#communityovereverything Hivessence

The first thing we ask when you initially walk into one of our centers is “What do you do?” in hopes to truly understand your business and create a plan that works best for you. Each business is unique, and we love learning about how it came to be – especially when it’s about saving the bees! CityCentral had the opportunity to sit down with Richardson member, David Burrows, to discuss how he and his wife started his company, Hivessence.

Hivessense is an organic skincare and supplements company that also sells farm created soaps. Most of their products are infused with honey or some aspect of the beehive, such as propolis, pollen, or wax. In 2020, due to COVID, Burrows was furloughed from his job as a CMO at a restaurant software company. Rather than taking this as a downfall, David saw it as an opportunity to jump back into the startup world. Burrows has been involved in helping create 7 start-ups, so he had an idea of where to start. After the first month of business, Hivessence had over $1000 in sales and has been growing ever since. You will soon be able to find Hivessence in  over 20 different spas and specialty retail spaces throughout North Texas .

So, why bees? David tells us that he  learned so much about “the bee thing” through his ex-girlfriend who has a 250-acre farm in Hawaii and 22 million bees. Burrows explains, “I came to be overwhelmed by what we could do at a small level that can actually have a huge global impact…We live in a world of memes, and I had seen one of Einstein and it said, ‘If we lose the bees completely, the Earth’s ability to sustain life could collapse in 5-10 years’. And that just hit me like crazy, I mean people can hear a song lyric or something that really impacts them and that to me, even though it was a meme, it impacted me. And that’s when the universe kind of brought me this opportunity.” Burrows mentions that he was diagnosed with ADD and that this has been something that he has been able to stay engaged with, “Even when I’m not passionate about it, I’m passionate about it, if that makes sense. It’s very tiring but it makes the work worth it.”

When asked what he wished he learned before starting his business, Burrows replied, “ . I’ve had successes but also gigantic failures. I’ve learned a lot and learned more from the failures than the successes. I wish I had done more research on the evolution of the retail consumer cosmetics. I had crash coursed it this past year just trying to find the manufacturers and the learning curve was huge. Along with the bee research.” Burrows mentions how he wouldn’t be able to do this without his wife, who has been in jewelry and fashion for 25 years and sold a quarter of a billion dollars through QVC and other retailers, “She has connections and knows how things perform, shipping, profit margins, etc.”.

We want to thank David for sitting down with us and sharing his story! To learn more about Hivessence and explore their products, visit hivessence.com. Also be sure to check out their foundation Arkearth, which fundraises for its ‘Pollination Accelerators’, and provides education on sustainable and innovative ways to save the planet.

If your company is interested in being introduced in a member spotlight, please email info@citycentral.com.