Abby Green and Alex Livingstone pictured in the Business School, wearing a certain post-Uni-degree (or barberry?) glow.
When Abby Green and Alex Livingstone cross the stage to collect their Bachelor of Entrepreneurship degrees this weekend (as two of the first cohort to graduate from the programme) they may well offer up a quiet salute to the humble pimple. It was, after all, the pesky pustule of adolescence that first set them off on their entrepreneurial path.
When these two began their entrepreneurship studies at Otago in 2022, they were quite the business veterans among their peers, having launched their own skincare company, Abalro Health, while in Year 12 at Bayfield High School.
It all began with some stubborn zits and a bit of parental Googling. While scouring the internet for natural remedies to help his son’s acne, Alex’s dad stumbled on a likely skin saviour: barberries. Scientific research showed that this fruit, rich in antioxidants and active compounds, was a good friend to beleaguered skin.
On discovering these wonder-berries weren’t available in New Zealand, Alex promptly ordered himself a 200g bag of dried barberries through a local food mart, crushed them into a consumable powder and conducted his own trial. The berries worked a treat, clearing his skin within a month.
So, when he and his school friend Abby were tasked with coming up with a business idea for the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) in Year 12, the beneficent barberry was an obvious choice. Though just 17 years old at the time, these two had gumption aplenty.
“People do YES for fun,” Alex says.
“But I didn’t want it to just be a school project – I wanted to solve a real problem and make money.”
They needed $900 to fund the first batch of products (50kg worth of berries imported from Iran and 1000 packets to pop them in). No problem.
“We didn’t have any money, so we bootstrapped the company and got friends and family to pre-order packets,” Alex says.
“We just went crazy trying to get people to order," Abby adds. "I think we got 93 pre-orders in two nights. People paid up front before we’d even created the product.”
They were heady days (read more about their early successes here). After appearing on television’s Seven Sharp in 2021, they went from producing eight bags of barberry powder a week (using Alex’s dehydrator at the school canteen) to receiving 2000 orders ($60k of revenue) in one night.
“It was really stressful,” Abby says.
“We were watching the emails flood in – if I looked at them now, I’d probably still get heart palpitations.”
Being the enterprising duo that they are, these palpitations didn’t last long. They fielded calls from suppliers and customers during class time, put Alex’s home dehydrator into early retirement, found a commercial kitchen in Auckland to take on the drying of the berries, and arranged to package them at a food production facility in Dunedin.
All this problem-solving clearly whet their entrepreneurial appetite. When the pair got wind of Otago’s new Bachelor of Entrepreneurship degree (launched in 2021) Alex abandoned his plan to study engineering and Abby stopped eyeing up a law degree.
The three-year programme has allowed them to deepen their business nous and gain a better understanding of where to steer their Abalro business.
“The biggest learning over the last three years is how important community is,” Abby says.
“Dunedin has that incredible small-town vibe – you know everyone and if you don’t, you know someone who knows them. If you work to build those connections, that’s how you succeed.”
After graduation, they’re both heading overseas for a long-overdue breather. Alex is off to Australia with partner Aimee to coach gymnastics and surf on the Gold Coast. He’ll also work on a new business idea – a sports recovery popsicle for active kids – alongside someone he met through YES.
“The initial plan is just to break free after uni and go and do something different”, Alex says.
Abby, meanwhile, is heading to Ireland via Indonesia and the Camino de Santiago with partner Hugh.
“The next step is life experience – seeing what else is in the world”, she says.
They’ll not be abandoning their Abalro baby while overseas. In fact, they’re gearing up to launch a new, more portable barberry product (perfect for the effort-averse teen). They’re currently scoping out distribution both here and on the other side of the Tasman – a market Alex can keep a watch on.
Asked if he thinks they’d have ended up on this entrepreneurial path if the zealous zit had kindly bypassed him, Alex says he’s pretty sure he’d have started some other business.
“As a kid I was always flipping things. On my tenth birthday my parents bought me 250 of those Vietnamese balancing dragonfly toys. I went around selling those and made something like $1,700.”
So, watch out world. Looks like these barberry barons are just limbering up.
Keep an eye on the Abalro trajectory here
Kōrero by Claire Finlayson, Communications Adviser (Otago Business School)