Money Australia – July 2017

HONEYFLOW.COM

success

RaisedonacommunenearLismore,innorthern

NSW. Encouraged at a young age to tinker with

contraptions.Firstjobwaspickingblueberries

for$7abucket.Anenvironmentalactivist

who supports groups such as Green-

peace, Oxfam and Rainforest

Tr u s t.

Cedar Anderson

Inventor of the honey-harvesting

Flow Hive

O Fact file

ne of the most celebrated

start-upgurusofrecenttimes

wasn’tnurturedinatechhub

and had no financial support

from high-flying investors.

In fact, Cedar Anderson says he grew up

inthebeliefthatmoneywastheroot

ofallevil.Hisprimarydriveistodo

goodintheworld.Thatseemingly

paradoxical situation grounded him

whilehetooktheinventionthathas

revolutionised the production of honey

fromhisworkbenchtoglobalsuccess.

It still does.

Anderson’sFlowHivebecameahit

two years ago when a crowdfunding

campaign to raise $US70,000 ($91,000) hit

itstargetexactly477secondsafterlaunching

online.Ordersforthebeehivesweresostrong

that the funding website crashed. When

the campaign ended, 38,500 orders worth

$US12.2millionhadbeennotchedup.Peo-

ple in distant corners of the world loved the

idea, and they wanted to become hobbyists.

Months later, Anderson snagged Australia’s

mostprestigiousaccoladeforinnovation,the

Good Design Award of the Year.

Today38peopleworkforAnderson’scom-

pany.MostarebasedinByronBayandtwo

are centred overseas where most of the orders

originate. The company outsources manufac-

tureofitsquaintSwisschaletstyleofhive

fromtwofactoriesinBrisbaneandonein

Portland, Oregon. The sourcing of suitable

wood for the frames is critical to their location.

Then there are seven warehouses around the

worldrunbyathird-partylogisticscompany,

Shipwire.Whenanorderismadeonline,a

hive is shipped anywhere in the world on the

same day. Flow Hive has come a long, long

wayinashorttime.

There were plenty of challenges. “I didn’t

grow up with people around me running

businesses,” says Anderson. “In some ways,

it was uncharted territory with huge learn-

ingcurves.Notonlythatbuttherewere

mentoringhurdlestogetoveraroundstories

like money is the root of all evil. A lot of us

grow up with that. I actively put work into

shiftingthatheadspaceinto[thebeliefthat]

moneycanbeatool,aforceforgood.”He

nowbelievesmoneycanbeusedtoaccelerate

positiveoutcomesfortheworld.Hecando

good,wherehecouldn’teasilyhavedoneso

before.“Thatwasimportantformetodigest.

OtherwiseIthinkIwouldhavepushedaway

any opportunities that would bring success.”

Part of that epiphany involved signing up

for online marketing courses. They opened

his mind. One was a workshop on shifting

mentalblockages,whichhesayswouldoth-

erwise have led him in another direction

entirely. “It sounds funny but it’s really true,”

heexplains.“Patternsinourbrain,inthe

background, drive our decisions and if the

brainissaying,‘Moneyisbad’,probablyyou

won’t get anywhere.”

Old ways are still hard to change, howev-

er.“Moneywasneveranissueforme,”says

Anderson.“Irunmycaroffoldoilfromthe

fishandchipshop.Ihavedonethatformany,

many years and habits die hard. People ask,

‘Why don’t you upgrade?’ I say, ‘Well, it works.’

Ilikerecycling,andIdon’tseeanyneed.I

won’tgetanywherequickerinashinysports

car.” One luxury that success has brought,

however, is a new home for his family. Gone

is the home in a basic, unlined shed. Up the

hillalittle,anewonehasbeenbuiltthatis

just as welcoming but also dry and warm. “We

have moved up in the world on that level.”

Success as an inventor seems to be Ander-

son’s destiny. Along with the other kids on

thecommune,hehadfreerangetoexplore.

Experiments conducted at school when

aged five stuck in his memory. “We did

things like science experiments with

fireworks to measure the speed of sound.

Wedidthatbyputtingafirecrackerunder

atininapaddockatameasureddistance.

We timed the difference between when we

sawthetingoupintheairandwhenwe

heard the bang.”

The commune had a garden and orchard, and

his grandfather and uncle kept bees. Anderson

remembers them as being aggressive, some-

thing he disliked when he became involved in

his early 20s. “The whole honey-harvesting

process was annoying for the bees and me.

Therewasquiteadisturbance[harvestingthe

honey] and often many bees were squashed. I

thought there had to be a better way to drain

honey out of the hive with minimal distur-

bance to the colony and without spending

theweekintheshedmakingamesstrying

to centrifuge the honey frames.”

TheFlowHivetook10yearstoperfect.

Prototypes were developed and tested. That

wascomplicated,becauseitmeantseeinghow

the bees would react to them. A feedback loop

wasverynecessarybutoftenfrustrating.It

couldtakethreeorfourmonthsforthemto

getusedtoahive,iftheytooktoitatall.Then

the honey they made simply would not flow.

Meanwhile, Anderson continued work as a

paraglider instructor, using those skills to

flyoverSumatranrainforeststofilmillegal

deforestationaspartofaGreenpeacecampaign.

“I tried for so long to get the honey out with

all sorts of crazy contraptions and wasn’t really

getting anywhere. The eureka moment was

onemorningwhenIwokeupandrealised

thatIcouldbuildsomethingthatwouldhave

hexagonalcells,whichthebeescouldfill

and then be moved into a new shape when it