How I Did It: Roxanne Quimby
Building a company has been a lesson in balancing ambition and compromise for the co-founder of Burt's Bees.
Published January 2004
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE
PRINTER FRIENDLY
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLEAs told to Susan Donovan
The story of Roxanne Quimby is the stuff of entrepreneurial legend. A divorced mother living without electricity, she teamed up with Burt Shavitz, a reclusive beekeeper, and in 1984 began selling items made from beeswax. Over the years she built that crafts business into Burt's Bees, a leading natural personal-care brand. Last fall Quimby, who'd bought out Shavitz when he retired, struck a deal to sell 80% of the company to AEA Investors, a private-equity firm, for more than $175 million. She plans to donate half the proceeds to a land trust to establish a national park in northern Maine and is now even weighing a run for that state's governorship.
Burt's Bees was a result of having my kids. I'd been an artist, part of a generation that was very critical of capitalism. When I was 25, my husband and I bought 30 acres of land and built a cabin in the Maine woods. I washed diapers in water heated on the wood stove. I lived that way because I didn't want to compromise; I didn't want to be part of the problem. It was difficult--there was an amazing amount of hauling things--yet I loved it, because it was a chosen challenge. But after my marriage broke up, I realized my informal vow of poverty was limiting my children's choices. I had traveled; my parents had given us a great education--my sisters are both M.B.A.'s. To give my kids opportunities I had to start a business.
At 36, I met Burt. He was selling honey on the side of the road. I stopped to buy some on my way to my waitress job. We became romantically involved, and I started helping him with the bees.
Immediately, I saw a business opportunity. Burt was selling honey in gallon jars for 12 bucks. You could get more money by selling it in smaller containers to tourists. So I took over the business end. I put honey up in cute little beehive-shaped jars. I made pretty handmade labels and started making candles out of the beeswax. Then I took them to the little craft fairs in the little towns. I'd make $200 a day. It gave me such a sense of accomplishment. Nobody told me what to do, when to be there, and how long I had to stay. That wonderful sense of independence was just intoxicating. And I thought, This is for me.
At the fairs, I focused closely on what sold the most and tried to figure out why. I didn't know it then, but it was like having one focus group after another. I learned, for instance, that when people pick up a candle, they turn it over. For some reason they want to see the bottom, so I made sure the candles were nicely finished with a sharp knife to smooth the mold.
In the early years, I had some midnight-of-your-soul type of times. Once, I came home from a fair and found the window in my cabin blown in. Snow was all over. It was 20 below and 3 in the morning. I hadn't made any money and the car had just barely made it there. I really believe that success is just getting up one more time than you fall. It doesn't come from one brilliant idea, but from a bunch of small decisions that accumulate over the years. And you shouldn't underestimate the amount of work that's involved, the amount of fear that's involved.
I'm not sentimental about products--they perform or they don't. We tried lots of different things. One was beeswax lip balm. It was clear, very early, that people bought lip balm 10 times faster than they bought beeswax furniture polish. Next was a moisturizing cream. It sold better than the polish too.
