Aug 23, 2021 · 50m · how-i-built-this
Burt's Bees: Roxanne Quimby (2019)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, Burt's Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby shares the remarkable story of turning an artisanal Maine honey stand into a multi-million-dollar personal care brand. She details the strategic pivots, disruptive branding, and personal challenges that paved the way for massive commercial success and her subsequent monumental land conservation efforts.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 40.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.6 Guest teaching 2.5 Guest disagreement 1.4 Guy pushing back 1.4
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 46:11 Defending equity distribution against public criticism
Quimby unapologetically rejects the premise of critics, stating she was far more responsible than Burt to manage and distribute corporate wealth productively.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 45:59 Confronting disparity in wealth distributionRaz presses Quimby directly on contentious public criticism regarding Burt receiving significantly less money from the company's eventual windfall.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:57 Explaining biological beeswax productionQuimby gives Raz an educational breakdown of how worker bees secrete wax plates from abdominal glands and how harvesters uncap honeycombs.
Guy holds their own ▶ 37:23 Challenging the branding narrative assumptionRaz challenges Quimby's stated motivation for the logo, testing whether an anti-sexism stance truly drove the choice over rustic authenticity.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Art School, Counterculture, and the Move to Maine | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy Raz gently probes Quimby's early motivations for heading west and embracing the counterculture. Quimby explains her philosophical rejection of materialism and the influence of Thoreau without confrontation. | |
| Homesteading Challenges and the Quest for Fulfillment | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz asks about the harsh reality of off-grid winter homesteading and living on four thousand dollars a year. Quimby describes the idyllic yet restless nature of that lifestyle. | |
| Life as an Independent Single Mother in Maine | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz asks about Quimby's life as a single mother and her first impressions of Burt Shavitz. Quimby reframes happiness versus fulfillment and details her apprenticeship tending bees. | |
| Repackaging Honey and Launching Craft Fair Sales | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz jokes about selling honey out of pickle jars and modern artisanal marketing labels. Quimby explains how downsizing honey into bear containers made the product commercially viable. | |
| Expanding into Handcrafted Beeswax Candles | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks an open informational question about how bees produce wax. Quimby educates him on bee abdominal glands and the hot knife uncapping process. | |
| Commercial Breakthrough, Scaling, and Formalizing the Business | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz brings up specific historical details like the Zona boutique order and hiring a fourteen-year-old math team student as bookkeeper, which Quimby warmly confirms. | |
| Trial and Error, Product Disasters, and Partnership Dynamics | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | Quimby recounts the messy failure of Boot Food made from bear grease. She contrasts her corporate ambition with Burt's prickly reluctance to expand. | |
| Reaching One and a Half Million Dollars in Revenue | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Raz tracks the revenue milestones and pivots into the iconic lip balm creation. Quimby explains how identifying consumer demand for skincare prompted dropping candle manufacturing. | |
| Managing Fast Growth and Embracing Corporate Ambition | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Raz highlights the irony of an anti-capitalist counterculture artist running a fast-growing manufacturing business. Quimby concedes the irony and reflects on managing staff as an introvert. | |
| Relocating Operations to North Carolina and Grassroots Marketing | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz asks about relocating out of Maine. Quimby outlines the supply chain, freight advantages, and industrial equipment repurposing in North Carolina. | |
| The Strategy Behind the Woodcut Logo and Subverting Beauty Norms | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Raz assumes Burt's woodcut logo was chosen purely for rustic authenticity. Quimby corrects this assumption, explaining it was a deliberate subversion of exploitative beauty industry standards. | |
| Exponential Growth and Consumer-Driven Retail Demand | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz reviews the company's exponential growth from thirty to sixty million dollars. Quimby attributes this to retail pull demand and explains her decision to exit in 2003. | |
| Land Philanthropy and Creating Katahdin Woods and Waters | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz mentions the Obama administration's designation of Katahdin Woods and Waters monument. Quimby shares how grassroots marketing savings enabled large-scale land conservation. | |
| Addressing Wealth Distribution Criticism and Philanthropic Giving | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | Raz directly asks Quimby about public criticism regarding the disparity in buyout wealth between her and Burt. Quimby defends her allocation decisively, asserting she was the responsible steward of wealth. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Quimby moved to Maine because $3,000 couldn't buy Vermont land
“We had 3000 dollars.
We went to Vermont, and the Vermont realtor that we spoke with said that
You couldn't buy any land in Vermont for 3000 dollars, but try Maine.
So we went to Maine.”
Quimby lived on $4,000 a year homesteading off-grid in Maine
“We were living on about 4000 dollars a year.”
Burt Shavitz lived off-grid in a converted turkey coop
“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.”
Quimby apprenticed with Burt Shavitz hauling honey for a summer
“So, I followed him around for a summer as an apprentice, and did a lot of the heavy work, hauling supers of honey around, extracting. I learned all about the bees, and I got to work with Bert.”
Burt Shavitz originally sold honey in used restaurant pickle jars
“Well, he was selling them in used gallon jars. You know, like, that pickles and relish come in in the restaurant business.”
Quimby set $1M sales target after hitting initial $20K goal
“My original goal was 20,000 dollars in sales, and then when that goal was achieved, then I set another goal of a million dollars in sales by the time my kids graduated from high school.”
Burt's Bees outgrew 50 hives and bought beeswax externally
“We had 50 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.”
Burt's Bees hired a high school math student as bookkeeper
“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 dep…”
Burt Shavitz was prickly and kept at a distance by colleagues
“He was a prickly kind of guy, you know, he wasn't all warm and fuzzy. So, people, including myself, gave him kind of a wide berth.”
Burt Shavitz managed maintenance and bills while Quimby handled production
“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 very hands-on with the product development and…”
Burt's Bees dropped candles because skincare scaled far more efficiently
“I think because it wasn't scalable, and the skincare 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…”
Burt's Bees cut costs by relocating near Revlon and Body Shop
“Revlon was about 15 miles away. The body shop was about 30 or 40 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 …”
Burt's Bees used a cafeteria mashed-potato mixer for early production
“We were making one of our products in a big mixer that Duke had in its cafeteria for mashed potatoes. And we had a bath salt that we were making in a cement mixer.”
Quimby used Burt Shavitz's face to reject cosmetics industry sexism
“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 to market products. And I saw some of the big cosmetics lines really exploiting the image of women. So it was important for me not to fo…”
A personal transgression by Burt Shavitz destroyed Quimby's inspiration
“Well, it was sort of a personal transgression that was very hurtful to me, and it kind of 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. So a…”
Consumer pull strategy drove massive retail growth at Burt's Bees
“So that kind of a pulling strategy from the consumer really helped a lot with growth.”
Quimby handed Burt's Bees to executives to avoid big box retail
“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 turn it over to the professionals.”
Burt's Bees scaled without spending money on conventional advertising
“I've heard even that 25 cents of every dollar goes into advertising, so we didn't have that expense because we weren't advertising.”
Burt's Bees invested excess operational cash into buying land
“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.”
Quimby: I was more responsible than Burt Shavitz to manage wealth
“I feel that I was the more responsible party for managing wealth. I could do the right thing with it. 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. He didn't d…”
Clorox acquired Burt's Bees for nearly $1 billion in 2007
“When you see Burt's Bees today, it's owned by Clorox, eventually purchased by Clorox for almost a billion dollars in 2007, which is unbelievable.”
Quimby attributes Burt's Bees' pivotal milestones to luck and timing
“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 th…”