Cedar Anderson would rather be walking naked through the Byron Bay hills than running the multi-million dollar empire he created with his old man. Fortunately he loves the fact that they’ve changed the beekeeping industry for good, thanks to one of the world’s most successful crowd-funding campaigns ever. It’s a buzzingly good episode 478 of The (award-winning) Small Business Big Marketing Show.
A little bit more about crowdfunding expert and Flow Hive creator Cedar Anderson…
Cedar Anderson grew up in an intentional AKA hippy community in the Byron Bay hills, where he spent his time coming up with crazy inventions.
Then in his early adult years, he worked as a paragliding instructor capturing aerial footage for Greenpeace.
He’s also a third-generation beekeeper and it was during a particularly nasty honey harvest that he decided there had to be a better way. So for the next 10 years, he and his Dad set about inventing a better beehive.
They did and it’s called Flow Hive. Now I don’t know much about beekeeping, but this thing is amazing. It’s a box that looks like a doll house which you can put anywhere, it has windows to see your bees at work, and when you want some honey, you literally turn on a tap and out it comes!
And thanks to a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo that raised $15 million (they only wanted $70,000!), Cedar is now heads an Australian manufacturing success story, having already shipped over 65,000 orders all over the world.
I was lucky enough to spend a few hours with Cedar at his Byron Bay HQ – we actually did this interview in his beekeeping suit wardrobe – where he shared:
- How growing up in an intentional community influenced him to become an inventor
- Where the idea for Flow Hive came from and why it took 10-years
- How he managed to create one of the world’s biggest crowd-funding campaigns that crashed the Indiegogo site multiple times!
- And how he reconciles being a hippy with now being a multi-millionaire
I started off by asking Cedar a very probing question … “How does he likes to eat his honey?”
Here’s what caught my attention from my chat with Flow Hive’s Cedar Anderson:
- It was a great reminder that the very best marketing you can do is to create a great product or service.
- I love Cedar’s generosity of spirit. He invited me in to his world, introduced me to all his team who I ended up having lunch with, set-up a recording studio in his beekeeping suit wardrobe and even made time for a Facebook Live video.
- I love how he works to the beat of his own drum.
Cedar Anderson Interview Transcription
Tim
Cedar. Welcome to the small business big marketing show.
Cedar
Thank you for having me.
Tim
I’m very excited about this I got to start with one of the most probing questions that I’ve ever come up with and that is how do you like to eat your honey?
Click Here To Download Full Transcription
Resources mentioned in episode 478 of The Small Business Big Marketing Show:
- Flow Hive website
- Last week’s interview with Rejuvenator’s Kym Power
- Interviews I’ve done with other interesting inventors:
The winner of this week’s Monster Prize Draw
Linda Mitchener of The Green Life Soil Co. whose motto is to deliver a greener garden.
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