Australian Story: Sept 12

Australian Story revisits Byron beekeepers Stuart and Cedar Anderson, who featured in an episode a year ago when their crowdfunding concept Flow Hive ignited over $12m in orders -how have they coped with the demands?

“The crowdfunding raised an enormous amount of money so we weren’t in hock to the banks or investors or anything like that. It gave us freedom to create the sort of company we wanted to create.” Stuart Anderson

Life for me was always good. I don’t need super yachts and pools full of champagne. I’m still driving my old HiLux and I’m still running it off old frying oil from the chip shop.” Cedar Anderson

“It’s a really quirky mixture of everything’s changed and nothing’s changed. Except I’m very tired.” Kylie Ezart, Cedar’s partner.

Cedar Anderson and his father Stuart were living off the smell of an oily rag in the hills behind Byron Bay when they invented a revolutionary new beehive.

When Australian Story first met the pair a year ago, a spectacularly successful crowdfunding campaign had turned them into millionaires virtually overnight. It also left them and their small team with 25,000 orders to fill from around the world. To add to the pressure, Cedar and his partner Kylie had just given birth to their first child, Jarli.

One year on, Australian Story revisited the Andersons to see how success has changed their lives.

Stuart Anderson admits it wasn’t easy meeting the initial orders generated by the crowdfunding campaign and that some mistakes were made. But he says that by April they cleared the backlog and that stressful period is behind them.

Stuart says the US$12 million raised has made things easier, but most of it went into manufacturing the hives and building the company. They now employ 35 people, and fulfil orders using three factories and seven warehouses dotted around the world.

Cedar Anderson, who never wanted to be tied down to a 9-5 office job, says he’s working harder than he would like to – “it’s eight days a week at the moment” – but they have been able to create the kind of company and work environment they wanted.

He is happy he doesn’t have to wear shoes to the office and in fact, the only time he has worn a suit was when their invention won the 2016 Good Design Award, Australia’s most prestigious prize for design.

Monday 12 September at 8pm on ABC.