The Hitchhiker And The Beekeeper

Hello! This is Deep Pockets #31.

In the first 30 “Deep Pockets” stories, you’ve heard stories about people who made enormous fortunes in interesting ways. But let’s say your goal isn’t to earn a huge fortune. Let’s say you simply want to get off the corporate hampster wheel, own some land, and be your own boss.

On the internet, you will find no shortage of grifter “gurus” who claim they can teach you exactly how to achieve that goal. All you have to do is buy their $10,000 course.

Ignore all of those grifters!

I am about to give you a simple 4-step guaranteed formula that will allow you to escape the rat race, live independently, AND earn a bit of easy income. My advice is free, and the 4-steps are relatively inexpensive:

• Step 1: Learn how to become a beekeeper.

• Step 2: Buy a cheap plot of land.

• Step 3: Acquire a bunch of bees (carefully).

• Step 4: Sell honey and wax at a farmer’s market to generate income.

But there’s a twist.

A guy named Ingram Shavitz followed this exact 4-step plan in the 1970s after he grew tired of the rat race. As fate would have it, one day in 1984, he picked up a 33-year-old single mom hitchhiker. Within a few years, they were running a buzzy business together. Eventually, that buzzy bee business had grown into a global empire that generated an enormous fortune… but just for one of them 🐝 

Deep Dive: The Hitchhiker and the Beekeeper

Ingram Shavtiz was born on May 15, 1935, in Manhattan, New York. His father was an actor, and his mother was an artist. When his father wasn’t acting, he was working for his father’s successful graphic design company. The family lived a comfortable life in the wealthy Long Island suburb of Great Neck.

At the age of six, Ingram’s parents gave him a camera. Armed with his camera and a bike, from that point on, Ingram basically lived outdoors, photographing and enjoying nature.

Early on, Ingram showed signs of a strong, self-reliant, and independent core.

When he was 11, he rode by himself on his bicycle 100 miles from Great Neck to Montauk at the very end of Long Island. According to Google Maps, today, this 100-mile journey on a modern bike with established roads and bike paths would take an adult rider 10 hours. In 1946, the journey took 11-year-old Ingram several days, both ways. For sleep, he would stop at local jails along the way and request a bed. Upon his arrival and hearing his unusual request to spend the night, the jail would call his mother, who would confirm she was aware and approved of what he was doing. That’s who Ingram Shavits was at 11 so you can imagine he was probably not bound for a traditional life.

One summer, he attended a camp on Sebago Lake in Maine. After additional summers, a lifelong passion for Maine and its incredible natural wonders was embedded into young Shavitz.

After high school, Ingram attended college in Delaware but was drafted into the Army before he could graduate. He spent two years in the Army, serving at a US military base in Germany.

Upon returning to the US, his family attempted to draft him into an entry-level job at his grandfather’s graphic design business but he had no interest.

Instead, he enrolled in a photography course. Working as a freelance photojournalist for Time-Life, Ingram snapped photos of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, Malcolm X rallies, civil rights marches, and more.

As the 1960s came to a close, he was burned out and tired of New York City. In 1970, he escaped the city after applying for and receiving a small grant to study pollution in the Hudson River Valley, two hours north of Manhattan in rural Ulster County, NY.

A Life Changing Revelation

One day, Ingram met a beekeeper. This beekeeper would give Ingram a life-changing revelation.

The beekeeper opened Ingram’s eyes to the fact that:

• a) Bees are free

• b) Bees make honey

• c) People pay for honey

Ingram realized that as long as he owned bees, he would never need a job or go hungry. He would have to live very modestly, but that was no problem.

So he learned everything he could from this kind beekeeper about keeping bees (Step 1 of my 4-step plan).

In the mid-1970s, Ingram Shavits put several life goals together at once. He moved to Maine, settling in a town called Parkman (2025 population: 771). He scrounged together enough money to buy a cheap plot of land (Step 2). He acquired 27 beekeeping boxes (Step 3) and was soon earning money selling at local farmers’ markets and craft fairs (Step 4). He actually sold most of his honey out of the back of his Yellow Datsun pickup truck on the side of the road. He would park his truck and take a nap until someone woke him up to buy some honey.

For housing, Ingram converted a chicken coop on his property into a tiny home. He had no electricity or running water.

It’s not a life many of us would choose, but you can’t deny the fact that Ingram Shavitz figured out a pretty clever life hack. He had no boss. No job. No stress. 20 acres of land. Frequent naps. A little income. Unlimited honey! Honestly, I’m actually feeling a little tempted…

Stolen Boxes

I’ve purposely held back on revealing something about Ingram’s name, so I wouldn’t spoil this story too early, but I can’t hold back anymore.

Ingram’s full name was Ingram Berg Shavitz. For some reason, perhaps it was a play on his middle name, but after high school, he started going by “Burt.”

And one day, not long after moving to Maine, some of his beekeeping boxes were stolen. To identify his boxes going forward, on the side of his remaining boxes, he etched the words:

“Burt’s Bees”

A Fateful Hitchhiker

For about a decade, Burt lived a quiet, simple life of a napping beekeeper nomad. Then, fate stepped in with other plans.

One day in 1984, Burt saw a young woman hitchhiking on the side of the road with two young twin boys. He pulled his yellow Datsun truck over and offered them a ride.

The hitchhiker was a 33-year-old single mom named Roxanne Quimby.

Raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, Roxanne was the daughter of an engineer and a traditional homemaker. The family was very square. They hoped Roxanne would follow their conservative path of going to college, getting married, and building a career or becoming a homemaker.

Roxanne had different ideas. For college, she enrolled at an art school in San Francisco. It was the late 1960s. She was 19 years old and living in the literal epicenter of the free-love hippie lifestyle movement.

Roxanne became particularly influenced by the “back to the land” movement, which called for people to take up small plots of land to grow their own food and live a self-sufficient life.

After graduating with a degree in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1973, Roxanne and her boyfriend hit the road in a Volkswagen van. They visited northern California, Oregon, and Vermont but ultimately chose Maine because they could buy land for $100 an acre. Using their $3,000 life savings, they bought 30 acres in Guilford, Maine (2025 population: 1,300), and proceeded to build a cabin with an outhouse. They had no running water or electricity. In 1978, they welcomed twin boys.

At some point after the boys arrived, the boyfriend was gone. Roxanne probably should have moved back to her parents’ house in Massachusetts at this point, but no. She continued living in a rustic cabin in Maine, flipping yardsale purchases at flea markets to support twin toddlers.

The boys would have been around six when they stood on the side of a rural road in 1984, hitchhiking with their mom.

Despite their age difference (Burt would have been around 50 in 1984), Roxanne and Burt were actually a match made in heaven. They had similar life goals and outlooks. And when Roxanne learned about Burt’s humble honey business and the independent lifestyle it afforded, she was blown away.

At some point soon after that first meeting, the birds and the bees did their thing and Roxanne and Burt were a couple.

Roxanne was clearly more ambitious than Burt. As she helped him make honey, she suggested he turn the excess wax into candles.

Buzzing Business

Over the next few years, Burt, Roxanne, and the twins worked together selling honey and candles at farmers’ markets and craft fairs all over Maine. The company “headquarters” was an abandoned one-room schoolhouse that they rented from a friend for $150 A YEAR.

In 1989, a boutique in New York City placed an order for hundreds of candles. This was the first of what would soon be many large wholesale candle customers.

In 1991, “Burt’s Bees” was formally incorporated as a company. Burt and Roxanne were 50/50 partners.

That first year as an official business, the company generated $20,000 in profits.

He owned property in Maine, had two Golden Retrievers, a girlfriend, and $20,000 a year in profits. This was heaven on top of heaven for Burt Shavitz.

Roxanne Quimby had bigger ambitions.

In 1991, Burt’s Bees introduced a line of natural soaps, furniture polish, perfumes, and, most importantly, a lip balm. I bet that around 10% of the people reading this story have a Burt’s Bees lip balm in their pocket right now.

All of their products featured a sketched drawing of Burt with his now-iconic beard and striped locomotive engineer’s hat.

Production expanded to 40 employees working out of an abandoned bowling alley.

The lip balm proved to be the tipping point that transformed Burt’s Bees from a quaint mom-and-pop business to a thriving personal care company on its way to something much, much larger.

In 1994, the company generated $3 MILLION in revenue. That same year, operations moved from the abandoned bowling in Maine to an 18,000-square-foot modern production facility in North Carolina. Up to this point, Burt and Roxanne were still happy as both romantic and business partners. Unfortunately, trouble was on the horizon.

The Breakup

Moving away from Maine to be the co-head and public face of a growing empire was NOT what Burt Shavitz wanted for his life. He really just wanted to keep living a simple life on his property in Maine with Roxanne, his bees, and his dogs. But, of course, he probably didn’t mind the newfound attention he was receiving.

Roxanne, the former rustic hippy mom who once washed her clothes in a river and used an outhouse, was soon spending more time building a capitalistic conglomerate and less time paying attention to kooky old Burt.

At some point after the move to North Carolina, Burt began having a relationship with one of the company’s college interns. When Roxanne found out, she was understandably livid.

Not only was her relationship with Burt over, but she also wanted him out of the business.

Here’s how Burt would later describe what happened next:

"She accused me of sexual harassment and went completely berserk. She consulted a lawyer and put the paper on a desk and said, 'There! Take it or leave it!' I had no one to turn to for guidance, so I signed it. I went one way and she went another."

He didn't walk away totally empty-handed. In return for giving up what by now was a 1/3rd stake in the company, Burt was given 37 acres of land in Maine. The estimated value of the land at the time was $137,000.

By 1998 the company was selling 100 different types of products in 4,000 locations nationwide. Revenues were $8 million. By 2000, the company was earning $20 million a year. By 2001, revenues were $60 million.

Burt’s Bees Revenue

• 1984: $200

• 1988: $3,000

• 1991: $20,000

• 1994: $3 million

• 1998: $8 million

• 2000: $20 million

• 2001: $60 million

• 2006: $250 million

Selling Out

In 2004, Roxanne Quimby sold 80% of Burt's Bees to a private equity firm called AEA Investors for $173 million.

After Burt made a huge public stink claiming he was screwed over, Roxanne agreed to give him $4 million from the deal.

In 2007, AEA and Roxanne sold 100% of Burt's Bees to Clorox for $925 million. Roxanne's 20% earned her an additional $185 million.

In total, Roxanne earned $325 million from the two sales. She earned tens of millions more in dividends in the decade before the two sales.

In other words, Roxanne Quimby, the former rustic hippy mom anti-capitalist art student, had become a centimillionaire business tycoon.

After selling the company, she moved back to Maine, where she is currently the third richest person in the state.

Roxanne used a portion of her fortune to acquire and preserve huge swaths of forest in Maine with the goal of creating a new national park.

Interestingly, not everyone was happy. Some Maine residents were angry that they would no longer be able to hunt or snowmobile on the land. Others were upset that the land would be restricted from logging and hunting.

But Roxanne found a loophole.

• National parks require congressional approval.

• Under a relatively obscure 1906 law called the Antiquities Act, national monuments can be created by Presidential proclamation.

On August 24, 2016, with the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama designated 87,000 acres as the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. It is administered by the National Park Service. Roxanne also donated $20 million to fund future operations, bringing the total value of the gift to $80 million. She continues to own another 40,000 acres of Maine forest privately.

As for Burt Shavitz, by selling his share of the company for $137,000 worth of land, Burt Shavitz lost out on around $100 million. But he had no regrets.

As he would explain in a 2013 documentary about his life called “Burt’s Buzz,”:

"What do I need it for, millions of dollars? It just sounds like problems with the IRS to me… No matter what happens, I'll be ok right where I am. As long as I can just get up in the morning and put my clothes on and get out the door, I'll be just fine… I got what I need right here… It's important to be able to separate one's wants from one's needs."

After the company was acquired by Clorox, Burt was brought back into the fold and paid an annual stipend to serve as a public mascot at public appearances. In a really bizarre twist, he became hugely popular in Taiwan. When he would arrive in Taiwan on a public appearance trip, Burt would be greeted by hundreds of adoring fans, many of whom would be dressed up as him.

Burt Shavitz died on July 5, 2015, at the age of 80.

After their 1994 breakup, Burt and Roxanne never spoke again. His face is literally still the face of the company.

“A good day is when no one shows up and you don’t have to go anywhere.”

- Burt Shavitz

Aka, the man who figured out a brilliant life hack to have no boss, no job, no stress, frequent naps, and unlimited honey… while also inadvertently launching an empire.

FINAL WORD

On the next edition of “Deep Pockets,” we’re going to talk about another enterprising entrepreneur who figured out how to make money off a natural resource. But not bees. Beavers. And he parlayed those beaver furs into one of the largest fortunes in American history.

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