide enough stimulation for my Personality. Hm.

Why? What wh what would your personality need? Well I think I'm Kind of a restless person. Pretty curious. And

Interested in The way the world works. That's all. So we were

Pretty cut off out there. Mm. So you guys are out there and I I guess your your marriage or or partnership with George kind of was not in great shape because you guys

You did separate at a certain point, right? We did, yep. Hannah and Lucas were six years old. And I moved out. Mm.

And I moved into another cabin. Oh, it's even further off the road. Wow. This is like eighty eighty two or something. Yeah, right in there. Maybe eighty three. Yeah. So you were a single mom Two kids.

On your own. That's That's tough going. Well, although I was a single mom Their dad was a single dad.

And he definitely took A lot of responsibility for their care. And so Every other week. I had the opportunity to go out and do what I needed to do or

Or whatever. Sure. And Were you happy at that time? Um Probably not.

Mm. You know, I don't think about being happy that much. I I feel I think more about being fulfilled. Yeah. And where do you did you feel fulfilled at that time? I did.

Yeah, I felt like I was making it. On my own, by you know Living by my wits, so to speak. Yeah. And I liked that. And I like the unknown. It was an adventure. It was sort of like fishing. You never knew what you were gonna come up with. And that was always fun.

Yeah. So You are in northern m sort of northern central Maine. And um how did you come across Bert Shavitz.

Well he was he was well known. In The neighborhood. Because he was so unusual. What do you mean?

Um well I mean you were unusual at the time too, right? Yes, but he was probably more unusual. So what do you mean like um what do you mean when you say unusual? Well he He looked like an old rabbi. In a way. He had a long grey beard and long grey curly hair. And he was a bachelor.

And sold honey on the side of the road. Off the back of his pickup truck. Hm. And you just knew Bert through the community? You weren't Or or or did or did you m meet him on one particular day?

Well, I didn't meet him personally when he picked me up hitchhiking'cause I didn't have a car at the time. Yeah. So I got to meet him, but I think I was vaguely aware of him just because he was one of the fixtures in the Area. And he would sell honey From bees that he raised, right? That he would keep. Mm-hmm.

And he lived the same way, no phone, no electricity in a little tiny cabin. that he had hauled over to his property. It was a turkey coop. He was quite proud of that. Mm.

Uh in very, very Excentric. Um Hermit type of fellow. But there must have been some kind of connection that

You forged because You I guess you decided to I don't know, work with him. Yeah. Oh I was very attracted to him. It was kind of a um

Inspiration for how one could live. very independently. And I was very inspired by his lifestyle. So

How did you approach the idea of Of working with him. I asked him if he wanted any help. With the bees. Selling honey or

No, actually tending to the bees. Okay. So I followed him around for a summer. As an apprentice. And did a lot of the heavy work.

Calling supers of honey around extracting I learned all about the bees and I got to work with Bert. What was Восік, восіт. Was he quiet?

Yeah, he didn't say much. He was pretty quiet. And he was about uh fifteen years older than you, I guess, at that point, right? Yeah. He was about fifty at the time. And

You just This guy was just fascinating. Like he was living this life that you wanted to kind of Model your own life on. Yeah. He was very inspiring to me and it w you know it was all kind of mixed up with the bees and nature.

As well. It was in all inseparable. Mm. I'm trying to understand, like when you were you were just really curious about Both.

And him. You liked him, he was interesting, but there was no spark in your mind of hey, maybe we can turn this into a business. Yeah, after the summer where I apprenticed with him I suggested that we could Package the honey.

in nicer containers and Sell it at craft fairs. Put l little labels on them. How was he selling the honey? Well he was selling them in used gallon jars. Yeah.

Who's gonna buy a gallon of honey? Yeah, like That pickles and relish come in in the restaurant business. Yeah. So you're you're saying, Bert, let's put put it in smaller

Nicer jars and see if we can sell it at like Farmers' markets and stuff? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And and he liked that idea. Yeah, he he was fine with it.

So I Ordered some. Little plastic honey bears. A little squeezy pears. Yeah. And we filled those up. Those were twelve ounces of honey.

Instead of twelve, which is how he sold it. And did you have a uh like put a label on it and stuff? Yep. You know, we use pictures of bees and Try to make all these products giftable. This was I guess in

Like around eighty six. Eighty five, eighty six. Yeah. And and did you market like today you can imagine going to a craft fair and saying, This is artisanal, handmade, organic, non GMO, gluten free, free range, fair trade, honey from you know that birth Takes like With his hands, like were you marketing it that or was just like a bear with honey and like Honey for sale.

Well, we did our best, I would say. We tried to make the packaging really cute that people would want to buy it. Um And you know, honey is a pretty pure product. You don't have to

sell that too much. I think we called it pure main honey. Yeah, and and so you would start to sell it where? Oh, we would do Christmas craft fairs at the local high schools and junior highs and And right around the area.

You were just selling it at these little and and were people buying the honey? How how were sales? Good. Good like thousands, tens of thousands, a few hundred. Not that good.

Um, I remember a Really good show. At the local junior high where it was two hundred dollars. was the take of the day. That was a lot of money to me.

How did you guys then go from Well, when you extract the hone out of the honeycomb, it's capped over with beeswax. The bees kinda cap it.

So it doesn't drain out. So you have to uncap it and you're cutting off the beeswax cappings. So that's your Beeswax. Can I ask you a question about beeswax? It's wax. It's like really waxy soft stuff that you can put a wick in and burn it.

How do bees I'm just curious, how do they How do they produce it? They have glands. On their abdomen. Just like we have saliva glands. Sure. So their glands produce

flat discs of beeswax which they then build into their honeycomb. So when you pull out like one of those sheets of a of a uh in a in a hive of honeycomb, how do you get the wax off? You have a hot knife. Mm-hmm. And you uncap it with the hot knife.

And the beeswax that was capping the honeycomb. Becomes Available to do whatever you want with it. So you had all this wax and

Is it pretty easy to just melt it down and turn it into candles? It's simple. I don't know if it's Easy. We have

Many disasters but It is a simple process. You just heat it up and the beeswax Separates from the honey and floats on top. So you so you start making candles and then And then doing the same thing, bringing them to craft shows and selling them? Yeah.

And at this point did you think I don't know if a if if a friend asked you, so Roxanne what are you up to? Would you have said Yeah, so I'm I'm really getting into this bee thing. Like we we're still in honey and And now we're selling candles and it's it's I I think this is there's something there.

Yeah, I think I would say that. Mm. It was pretty exciting because I was m maintaining my independence Using my Sense of aesthetics.

And Making enough money to live on. Yeah. Roughly, you know, by like nineteen eighty eight or eighty nine, like how many candles a ye were you selling a year? Well I I Don't remember exactly

How our sales went. In the eighties. But we were growing every year. My original goal was Uh twenty thousand dollars in sales.

And then when that goal was achieved, then I set another goal of a million dollars to say in sales by the time my kids graduated from high school. Hm. I read that you guys got a pretty big break. In nineteen eighty nine. There's a boutique in New York.

Called Zona. And they uh came across your candles at a at a trade show and then ordered hundreds of them? Yeah. Yeah. How did they find out about you guys? Or one of his buying team. Must have come across us at a show somewhere.

And he ordered our little teddy bear candle. It was a little molded candle in the shape of a teddy bear with a plaid bow tie. Under his chin. And he sold hundreds of them. How did you fulfill those orders? It was you and Bird and like how did you what'd you do? Just worked all the time. And we started to hire people.

Hm. Slowly. Some of the local ladies would come in and give us a hand, but We were still in a Building that. was not

Really a place you'd want to have employees work? You were not doing this in Burt's Turkey Coop. You were actually yes, you rented out a building to make the candles. Yeah, it was an old one room schoolhouse. Right. And what'd you guys call the business? Well

He had kind of a stencil that he had painted onto every beehive that said Burt's bees. Because the bees were All over the countryside. You know, you couldn't keep them too close together.

So We would have maybe ten hives in a bee yard and Maybe ten, five, ten miles away there would be another Bee Yard with five or ten Hives of bees and

So eventually it became Bert's bees. By the way, how did you have so much wax? Did you have to add beehives or a at a certain point did you have to buy Yeah. We had fifty hives which

was fine for a few years and then we didn't produce enough ourselves, so we ended up buying other people's beeswax. Around nineteen eighty nine when you got this big order. From this New York boutique. You had to hire an accountant and it was a fourteen year old

High school boy. Who became your accountant. Is that is that true? Yeah, we called the school and we told them we needed someone good in math. And so they said Oh, we have just the fellow. He's on the math team. So he came over

After school. You know, he would pay the bills and he would do the payroll and he would make the deposit. And the day he had to make the deposit walk up to the bank he would wear a suit. It was very important. to maintain our dignity at the bank. So he was our accountant. I would say he was more of a bookkeeper, but um It's very serious and focused and

Responsible. Yeah, I mean, Roxanne, it sounds like you were actually pretty serious. And focused about this. Th that actually you and Bert didn't just stumble into this.

Show interest in what you are selling. You were Making strategic decisions to kind of lay the foundation for what would become a business. Yeah, it was we were learning a lot.

Neither one of us had been involved in running and managing a business. So everything was trial and error. Lot of experimentation. A lot of fails.

We Went to the school hard knocks. Yeah. What what was what was the biggest disaster that you can remember early on? У I remember five gallons of A product we called boot food, which was a liquid.

Combination of Melted beeswax, Neatsfoot Oil and Bare grease. Wait, what's bear grease? Just the fat, the rendered fat of a bear.

Wow. What do you do with that? That product that you just described. You rub it into your leather boots to waterproof them. Wow. Keep the leather supple. Okay, and you were selling this? Not very well. Oh, okay, yeah.

Smelled horrible. Oh my god. I know, it was just so bad. Uh yeah. And what happened to this? It it spilled all over the floor. Five gallons of the greesiest, smelliest, most horrible stuff all over the floor. That was a pretty big Plus the waist. I mean, we were selling it Couldn't fan. Given your characterization of Bert as this kind of

really independent back to the land kinda guy. What did he think about this growing enterprise? I mean all of a sudden it starting to look like a business. I mean in and and not just Burton Roxanne selling jars of honey and wax candles, but like

New York boutiques or ordering this stuff. I think that he probably wasn't as happy about it as I was. He had no use for Any changes to his lifestyle. He didn't have children, for one thing. And I'm

far more ambitious and he Was. Yeah. But he went along with it because he could see how important it was to me. Was Bert fairly easy to work with or was he like uh you know, stubborn and difficult?

He was a prickly kind of guy. You know, he wasn't all warm and fuzzy. Yeah. So People, including myself, gave him kind of a wide berth.

Hm. We divided up the work. He would Collect all the overdue bills. You know, overdue

Accounts receivables. And he was a fixer. When things broke down or needed maintenance, he was Always willing to do that. And I was uh very hands on with the product development

And getting the product made and shipped. So we had different roles. Yeah. Um Nineteen ninety one, Burt's Bees hits a million and a half dollars in sales revenue. Do you remember that? Do you remember thinking, Oh my God, we are doing a million and a half dollars of revenue?

Well I should have remembered it. But But I guess it was just moving too fast? Yeah. It was moving pretty quickly and we were

Every day was another Problem. that just had to be solved on the fly. without enough resources or time because we were in a hurry trying to fill orders. So I didn't have a lot of time to to think that I wasn't expecting this or Just kinda had a tiger by the tail. Yeah. And I was hanging on for dear life.

When we come back. At Roxanne and Bert's personal relationship started to unravel. Just as the company. started to take off. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

From NPR. Hey, welcome back to how I built this from NPR. So It's the early 1990s, and Birch Bees has just hit a million and a half dollars in revenue. One thing we did not mention in part one, which you may have figured out already, but

Roxanne and Bert? They were kind of a thing. They weren't just business partners, but Romantic partners as well. Now, At this time, nineteen ninety,

Birchbees was selling mostly candles and other things made with beeswax, and they sold those things mainly at boutiques in and around New England and New York. But in nineteen ninety one Roxanne had an idea. that would take the company in a brand new direction. you introduced a product that would go on to become

One of your best selling, if not your most famous product, your Burtsby's lip balm. Mm-hmm. How'd you come up with that idea? Well we were making Other products that were Basically The same formula.

We were making a furniture polish, which was Wax and oil. And the boot food basically was wax and oil. And Whip Balm is basically Waar.

And we put a couple amenities in it like vitamin E and and peppermint oil. But it was very clear that people were more interested in buying products for their skin and their lips and their face. then they were buying

Products for their furniture and their shoes. So once that became clear. We phased out of all of the other polishes that we were trying to sell and started focusing on On skin.

And we eventually stopped making candles as well. You stop making candles because It wasn't profitable or was it didn't make sense? I think because it wasn't scalable. Hm.

And The skin care products which were basically blending and filling It was a very simple manufacturing process that could easily be scaled.

And we were making handmade candles so to go to an automated system. just required a lot more time, machinery, and space and investment. that I didn't feel would have the same return. Hm. So we drop the candles.

So we're now like in nineteen ninety one. Bird's bees is growing. You've hit a million and a half dollars and you're going In one direction, and that's up.

You were this counterculture art student, you were a homesteader living in a you know, like in tents and stuff. But you were kind of starting to become This thing that maybe you kind of rejected. I'm not criticizing you at all. I'm just it's just interesting, right, that you kind of had rejected this whole world.

But you had a knack for it. I know, it's ironic. I've thought about that. Did you ever reflect on it at that time? I think I did. Yeah. Suddenly money became so important.

Not for what it would buy, but just because it was critical to the operation of the business. Yeah. Keeping track of it. And There I was, keeping track of the Cash flow, money in, money out, paying bills, sending bills.

It was sort of a simple version of capitalism. Which I had rejected. Years ago. Person but obviously you have some intrinsic talent. I mean you you understood this in a way that you could see what Bert's bees could be.

And you were just doing it. Well, I had role models. I had selected out companies that Uh you know, I kept them in my mind. As an ideal So I had examples. Like like what?

I had a big sign over the production floor that said Look out, Elizabeth Arden. Wow. And you know, I really felt like If if Elizabeth could do it so could we. Yeah.

So you guys are Growing. You're hiring are you overwhelmed? I mean, how many people Did you have to hire in Maine to just keep the Engines going.

We had about forty five. It's a lot of people to sort of oversee. Was that hard? Did you I mean,'cause you're at this point I'm guess you're like a CEO or a de facto CEO, if not the official CEO. I would say that was the most challenging part of the job. With managing people. Are you do you see yourself as a people person? Not that

much, no. I can be. Yeah. If I have to be, but Again, just going back to my artist True.

Artists usually work alone. they're very comfortable, you know, writers and painters. And I I like that myself. I mean, would you consider yourself an introvert? I would say I was pretty introverted, yeah. Yeah. I'm very happy having a very quiet lifestyle.

Yeah. In nineteen ninety four, you guys made a decision to leave Maine and to relocate to North Carolina. Why? I mean You're such a main person and it was such a main What

What prompted the move? The location was Very difficult working in the extreme north east corner of the country. Getting more centralized was important for bringing raw materials in and getting finished goods out. So North Carolina was much better situated in terms of being halfway between

Maine and Florida. And a direct shot out to the West Coast on I forty. Hm. There were other cosmetic companies. in the area. Revlon was about fifteen miles away. The body shop was about thirty or forty miles away. And there were a lot of pharmaceutical companies that use a lot of the same

glass jars and caps and that sort of thing. So our expenses went way down. We were able to hire people who had experience in that industry to come in And help ramp up production. and computerized our office

uh billings, um there were just a lot more people down there that were trained to do those kinds of things. Yeah. You have this new location and then presumably you have to Yeah. buy equipment and and supplies and and you're like running a factory. Yeah.

You know, it certainly wasn't a very sophisticated operation. And it wasn't a state of the art factory. But It was doable. We used a lot of used equipment.

We were making one of our products in a big mixer that Duke had in its cafeteria for mashed potatoes. And uh we we had a bath salt that we were making in a cement mixer. So, you know, we had hobbled it together.

So in the mid-90s, because I don't remember Bert's Bees in the mid-90s, right? Where would you have seen a Bert Spees, you know, lip balm or lotion or soap? You would have found it in a independent gift shop. Little small gift shops dotted all over the country. And were you marketing? We were doing a Kind of a grassroots marketing.

We would make little sample products and we were giving those away to people. We also had catalogs That were Almost like a current day blog. It would be our products, but it would also talk a little bit about the company and I told stories about Bert and his dog. When did you design the

That like now iconic logo of Bert's face. On the packaging. Was that there from the beginning? We had a great artist. He uh lives up here in Maine and he did a woodcut portrait of Bert. And we started putting that on the package a few years into the program.

And that was a very conscious decision to use Bert's face. Because I was I guess a little resentful Of the way women were used.

Uh market. Products. And I saw Some of the big

Cosmetics lines. Really exploiting. The image of women. Yeah. So It was important for me not to follow that.

Weed. you know, of the authenticity of this guy who was really the real deal. He was a beekeeper and a hermit and you know, the consumer was connecting with this authenticity. Like that's why I would have thought you would put his face on it, but it was it was about sexism.

Yeah, I think that it you know, it had to do with authenticity and and birth. But it also had to do with gender exploitation that The beauty products were I think they were known for. Yeah.

You know and as a woman who Could never measure up. to this glamorous image that one found in mainstream cosmetics and beauty products that you know I felt like I'm not I don't want to do that to women. So we're gonna put a picture of A guy that everybody is gonna feel.

More beautiful then. Yeah. So all right, so you guys are in North Carolina, you're running this company, it's a late nineties. Nineteen ninety nine. bird exits. You you buy'em out.

When you incorporated you had two thirds, he had a third. You buy him out and he kinda Retires. Yeah. Although he

I think enjoyed. Going out on the road. And being burnt. Yeah. And signing T shirts and and kind of being the mascot. Yeah.

Yeah. When he sort of was out of the picture wha was your personal relationship with him damaged? Were you not getting along from your perspective? Yeah. That was pretty much what it was.

Our relationship had gone south. And what happened? If you don't mind. Well, it was sort of a personal transgression that was Very hurtful to me.

Mm. And It kinda popped the bubble. In a way. I

took a lot of inspiration from Bert and his lifestyle and his authenticity and His independence and I found him to be quite Admirable. Yeah. So after the Breakup. I lost a lot of inspiration.

He he had disappointed you. Basically. Yeah. Yeah. Um you know, I think that I was

Starting to feel like it was time to wind This thing up. Yeah. So he's Sort of

He's kind of out of out of the day to day running, but really had been for a long time. Yep. Meantime, you were really If this were a movie, Ruxham, this would be the point in the movie where like you would just go through the you know year be ninety-nine, thirteen point eight million, two thousand, thirty million, two thousand one, sixty million And you'd have the music and you'd g have these guys counting big stacks of cash and you know, smoking cigars. But it is phenomenal. Like how do you go from 30 million to 60 million in one year? Uh was it just phenomenal salespeople? Was it luck? What was going on? Well, it was scalable. Once we automated filling, it just make more product. Yeah. Just turn it to eleven. Yeah. It was fabulous.

And just more and more stores were asking for these products? Yep. We spent a lot of time focused on the consumer. So they would try the product then they would want to go to the store and get a full size product and they would ask for it. And if a customer asked for a product, that's a great sign. And if your store ran out, the customer came back for more, it wasn't there, they would ask, hey, where's the bird's bees? So That kind of a pulling strategy from the from the consumer. really helped a lot with growth.

And there was a tipping point where It seemed that Everybody knew about it. Yeah. You know, went from nobody knowing about it to everybody knowing about it. And I'm not exactly sure.

What? That tipping point was, but it took on a life of its own. You sell eighty percent of your shares of the company in two thousand three.

to um an investment firm. Not clear how much money but a lot of money in the tens Of millions of dollars. Was there something Uh unsettling about all of a sudden coming into

You know, more money than you could ever have imagined. Uh, not really, no. I wasn't unsettled by it. I was thinking about the exit strategy very early on. Is that because you just didn't want to deal with the hassle of running a company anymore? Yeah. It was something that became

Yeah. going to big box and drugstore chains didn't seem very exciting or creative to me, but it was clearly the next step. So I felt like

It was time to to turn it over to the professionals. And I just felt very constrained. I felt very disconnected from what originally was an inspiration for me. So you go, you're gone. You're at this point, two thousand three, you really leave the company. Mm-hmm. Y you

became very wealthy from This tiny little B company that you just like started accidentally. I mean it's pretty remarkable, right? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don't live too differently. I I have a more freedom now than I did when I had no money, but in a certain sense I had a lot of freedom then also because I had nothing to lose.

Yeah. That whole theme of Freedom is important to me, always has been. Meantime, you were really starting to become passionate about

conserving and preserving land. Starting in Maine. Mm-hmm. And you have given away a huge amount of your money by buying land in Maine and all over the country and giving it to the federal government to Maine.

and other state agencies to develop parks. Yeah. I had been living on the land up there for Years. So I knew it.

And with most beauty care companies a lot of money that they generate goes into advertising. Yeah. I've heard even that twenty five cents of every dollar goes into advertising. So we didn't have that expense because we weren't advertising. Gorilla marketing and and grassroots marketing is not very expensive.

And we had put all the money we needed to into growing the business. It still had excess cash. And I felt like We needed to find a very solid investment. And so land seemed to be rock solid to me. Yeah, but and President Obama named a new national monument in Maine largely around that land that you you donated to the National Park Service. Mm-hmm.

Cataudan woods and waters. Cataan is our mountain in Maine. Um Yeah. Uh twenty fifteen Bert. Shavitz

Passed away, he was eighty. A remarkable guy, a really fascinating person. There was a film about him Um, which was really interesting, and that was a point where he said something that probably was a little bit hurtful. He said, I'd never want to see her again. But Have you kinda made peace with him and in his memory in your relationship? Oh yeah, I have. I was in love with Bert.

Yeah. And we went through a lot of changes together. Had this. Children. Mm.

Raised it up. Off it went. I still feel very, very Close to Bert. I think about him a lot.

It was a quite an instrument. Inspiration to me, a muse. Yeah. Did you have a chance to talk to Bert before he died? In a certain way.

Yes. I was about to visit him and my girlfriend went up to visit him the afternoon before I was planning to go. And um she called me to let me know that she didn't think He was gonna last much longer. So we sort of had a

Phone. Yeah. uh correspondence and he did actually pass away later that day, so I did miss Seeing him in person. But I just remember him.

You know, at his prime. Yeah. Yeah. Um, some people have criticized you because They say, Well, you got most of the money out of the company and Bert, you know

He didn't get as much. What's your feeling about about that criticism? I feel that I was the more responsible party. For managing wealth, I could do the right thing with it.

Um And I don't know whether Bert would have really used it very productively. He came from a family that had some wealth. And he chose not to use it.

Right. He didn't do anything to help the community with the wealth that he did have. And I felt like

That was something that I could do and have been doing. Do you plan to give away most of your wealth? Before you die. Mm-hmm. That's hard. That's a lot of work, isn't it? Figuring out where to where should go and dealing with all the incoming pitches and all the people who want some of your money. I mean is it does it ever get tiresome? Well I have um

Both of my children Each are working So they have responsibility for distributing funds every year to According to the mission that makes sense to them.

So I do have help. And I'm pretty spontaneous about the way I distribute grants. I don't have a real formal System. I just

You know, either it Rings true to me or it doesn't. Yeah. When you see Burt's Bees today, it's on my Clorox. eventually purchased by Clark's for almost a billion dollars in two thousand seven, which is unbelievable. You see it everywhere. It's a C V S, it's at Walmart, it's seven eleven. Is it

Do you beam with pride? Is it is it wonderful to see that? I don't pay that much attention to it, I guess. You know, I mean I certainly notice it when I'm at Whole Foods and I walk by the Bert's Bees display always catches my eye. But I think I've let it go.

You know, in many ways. I just it's something Apart from me now. So a question I ask everybody who's been on the show, Roxanne, I'm gonna ask you, which is how much of of your story and and the success of this Do you think is because of your skill and your intelligence And your hard work and how much of it because of just luck?

Well, I was born on July eleventh. Which is seven eleven. So I Have felt lucky. For a long time.

I mean you certainly have to work hard, but When I look back at some of the critical events that were part of the destiny of this adventure. I certainly couldn't have pulled those off. That had to be luck or divine intervention and there's been so many of those. And the right people came to me at the right time.

So That has got to be luck. That's Roxanne Quimby. Co-founder of Birch Bees. Do you do you use any of the products?

Well, the one product that I was using has been discontinued. I just got some lip balms. Yeah, lip balms great. I like that mint. Thank you. Yeah. That's your recipe, right? I hope so. Yeah. It's pretty good. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you are not yet a subscriber, please do subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is hibt at npr.org. To find us on Twitter, it's at how I built this or at guy. And on Instagram, it's at how I built this NPR or at guy.Roz. This episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. It was edited by Jeff Rogers with research help from Nor Coodse. Our production staff includes Neva Grant.

Casey Herman, Rachel Faulkner, James Delahouse, Julia Carney, Elaine Coates, Farah Safari, Liz Metzger, and Annalise Ober. Our intern is Harrison B. J Choi, and Jeff Rogers is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to how I built this. This is NPR.

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