The Untold Story of a $30M Brand - No Tech, Just Honey! - video Dailymotion

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He’s not a tech mogul or crypto trader — yet he’s making $82,000 a day selling something as simple as raw honey. 🐝💰   In this video, discover the unbelievable story of how one entrepreneur turned a backyard idea into a multi-million dollar eCommerce empire. Using smart branding, organic marketing, and trending health products, he tapped into a booming market most people completely overlook.   Whether you're looking for your next profitable side hustle, curious about building a passive income business, or want to learn how to start selling products online — this is your blueprint.   Learn how organic products, niche branding, and DTC (direct-to-consumer) strategies are changing the game in 2025.   🔥 Watch until the end to find out:-  How much it really costs to start a product business  Which platforms drive the most sales  The #1 mistake most new sellers make   #HoneyBusiness  #eCommerceSuccess  #PassiveIncome2025  #OrganicProducts  #MillionaireStories  #StartUpLife  #Tier1Markets   👉 Follow for more real success stories from modern entrepreneurs.   Must Watch  Share | Like | Follow

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00:00These bees make over 30 million dollars a year in revenue, but it all started with one 12-year-old,

00:05300 bucks, and just a few beehives. Today we're breaking down how to make money from bees, how

00:11you could do it even in your backyard, and maybe you can also save the population of bees. Let's

00:16go meet the 12-year-old that built this entire business based on bees, huh? Hey, Cody. Hey,

00:20how's it going? Good to meet you. Good to meet you too. All right, you're a little tall for a 12-year-old.

00:24I know, I grew fast. But this entire business started with one hive? One beehive. That's wild.

00:29It looked just like this? Just like this, yes. What does that cost you? About $300. Break down

00:34for me kind of the whole cost of your first bee operations as a 12-year-old mogul. The 12-year-old

00:39empire started with really just a $300 beehive, you know, a $50 bee suit and bee veil, and some basic

00:45packaging equipment that maybe cost $100. I got a little bit addicted, and I said, okay, hey, this

00:50is the math. It cost me $300 to get a new beehive, but then I got 10. And I said, okay, now I've got

00:54all this extra honey. What could I sell it for? And so I started packaging it, selling it to local

00:58health food stores, and then said, okay, what would it look like to do this commercially

01:03for a living? Why were you like, no, no, I want to get stung a lot?

01:06Beekeeping was just something I stumbled upon when I was starting high school. It was a niche

01:10industry that no one was paying attention to. The average age was about 65 years old to be

01:15in this industry. So how much money did you think you made between like 12 and 14 on honeycobs?

01:19About 10 to 15 grand a year. Whoa. Yeah, but I put every dime back into the business.

01:24And then you started to go more commercial. Right. And that's when you started making

01:28a couple six figures. Yeah. So I mean, I was doing six figures by the time I graduated high

01:33school. Now you guys do how much? 30 to 40 million. Yeah. So sweet. It is. I kind of am curious. Like

01:38I've always wanted to see inside of one of those. What does the actual process look like? I'd love to

01:42show you. Let's go take a look. So this is what's inside of those hives over there. Yes. This is a

01:47mini picture of what a full beehive would look like. So I know we're going to get into actual

01:50beehive later. Let's break down really quickly all your revenue lines in this bee business.

01:54Yeah. So we sell honey. We sell pollination services. We sell supplies, honey adjacent

02:00food products. So food manufacturing. And then we sell some beekeeping services. What

02:05about education? Education really brings them in to get them to buy the products we're selling.

02:10Education is a marketing tool for us. So you have six revenue streams in just one business.

02:14You start small, but you scale hard. He did what most mainstream millionaires do. He got in

02:18the game with what he had. You don't need permission. You just need to go do it.

02:24So behind us right now, we have what's called totes. Totes of honey. Yes. And so what is

02:29that? So those are empty totes that we get honey in from all over the country. We bring

02:33them here. We process the honey. And then the empty totes are cleaned out and sent back

02:37to the beekeeper they came from. How much does one of those cost if it's full of honey?

02:40So if it's full of honey, it's about $15,000 worth of honey. It took half a million bees to

02:44make one tote full of honey. Wait a second. $3 million of honey.

02:48What's this? So these are all barrels of honey. So you

02:51can get honey in totes with 3,000 pounds to the tote, or you can get it in barrels with

02:55600 pounds to the barrel. Wow. Why the two?

02:59Different beekeepers produce honey in different quantities, different sizes. It's a preference

03:02thing. And where we make the real money

03:04is we put them there. Into the little jars.

03:06Okay. Let's go do this part now. Let's go check it out.

03:09This is a $3 million honey processing facility. And we're going to show you everything inside

03:15of here to see how it actually works behind the scenes.

03:18This is the honey sauna. It's about 130 degrees, but we've got about a million dollars of honey

03:23in here right now. And it's being warm to get ready to process.

03:26That's amazing. So without this, it would look like old crackly honey, like when you're

03:30just seeing the last part of the jar. Exactly. Never get it out of the jar.

03:32But it actually is totally fine for honey to get really hot or cold.

03:35Yes. As long as it's within proper parameters. We are very careful to make sure it stays

03:40within a certain temperature range, which protects the nutrients in honey. Because we

03:44want the good stuff left in it. Ready? Okay. All right. You're going to need this.

03:47All right. Let's do this. Let's bottle some honey.

03:48Love it. Okay. So talk to me about the entire process from hive to jar. How does it work?

03:56That's a great question. So we let our bees do all the work, really. I mean, the bees

04:00do the vast majority of the work and then our job, get it into a jar with minimal processing.

04:04I like that. Some of our customers want every bit

04:08of nutrition they can possibly get in the honey. So this is honey that has never been warm.

04:12So you can even feel it's a little bit cold. This takes less processing, but we charge more

04:17for it because the customer sees it as something that's abnormal and they'll pay even more, even

04:21though it costs us less to produce. That's wild. Also smaller batch. You're probably not doing

04:25as many of these. Exactly. But it's a great moment to think about in every single market.

04:29Where is there part of your market that nobody else is doing where you might actually be able

04:34to make more money, but it doesn't always cost you more. Exactly. And this is a great example of that.

04:38So I bet the first time you did this, it was nothing like this. Oh, not at all. It was a mess. So messy,

04:44but you get to lick your fingers in this job. So, you know, that's a, that's a perk. I do love that. I think

04:49first you just do it and then you do it well. That's so true. Oh, a hundred percent. So now

04:54we're going to go to the big factor where there's way more automation and you guys are really pros,

04:58right? Because beginners do too much. Pros do only what is needed. I think the easiest way to spot a

05:04beginner is busy-ness. Yeah. And I think you're going to see in here, you guys, how pros actually do

05:09things. Step one, bottle goes on the table and get filled with honey, making sure the fill level is

05:15where it should be. Then we're getting a lid put on. Last but not least, it gets a label, goes into

05:20a box and then it's all for the grocery store. How many of these things come through an hour?

05:23About a thousand an hour. What do you sell these jars for? Wholesale, five dollars. In your store,

05:27you're going to pay about nine dollars. So one hour, we make 5,000 bucks. Every single business is

05:32an assembly line, no matter whether you're manufacturing or not. You start with an idea,

05:36you create a product, you eventually get it to customers and you hopefully repeat the cycle of them

05:39buying from you again and again. So if you don't already know what the assembly line is to your

05:44business, that means you don't actually know how you make money. The number one thing you should

05:47do while watching this video if you own a business is figure out where do you start, where do you end

05:51and how do you repeat the process faster and cheaper and better. If you guys haven't heard of

05:55the Toyota Way or lean manufacturing, you should probably check it out. I think every business needs

05:59to and you applied it here. Explain what it is really quick. Yeah, so it's being able to take all

06:04your processes, all your systems and apply them in a very cost effective way that is going to really boost

06:10your profit margins. Yeah. The fascinating part is before the Toyota Way was released,

06:14there was a completely different way that they did car manufacturing. And with this one methodology,

06:19Toyota became one of the top car manufacturers in the world. Japan didn't used to be that. Now,

06:25everybody from Ford to Tesla uses components of it. And it turns out, so does Honey. So whatever your

06:31business is, you might want to look on how you can make more by doing things simpler. So when you first

06:36start out like in any business, you're doing this all yourself. But I bet by now, you don't even know

06:40how to run some of this stuff. I'm embarrassed to say, but I don't. But that's okay. Because I'm

06:44always trying to work myself out of a job. That's my job. I don't know why that is so hard for people

06:49to understand early on. People have a hard time letting go. But if I'm doing $10 an hour work,

06:54my work is only worth $10 an hour. And that's not okay if I own the company. And you'll never make an

06:58obscene amount of money by not being able to hire incredible people, maybe even some who are smarter than you.

07:03Oh, that's the bar for hiring is they've got to be smarter than me. It's a pretty low bar.

07:08I feel the same way. Half the team, I'm like, how do you work these things?

07:10Exactly.

07:11Ever have like a Lucio Ball moment where she's like trying to keep up and then the honey is falling

07:15everywhere? Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah.

07:17Wait, you guys, because I got something just for you. I'm going to give the best

07:21B pun in the comments. Gets Honey made just for you.

07:29You want to wear this?

07:30Real beekeepers don't wear that.

07:31Oh, okay. I want to talk about why you chose this branding and what you learned.

07:35Yeah, yeah. Clean label is everything for us. What we try to do is focus on calling out the

07:40core attributes that the customer cares the most about in as quick a way as possible. I mean, we

07:44know we have less than a second to catch the customer's eye when they're shopping in the grocery

07:48store. They want their honey to be raw, unfiltered, and they care where it's from.

07:52Is it also really important that it looks like what it is? Like this looks raw and unfiltered,

07:56the label. It almost looks like it could be small batch. It doesn't look big and corporate,

08:00right?

08:01Yes. And then why we are beekeepers first?

08:04Because most people that package honey aren't actually beekeepers. They're big packing food

08:08companies. And so we want to emphasize our story, which is that, hey, we are vertically integrated.

08:13We raise the honey bees themselves and then we produce the honey ourselves.

08:16And then you have your story on the back here.

08:18Right. Exactly.

08:19It says you were 13 here.

08:20Ah, typo.

08:21So why did you go with something totally different looking on this one? Why the word honest?

08:25Yeah. So we are really going for a different target audience there. We're going for a consumer

08:29that is very health conscious. So more health food store-esque instead of everyday use that you

08:34might see on the big box stores.

08:36Yeah. This does feel a little bit more like I might see this at like sprouts or something or whole foods.

08:42Right.

08:42Talk to me about hot honey. That seems weird.

08:44It is one of the hottest ingredient combinations in the country right now. It's sweet and spicy.

08:49Yeah. This is brand new. Like right at this start. My husband does it now.

08:51Yes. It's everywhere.

08:53So you basically saw demand for this, created your own product.

08:57Exactly.

08:58And then have a little markup. No, markdown because it's smaller.

09:01Yes. It's what actually, it's a great margin. Yeah. So it's about $9 in retail stores.

09:06Interesting. Secret, if you want to make a lot of money in business, stack the value, stack the revenue.

09:11What does that mean? If you have just one product line,

09:13you don't have a business. You have a single point of failure. You can see he has merch. You can see

09:19he has accoutrements. You can see he has multi-flavored types of honey. You can see he sells online.

09:24This whole process means that we have diversification of risk. You got four ways that you can diversify

09:29your revenue streams into four different types of products. You can do wholesale. So big things of this

09:34to third parties. You can have direct to consumer or retail where you're actually taking your own product and

09:40selling it right to me and you. The third type of product, value added resale. So take their honey,

09:46put it inside this product that somebody else manages, and then they actually resell the product,

09:50but they don't have to do all of it. And lastly, we have straight up third party, which means they're

09:55not the ones manufacturing these. They buy it from somebody else and resell it to you with a little

09:59bit of the markup. Four different ways you can diversify your revenue streams. What do you sell the most?

10:03Oh, this. What's second most? Oh, definitely that. What surprised you and how much it sold? Oh, this

10:08thing's all I have. What is that? This is a bee smoker. We build a fire inside and puff smoke into

10:13the beehive and it keeps them calm. Let's break down the numbers in this business. More business,

10:18as we're calling it. Revenue. $30 million a year. Pretty good. Profit. How much money do they actually

10:23keep in their pocket? We're saying 15% blended margins. Biggest L. This guy says that one time he lost

10:31$3 million, which is so painful. Sorry, Blake. Startup costs. What did it cost to start this

10:36business? We already know this, but 300 bucks ain't bad. A lot more costs going to scale it,

10:41but that's just the beginning. Number of employees in this business right now, 125. And finally,

10:47cost of all those bees just this year. Well, it's 2 million bucks. Now that we see the breakdown of his

10:54business, let's break down your business live and how you can have your own little honeybee producing

11:00profit machine. I'm going to bring in the expert for that. We're going to help you figure out how

11:04to start a bee business right now with a guy who's literally done it and then helped. How many people

11:08do it, do you think? Oh, hundreds or thousands. Okay. How many hives would you have to start with

11:12at minimum? At least six. How many pounds of honey does it make per hive? A good hive should make 60

11:17pounds. Which means you're making about 900 pounds. I like it. Yeah. Now, if you're going to go sell

11:21these things, where are we selling them? Totally go for the farmer's market. Somewhere it's going to be

11:25a premium for every pound. So $15 a pound. 15 bucks a pound. So how much revenue loosely would

11:30you make in the first year? So about 13,500 range is where you should land. Okay. And obviously we

11:35got to be good at marketing for this. Of course. You've got to actually do the work. People aren't

11:39going to come to you, but you've seen this a few times. Totally. And so we've got a ballpark. Right.

11:43How much does an individual hive cost? So you should be around $300 a hive. Nice. Which means we're at about

11:48$1,800 bucks on the low end. Now food per hive. Yeah. About $200 to $300 a hive per year. So $240

11:56right on. Hive management, which basically means what? Yeah. Just miscellaneous expenses. Nothing

12:00huge. Okay. About $300 total. Perfect for the year. Love it. And then other? $1,800 roughly of just

12:07miscellaneous fees. That's like suits. Exactly. Bee smokers, bee fuel. Yes. I like it. Now land. This is a

12:13little secret hat you told me. Most people will let you put bees on their land for free if you give them a jar

12:18of honey. I love that. You guys tell me if that works for you in the comments, which means for

12:23your business, we're getting to somewhere around $13,500 in revenue. We're looking at $5,000,

12:29maybe $300, which means in total public math, just kidding. We already did it for you is $8,200.

12:38So we think the profit margin of 61%, that feels a little high to me. Doesn't that feel high to you?

12:43Whiteboard math always looks amazing. When in reality, running a business is really like,

12:47I don't know, his belt. So we don't actually think it's 61%. It's probably closer to what,

12:5340? I would guess 35 to 40 because you're going to lose some of the beehives. A couple of those

12:56beehives are going to die in the course of the year. One might not produce as much honey. One

13:00might produce more honey. So yeah. Might be a terrible salesperson. Might be a terrible salesperson.

13:07Let's taste some honey. Let's do it. Okay. So I'm going to start with this one. This is the straight up

13:12honey, right? It's just the normal honey. And you just put it in there and then you eat it like this?

13:17You want to. Okay. It's like those recipe videos. It was actually delicious. So what do you taste when

13:23you taste this one? I can tell you what type of flour it's from and what part of the country it's from.

13:28Yeah. Like even if you didn't know, you could do wine tasting of honey.

13:32100%. There's 190 different varieties of honey in the U.S. alone. Okay. This one?

13:36Wow. This does taste different. Totally different. Yeah. Totally different. Totally different floral

13:41source. Yes. Wait, that's because of the flour, not because of the heat? Because of the flour.

13:46I really like that one. I do too. It's almost like honey peanut butter. Yeah. It's like creamy,

13:49spreadable. Yeah. Ah. Yeah. And the hot honey, which you said is not going to be too much for me,

13:54and you promised me. Uh, something like that. What's your heat tolerance level? Well,

13:58I'm sort of like a fake Latina, so hopefully... Okay. All right. Well, you'll be fine. All right.

14:02So here we go. Hot honey. That's a lot. That is spicy. It's the best. I did a pizza. Okay. Now,

14:12that's really hot. It's the best. This is a beehive, right? Yeah, it is.

14:16If I can get 15,000 likes on this video, I want to put beehives on my raw land and show you guys

14:22exactly how to do it. Let's go build a beehive right now. Great idea. What are the steps here?

14:26You put the joints together. You nail the joints together. We put bees in. Now, this is 3,000 bees and just this

14:31one thing. This psychopath is picking them up. I don't know what's wrong with him,

14:34but basically we have 40 million bees behind me mathematically, and you can ship these to

14:39customers to start your hive. I can actually see the bees through there. They're so stressful.

14:43So we've built it. Now we got to fill it. Blake, what do we need?

14:45Need a brush, bee smoke, gloves, hive tool, a bee suit. Okay. I think the best creative infused

14:51honey idea wins the bee box. What do you think? Love it. Great idea.

14:54I'm going with lavender. What do you think? Maybe almond.

14:56Welcome to our bee rental units. What you see here are not just boxes full of bees and colonies.

15:06These are actually in a way, little bee apartments and actually cash flowing assets.

15:11Thousands of them. So talk about what's behind us right now.

15:14So these are thousands of beehives and each box can have up to 50 to 60,000 printers in it. And yeah,

15:22so we build these every day into this, in this location. And then we move them out to

15:26fresh fields of flowers where they grow and develop. And what's so crazy about this is right

15:31now you might think, why are all of these in like an industrial location? That's because they actually

15:36bring in the bees and they put them into new units and you're basically growing your bee population

15:42live. Exactly. Yes. How many hives do you guys own? We own 30,000 hives. 30,000 hives. And how many

15:48bees in total? Oh, over a billion. A billion bees. That also sounds kind of sweet. It's amazing.

15:53Honestly. Billion employees. Yes. Look at this little cash machine here. We've got tons of

15:58residents actively coming out here to poop, apparently, I'm told, right? Sometimes.

16:04What are the rules of thumb for somebody starting out right now that wants to get their first 500 to

16:082000 bucks a month with a beehive? Start learning. Find a mentor. They can help walk you through all

16:13the mistakes that they made. Love that. That's the best advice for almost any side hustle. First you learn,

16:18then you earn, then you invest. That's what he did. Took all the earnings, applied it to this business,

16:23never raised VC in order to get to 40 million bucks. And then finally, you can take that and

16:28you can have your own little mini bee empire. Now we're surrounded by a billion bees right now,

16:34and it might feel like the bee population at least here is fine, but I hear that's not what's happening

16:38in the world. Oh, not at all. I mean, beekeepers have had the worst loss in history over the past

16:42eight months. How much money have you lost from losing bees this year? I mean, our biggest loss

16:47ever has been up to three million dollars of lost bees in one year, but that pales in comparison to

16:52the 600 million lost as an industry. What is going on? We have no idea. And that's the terrifying part,

16:58is it's a combination of theoretically several things. Pesticides, pests, lack of clean forage,

17:04all conglomerating and hurting the bees all at the same time. I read some studies that there were

17:09something like 68% of all US honeybees have been lost over the last decade. Yes, 68%. And that's

17:16actually in the last eight months. Does it continue? That's what we wait and see. If it does continue,

17:23we won't be able to produce food in the United States like we always have. So it's critical we

17:27get to the bottom of it. One of the biggest things we're doing, and that's what we're doing at this

17:30location, is we are rebuilding beehives. Sometimes it's not just about making a ton of money,

17:35it's also about making a difference. So I want you guys to get rich, yes,

17:39so you can drive your lambos, but also maybe so you can save the world. So what's the secret?

17:44A few hives, a little land, a lot of upside. That's all you need to start your bee empire.

17:49Comment below. We'll answer all your questions on how you too can grow your side hustle bee business.

The Untold Story of a $30M Brand - No Tech, Just Honey!

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