Hub Coworking Hawaii

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Interview with Meli James of Mana Up

By George Yarbrough

We are so excited to be a part of the #startupparadise that is Hawaii. We share a vision with many accelerators, businesses, organizations, and individuals to expand business opportunities here in the islands, and beyond.

One such visionary, whom we are proud to call a friend and a partner, is Meli James. She’s the President of the Board of Directors of the Hawaii Venture Capital Association and the Founder of Mana Up, an accelerator for packaged goods and brands in Hawaii. She’s a leader in the business community here in Honolulu, and she had some awesome thoughts to share during a recent conversation at her offices in Honolulu.

Meli understands that connecting Hawaii’s business leaders at locations like Impact Hub HNL is vital to the growth of our startup ecosystem, and is helpful to connect entrepreneurs with each other. Along with alternative workspaces, she’s excited to see the type of investment campaign we’re running. She says these different types of investment – beyond the traditional bank loan or angel investors– can create a lot more opportunity in the islands.

Take a peek at the video below to learn more about her thoughts!

Built in Hawaii: Creative Entrepreneurs Share their Business Stories

Built is Hawaii is back! We hosted another successful Built in Hawaii event October 18 featuring two unique entrepreneurial voices from Oahu.

Our Built in Hawaii events are unique storytelling events based on the podcast,”How I Built This” and coordinated in partnership with Hawaii Public Radio’s Generation Listen. This interactive event features local success stories. Whether you are interested in entrepreneurship or not, these stories inspire, motivate, amplify and celebrate community strength.

This event was built from conversations around the idea that Hawaii is uniquely positioned geographically and culturally to incubate ideas in a way that could only happen here. What are those stories? What can we learn from them? What can we replicate to motivate new leaders?

At this event, José A. Fajardo, President and General Manager ofHawaii Public Radio spoke with two creative entrepreneurs, Robert Stehlik from Blue Planet Surf and Katherine Tuider from Honolulu Biennial. Robert shared the story of building a small clothing brand, which year after year grew from a few t-shirts into a thriving small business, moving into retail stores, then board sales, and then Stand-up paddle board design. You can learn more about Blue Planet Surf here.

After years of working in international business, art, and development, Katherine Tuider came back to Hawaii to co-found the Honolulu Biennial, an arts organization that seeks to share the work of Hawaii’s artists with the world and boost our local art scene. She discussed the challenges of getting a creative organization funded on Oahu, and the joy of seeing how enthusiastic the Honolulu community can be about art in public and private spaces. Honolulu Biennial 2019 is happening March 8 – May 5, 2019.

Watch this awesome video recap from Reel World Films!