 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines. We are broadcasting live from the beautiful Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. Today's special guest is a fantastic example of all of this. She is the president of Hawaii Venture Capital Association, the co-founder of Mana Up, which is a Hawaii-based initiative designed to build the state's next generation of CEOs in the retail and food product industry, and in 2017, Entrepreneur Magazine named her one of eight women leaders who are disrupting entrepreneurship. She is Mellie James, and today we are going beyond business. Hey Mellie, great having you here. Thanks Rusty. I know you for a long time because you went to Punahou, played tennis. When did you start Punahou though? I started Punahou in 1990, in my seventh grade. And then did you have fun playing tennis, and what other activities did you do? I played a lot of tennis. My mom was actually the director of tennis at Mid-Pac in the 80s, so we grew up a very big tennis family. I started playing at Intermediate in seventh grade as soon as I got in, and then ended up playing varsity, starting freshman year. So I think I was there with some overlap with you Rusty. Exactly, exactly. And then what college did you end up going to? I ended up going to Cornell University, to the School of Hotel Administration. Nice. And then I know your sister Kelly, who also played tennis. What is she doing now? So my sister also played at Punahou varsity. She's now at Communications and Community Relations at Honoha Oli School. Any kids? She's got two kids, a four-year-old and a three-year-old. Wow, great. They're cute. And then I know your parents, Mark and Rhoda, and how are they doing? They're doing great. Still living in the house that we were raised in, and everyone's great, and we spent a lot of time together. Oh, nice. Nice. Okay, and I want to... There's so many things we need to talk about today, Mellie. And in 2007, you started a company called Nervino. Tell me about that. Yeah, so Nervino was kind of my first dive into entrepreneurship. I actually had something called a quarter-life crisis, and I know you thought that was pretty funny. You know, a lot of things to worry about when you're in your 20s, you know? But really, for me, when I started working in kind of the adult world, a lot of the jobs I had early on really didn't feel right to me, didn't resonate. And I was thinking, is it just me? Is this like how being an adult is, like you're just not supposed to really like what you're doing? And so I kind of came to the realization that that doesn't have to be your norm. So I quit the job that I was at and took about six months off working with a life coach. And I had some savings, and I was doing some work on the side, but I was really able to work with this life coach to think about, you know, what was I good at, what was I not good at, what did I like doing, what did I not like doing? And I created these buckets of things that were...things that could be potentially interested in it. Because I think a lot of people, when they're looking at what they want to do, and they're like, oh, I'm open to anything, that's really overwhelming when you're just open to like anything. And so when I met my co-founder, when he had represented a bunch of things that had fallen into these buckets of things I was interested in was, you know, working for myself, maybe in like technology. I loved wine. All of these different things ended up kind of making sense. And so we launched in 2007. This was actually before the iPhone like launched, which I think it did in June or November of 2007. But basically before then, we just had these really clunky bones that had web browsers. You know, remember those like big phones, you know, it was like horrible user experience. And there were no apps, because again, there was no app store, there was no iPhone yet. And so we created the first mobile website for wine. And it was solving a very big problem, for me at least, and seemingly a lot of other people where we're always trying to find good wine. And we always base it on how cute the label is and what the price point is. And so now that we have all this information or fingertips, why shouldn't we have it at the grocery store when we're looking at the big shelf? Why shouldn't we have it at the restaurant? And so we created this first mobile website. And then when the iPhone launched and the app store launched, it created a marketplace for us to sell this information. So kind of through all of that and already having a lot of data already, we became the number one wine app very quickly on the iTunes store, a top 10 paid app, lifestyles app and top 100 overall paid app on the entire store. That's amazing. I remember when it came out and it got number one as an app. Now, what ended up happening to Nervino? Yeah. And that's a great question. You know, that was my first company was on a crazy high. And then I had a big falling out with my business partner. And that taught me a lot of lessons, you know, are really kind of falling very far from a company that was doing really well and, you know, kind of realizing around getting a better relationship with my gut. And there were a lot of red flags that I chose not to look at. And there were a lot of feelings I was having that I was just like, no, no, no, it'll all work out. Learning some of those hard lessons around trust, around finding a founder or co-founder, a business partner that you do believe in, you trust and that is, you know, you've got the right paperwork too. So those are some key lessons I learned. And it was tough as my first company was, I'd say, my most successful company within the startup world. Of course, Mana Up is a different type of company. But just really learning those hard lessons around betrayal and having a co-founder that it didn't work out with. Yeah, trust is so huge. I mean, it's so necessary to have. But then you got involved in blue startups and UHS Accelerate. Tell me about that. Yeah, so when I moved back to Honolulu, I was really looking at what I could do here. I started thinking about, you know, I was living in San Francisco for about 11 years and building this, you know, great network. And I was like, you know, do I really want to be here forever? It's such a transient city. And I was like, you know, I think I do really want to be back in Hawaii long term. So why should I be continuing to cultivate this network here when I should be cultivating a network in Hawaii? And so I came home a lot and started seeing these early inklings of startup innovation and some of the things in Silicon Valley that I had come to love, you know, having my company there, which was like start of weekend, the first start of weekend happened. The box jelly opened, you know, Ray Chung had opened that first co-working space in Kaka'ako. And I started thinking, okay, well, maybe there's something here. And so when I moved back, I kind of quickly got scooped up by Blue Startups. I was part of their initial team as their program manager, running really the program with the entrepreneurs that were getting accepted. And that was an incredible experience, you know, working with Shanoa and Maya and Hank and getting on more of the investor side of things as well as the mentorship side as opposed to just actually doing it, which is what my experience had been for five years right before I left was being an entrepreneur and launching companies. I actually launched a couple other ones after Nirvino. And that was neat to kind of be on the other side of the table. And that was an incredible experience. The Accelerate UH program was incredible working with the University of Hawaii and looking at intellectual property and other talents that were coming out of UH, which was kind of a reflection of regional strengths because the university and their strong departments are reflections of regional strengths in Hawaii. It's definitely a win-win situation for them and you, I think, you know, putting these brilliant minds together. And then you're also currently the president of the Hawaii Venture Capitalist Association. What does that organization do? So we are a 30-year-old organization. We started in 1988. And what we are is really around networking and connecting the business community with entrepreneurs, with investors, government, bringing to light conversations and panels that we should be having around, you know, what's the legislative agenda that affects innovation and small business and entrepreneurship on the docket, you know, this year? Or, you know, kind of looking at what's the state of investment in Hawaii? Like where are we at? You know, where is the money? Who are the new entities? And kind of keeping those things front of, kind of on the front. So we host a panel every other month throughout the year with different innovation ideas around fashion, food, different things like that. And then we also host an annual Hawaii Venture Capitalist Association Deal and Entrepreneur of the Year gala, which features the highlights of the successes of the last year. So it's a really nice way to create these succinct stories around what has been happening over the last year and some great successes and momentum here in Hawaii. Well, you do a whole lot of stuff, Mellie. Now, let's talk about mana up. I mean, it's such an amazing company. You're a co-founder. How did that come about? That's a great question. It's really interesting because I think some of the, like, you know, I'm so passionate about what we're doing. And I think it really came from a gap that we saw. You know, a lot of the accelerators here, they're featuring, are focusing on regional strengths. They're focusing on high growth venture-backable companies, gaming, you know, being really sector-agnostic, whether it's service-based, product-based, tech-based, whatever, all those different things. We really didn't see anything that was focused on consumer packaged goods or products. And looking at, you know, what is another regional strength, a competitive advantage we can leverage? Because it is so hard to do business here. And, you know, Brittany and I, Brittany Hyde, my co-founder, and I really came to the conclusion that the brand of Hawaii is an incredible strength we have that's really best seen in more product-based companies. You know, you can start a tech company called Mahalo or something. That doesn't really matter. But we're seeing, especially with Omoyagi, with tourism being on the rise, we see a lot of mainland companies that are leveraging our brand of Hawaii that have nothing to do with Hawaii. Hawaii doesn't profit from any of it. Yet they know Hawaii sells, and so they're leveraging it. So why can't we connect those thoughts here? Start looking at these mom-and-pop companies that are making some beautiful quality things and help them kind of level up and really start to create global brands right from here, creating jobs and sustainable livelihood. Well, it's definitely amazing what you and Brittany are doing to help so many of these companies. Now, is there like an application process for these companies to get selected? Yes. So it is an online application. It's actually open all year, so people can apply anytime. But we do our kind of open enrollment or more application with the interviews twice a year. Okay. So last, our first cohort we had about 85 applicants. Geez. We interviewed about 25 to 30 of them and then selected 10. And that's essentially the process every time. We're about to announce our third cohort in about two weeks. So we have 21 companies already in our portfolio and we'll be announcing another 10 to making that 31 in our portfolio. Well, I bet they're crossing their fingers and crossing their toes hoping to get selected from you. We hope so. So what is that 12-week accelerator program that you guys have at Manaab? So when we looked at the companies, we have very specific criteria they have to meet. One, they have to be headquartered in Hawaii. We want to be focusing on companies that are headquartered here because that's where you truly get really uncapped wealth potential and really uncapped opportunities when someone has an opportunity to really grow with a company because it's headquartered here, as opposed to being the satellite manager for a mainland company and you're the one person over here representing Hawaii. Two, they have to be at $100,000 minimum annual revenue and so these companies are still startups. They certainly haven't, for all intent and purpose, made it yet, but they figured out a few things. People are buying their stuff and we wanted them to be kind of at that level so they're really ready to scale. Most of our companies, to be honest, are more like at half a million but we make the 100,000 the minimum. The third thing is they have to want to scale. They have to want to grow to global markets. A lot of companies here, they've got beautiful stuff. More mom and pop and it's a lifestyle company and they want to stay that way. That's awesome. We're here to totally support you but you may not be the best fit for the program. And also, it's good for e-commerce and other things like that. So you're in the consumer packaged good space, meaning you're a health or beauty product, retail product or a value add food product with a minimum of six months shelf life. So basically with the 12-week program, they're all revenue generating so they're all running their businesses. So this is certainly not an academic exercise where we're like okay, you have to be in our office all day, every day. They're like, I'm trying to run my business. So we really condense it to one time a week. On a Tuesday, we started at about 130 and then we ended at about seven. And what we do there is there's a lot of resources that come in. So we've got great partnerships with resources that have existed well before Mana Up but we have them come in and really talk with the entrepreneurs about in layman's terms, what this resource can actually do for you. And then we have workshops. We normally have two every session. So it's either skills-based training or leadership training. So for skills, it could be Shopify as one of our partners. So they come in from Canada and Shopify, as most of us know, is the platform that most e-commerce and websites are run through. So they kind of teach best practices, what apps you should use to layer on top of your Shopify website, how to increase sales, SEO, stuff like that. And then we have leadership training. Like how do you create that culture for your company? A lot of these founders, they're first time founders. They created these companies maybe after having their first child and didn't feel like it made sense to go back to work but had this idea to start a company and create these products. And so when you think about that and you think about all of us and the training that we had before starting our own companies, it was all so different, right? So the training I had was, I was in sales for W Hotels. I was a sales manager. I was in research and marketing for the San Jose Convention and Visitors Bureau. I had all these different skill sets but I wasn't trained to be a founder. And so when you think about that, how can we leverage some of the great minds here that have been able to create successful business, have been able to create great companies here and have them come in kind of open Kimono style, heavy Q and A and being sitting down in a room with 10 young or early CEOs of flourishing companies sitting down with a great CEO that's been here having great success for a long time. Dennis Terney, she's come in. He was CEO of Hawaiian Host. Oh, yeah. We had Mark Tyra come in who's CEO of King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread. We've got John Morgan come in from Kualoa Ranch. So all of these great minds kind of come in and I think it really starts to address I think the biggest challenge that I see with a lot of our entrepreneurs is that mindset and having that mindset shift of knowing that you can create something big here and to think bigger. Yeah, you guys are, you and Brittany are brilliant together and you guys are doing something that's actually so exciting to really help these businesses. Mellie, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back we're going to continue going beyond business. Thank you. You are watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my special guest, Mellie James. We will be back in 60 seconds. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lowe and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii and on our show, we talk about taking your health back and what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Hey, Stan the Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan the Energyman at lunchtime, at noon, on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan the Energyman. Aloha. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My special guest today is Mellie James, the co-founder of Mana Up which is helping to build the state's next generation of CEOs in retail and food product industry and today we are going beyond business. Mellie in 2016, Entrepreneur Magazine named you one of top five women to watch and in 2017, that same magazine named you one of eight women leaders who are disrupting entrepreneurship. How does it feel to be highlighted in that way in this awesome magazine? I was incredibly honored. It's so funny when we're out here in Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific we always feel like people don't see what we're doing but it was an incredible honor and I actually got to go up to New York and meet the other women that were featured. We had a big photo shoot and then actually one of the women was hosting a women's conference a few months later in Houston and had invited all of us to be at different speaking engagements during that conference so that was a lot of fun really getting to know them. I will say the woman who was one of the five and she was actually on the cover she was the woman that created the female Viagra so I got to give hats off to that. No, I love that Mellie and you're someone that definitely goes beyond the lines and I want to ask you about my book. How did you like the book? I know you read it. Yes, I really enjoyed the book and it was interesting I guess for selfish reasons because I was there for so many of the years on the team granted not on the men's team but I could kind of tell some of the people you're referencing so I thought it was really neat to think about I have always kind of seen my tennis experience and that competitiveness or being able like that teamwork and different things like that that have really helped me be a better leader and also work together more but I was really kind of inspired by your book by just kind of reminding myself of that time and what that meant for me so I really enjoyed it. Well I think all of our viewers they're learning about how brilliant you are as a leader and how you're helping so many people you definitely go beyond the lines I want to know Mellie how do you define success? I mean success can be interpreted in so many ways and I want to know what your take on success is. That's a good question I think I always say this quote which was interesting because I saw it when I was back at Cornell I'm an entrepreneur in residence for the school so I'm there every six months and I was walking by and I saw this quote that said success is never final and it was a quote from JW Marriott of course the hotel person in the hotel school and I was actually kind of thought about that for quite some time as to like what that quote meant to me and I think it's as we continue to gain certain successes we're never we don't ever think like okay I'm successful now I'm just gonna like rest on my laurels and just kind of sit here because that's not really the point as we gain certain successes as we continue doing things there's always kind of that next thing and I think that a lot of people when they think about success think it needs to be this this destination but really it's about that process and if you can be enjoying that process as you have goals and you hit them and you've got other goals and you hit them that it is about that process which is why it's never final and if you can embrace that more you're gonna find a lot more success and really enjoy that whole journey because you never really know when you know life can end or you know things shift but I know that there are a lot of highs and lows that I've had in my career and I and I really feel that through all of that I've been able to to figure out that I trust myself more in that I know I can figure anything out and that's actually the kind of the fun part about it when the world becomes your oyster and an opportunity to problem solve is when I actually trust that I may not know how to do that right now but I can figure it out and that's actually what makes it quite fun for me so I guess if that kind of answers your question how I view success it's that success are just kind of these different iterations of process and so for me I never look at like I've done all these things I just think yeah this has been so much fun and granted sometimes it's not so fun when it doesn't go well but I'm enjoying that process so I guess I guess that's how I view success yeah no that's great and you know every successful person they deal with challenges and adversities what do you think was a major challenge for you in your young successful life so far I would say well one having the big falling out with my first co-founder that was a real that was a real blow for me because I think I'm I'm very trusting and I think kind of I'm in this for the best reasons and I think everyone else should be but it's kind of that trust trust would verify which is the lessons that I've had to learn you know I think another kind of like that's a good question I'm trying to remember what I like originally thought about this one I'd say you know really building kind of mana up came from going through like another process for me about like what was really important for me and why I'd moved back to Hawai'i in the first place and for a lot of it is selfish reasons for for building helping to build this innovation ecosystem I want to see more smart people being able to move back or to be here and doing really cool stuff and so I think when I was growing up and graduating from high school and graduating from college there was this kind of I unspoken or maybe spoken thing around you know if you were really motivated you really wanted to do things you had to move away you you couldn't do it here unless you were going to be a banker lawyer doctor or you had some family business you were taking over where you had like this pathway to success that true opportunity wasn't going to be here and that really frustrated me for a long time because I don't even think I really had the choice if I wanted to stay or I didn't I felt like I just couldn't and I did leave for a long time I was gone for 11 years but I think kind of at a certain point you know as I was trying to figure out what Mana Up could be and I had you know met Brittany and we were loosely talking I really had to dig deep I actually went to Nepal for a month and trekked about 120 miles through the Himalayas up in an area called Mustang which is like northern middle right below and right in the northern middle part and it was an incredible journey for me and it kind of actually relates to your book a little bit around I think when I was trekking it wasn't about what I was thinking about because you were just doing it and you were trekking like 10 to 12 miles a day at sometimes at 15,000 feet but it was through that process of starting like to like trust my body and to just to feel like strong and just kind of that those moments of just kind of doing and like getting back to basics around just kind of getting up the mountain kind of helped me to start to just feel more connected to me which I thought was which was really important for me at the time as we were trying to figure out how we're going to do this thing What an experience that must have been jeez so Meli you know you're a strong successful leader what do you think is one thing you need to improve on for yourself You know that's another good question one thing I know I need to do and one thing actually I've figured out is you know how to create or how to find a co-founder with complementary skill sets and Brittany who is the co-founder of Mana Up and I are just totally perfect partners like all the things that I hate doing she loves doing and she's really good at and all the things she hates doing I really love doing and I'm really good at so it's been really neat to see that kind of a partnership where we're not competing with each other we just really make you help make each other better but I'd say one thing I do need to work on is is kind of getting that kind of perspective walking away from myself and getting out of the minutiae of like the every day just because we're executing on so many things to kind of get off the dance floor and get on to like the balcony and really look down at myself and and think about okay what's next like what do I really want to do what am I building towards that isn't necessarily within a year or two but it's kind of bigger than that and so that's something I know I need to work on and so I've actually just started working again you know with like a you know engaging with like a career coach or a life coach which I haven't done in over 10 years but I'm really excited to have that opportunity to go through that process of like how do I start to have those ways of disconnecting and seeing it from this level so that I can really make some bigger strides and actually think bigger even though we work with entrepreneurs to help them think bigger I need to think bigger too well that's why you're successful now Mellie you've worked with a lot of CEOs what do you think what do you think makes these good CEOs great what do they do that makes them great that's a good question I would say the ones that I've met or that I've worked with that have made them great are the ones that are really taking an interest in not only in their culture of the culture of the company they're trying to create and I think as they bring on more employees like we're seeing them kind of early sometimes but as they're trying to figure out who to bring on and also not looking at the direct check marks of skill sets they need but really looking at who the person is and how they're going to impact the company and being able to speak to that I think is really important because it really starts with that first hire yeah and that's where it's interesting because most of our companies they have at least maybe one employee and having them and having us we really started actually increasing more of our leadership training in the cohorts because we were seeing that it's a big need as they're looking for like okay what kind of leader do I want to be you know what kind of what kind of culture do I want to create in the company how am I able to exude that in many different ways and I think that's the difference I see is when people have real intention around the environment that they're creating within their company Mellie I really enjoy all of your insights about leadership and business and you're completely right about creating a culture of excellence and discipline details that's what I'm all about and that's what the book is about and that's definitely what you're doing I want to really thank you for being on Beyond the Lines today thank you Rusty this has been a lot of fun oh thank you Mellie just like you said it would be of course and thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii and a special thank you to my clothing sponsor Eolani Incorporated for more information please visit my website RustyKamori.com and my book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all Costco stores in Hawaii I hope that this show inspires you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs Aloha