 Aloha, and welcome to this week's edition of Business in Hawaii. I'm Deila Nyonegida, and we are broadcasting live from Think Tech Studios in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are live at www.thinktechhawaii.com. You may also subscribe to our programs and get on our mailing list there. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local businesses by local people. Our guests share with us how they were able to build successes in our challenging business environment. In the studio with us today is Scott Rave. Scott is the president and owner of Excel Event Rentals. Scott, welcome to the show, and thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. I know that you're super busy because you've got so many exciting things going on, but tell us about yourself first to start. Absolutely. Thank you again very much for having me today. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Yeah, so I am the owner, I guess you could say founder as well, of Excel Event Rentals. We started off long, long ago. I was actually 14 years old when the company first started, very small, nothing to speak of, and it was just a good business experience for me to get started with and just grew it from there. Started off with just a line of dishware in the middle of a coal-out ballroom over on the windward side of the island and was able to supply my parents' company, which was a catering company, with equipment rental and be incubated in that way, grew the inventory to tables, to chairs, to tending, et cetera, and grew out from there. And then it really sort of took off a little bit after I'd finished college. I'd come back from college in Vancouver where I'd studied, and sort of made it serious for myself and really, really was able to grow the business from that point, went through some growing challenges, went through some fun times all the way up until today, and it's just been a great ride so far. So how old is Excel? I mean, you said 14, you're all of 25. Yes, yes. You can't retake, yes. No, Excel started in 1994. We were officially incorporated as a business in 1996, so I tend to use that as our start date, but officially I did like the first jobs in 1994. So where did the idea come from? I know you said your parents own a catering company, but where does the idea come from? So it was really just my dad being a caterer, sort of looking at the industry and saying, you know, I think that there is an opportunity to open up a good rental company at the time. Rental services just didn't have great customer service, didn't have great product to choose from, whether it was the selection or the quality. And so there was definitely a need. There's a void in the industry there. There were people who were servicing the industry just not very well. And so he thought it would be a good idea for obvious reasons, you know, conflict of interest and just the fact that he was so busy he wasn't able to do it himself, but he wanted to sort of get me on a path. And I've always sort of been the industrious type and hard working and wanting to do business things, so it fit right up with where I was. So from a very early age, 14, you had that entrepreneurial spirit in you? Yes. And your dad that you run with it? To a degree, yes. So there was guidance. It was obviously much smaller then, so there wasn't too many things that I could blow up. But yeah, he was always very supportive of me in pursuing my dreams, my desires to be not necessarily in rental per se, but definitely in business. Nice. So you go to Vancouver, right? So this is always in the back of your mind. My guess is you study business? You got it. Yep. And so that was always the basis of whatever going forward in school? More or less, yes. So I'd always knew that I was going to want to do a degree in business. I'd actually thought about doing some international business, which is why I went to Vancouver, to Simon Fraser University. It was a place that I thought was not too different, didn't have to speak foreign language, et cetera, but it's a different taste and a different flavor than being in the US. So it's a good sort of rounding out. I'd taken marketing as a focus just because it was what I knew the least about. I'd done obviously some business work here, new sales, been pretty decent in accounting, so it was something that I wasn't as familiar with. So I wanted to round out my education there with the opportunity to come back, but not necessarily needing to, you know, I wanted to sort of explore some other options. But this obviously worked out pretty well for me. Well, I think it sounds, you know, we're constantly talking about kids who go away to school, and we want them to come back, right, to stimulate our economy, to be entrepreneurs in our economy. And so I think it's great that you did decide to come back. So you were in school in Vancouver. What principles do you think were key to you being able to come back and make a go of it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that part of it was the schooling that I'd received there. I did it a little bit differently, obviously, because I got the practice of doing business before the theory. So a lot of the theory actually made more sense to me in that way. I could sort of pick and choose and see, okay, this is going to be more relevant. This is going to be a little less relevant. So that was good for me. And it really sort of honed my skill. They call it marketing in Vancouver, but really I think what it was was a disguised economics degree, because that really was what they had pushed hard is supply, demand, but also just the practical aspects of economics in knowing how to market yourself as a business or as a business person to your customers, because that's at the end of the day what really sort of moves the needle there. So it really gave me a good sense of practicality as opposed to just making really cool commercials, but that really helped me combined with my prior experience through the hotel industry, through special events of knowing customer service and really bringing those two elements, both the really sort of nuts and bolts, practical side of things, along with the sort of flowy, salesy customer service side all into one package. And that's really what we tried to bring with Excel. So for young people who go to college and they come back and they want to make a goal of a startup business, a small business, what do you tell them? I would tell them it's expensive, but come home. It's well worth it. There's only one paradise. That's what I tell them. But how do you start? I mean, there had to be capital. There had to be business plans. There had to be all this know-how about how to get started. Like you said, right? There's theory. We learned that in school through books. How do you put it to practice? Yeah, that's a good question. So I can't say this will work for everybody. Obviously, the odds are stacked against people starting up new business, being entrepreneurs. It's not a path that's easily successful. But for me, what I've really sort of focused on is you have to find out what it is about your business or about you that's special. You've got to pick something. And for us, it was a little bit of a journey to sort of find what that is. And for us, really, I guess the secret sauce, so to speak, is that we really want to take care of people. Our mission statement right now reflects the fact that we want to produce great events that make you look good. And that really drives us. And at the end of the day, that's what makes Excel special. That's what makes me special, is I want to sort of take care of people. And I think with any business, people sometimes get hung up on the details or the fact that they have a degree or don't have a degree, or that they've gone to this school or that school, or that they've grown up poor or grown up rich. But what really matters, I think, is what is it about your business that people will want? What makes them drawn to you or to your business? And if you really sort of emphasize that and stick with that for right or wrong, that's what's going to make the business either succeed or not succeed. And I think business owners often talk about the fact that they fail more times than they've succeeded, et cetera, et cetera. I don't necessarily think that's true, but I think that what they mean by that is that they're not afraid to fail by sticking with what they want to do or what they know. Does that make sense? That's really helpful for me to keep in mind. So tell me, and I know this might be a hard question to answer. Were there failures? Did you feel failure in this journey? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was a time I can distinctly remember when I'd come back from university and I think I know everything. And the teeth of reality just sort of bite. There's times that we weren't ready to do jobs that we'd been awarded. There were times that we weren't ready and it just didn't work out so well. And as somebody who's invested in the business like I am, somebody who really wants to do a good job, it hurts to sort of feel that sting of failure. And so there were times where I felt like I wasn't cut out to do this. I distinctly remember times where I knew like, OK, if one more thing goes wrong, I'm done. Like, I'm not cut out for this. How do you come back from that? Well, I mean, how do you manage that? I know some people may just say, forget this and I'm done. How do you come back from it? For me, it was just about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. So in those dark times, I really tried to find that opportunity to look at everything holistically and sort of take a step back and see the forest for the trees and say, you know, everything's kind of going sideways right now. I think it's going terribly wrong. But I think if we just latch on to this, if it continues to sort of grow and work out, I can keep my eyes focused on that one thing that we are doing really well at, you know? And that was for me that really helped me. And honestly, sometimes you do have to throw in the tunnel. There were projects or little side business type things that we'd gotten into that really weren't for us. And I had to sort of fail and fail and fail and realize, you know what, there's a reason that we're failing. It's because we suck at this. And just sort of say, let's carve that off. Let's focus on what we're good at. And it worked out for us. So event rentals, it must be a very small space. Oh, it's just bouncers. Most people would think, is it 10s, tables, chairs, bouncers? So what is the climate like? I mean, anybody can do it. There's a very low barrier to entry, right? There's no real reason that you couldn't start a parental company next week. After hearing and being inspired by my story, you're like, You're passionate. You're going back home. You're pulling your life savings out. No, it really is a low barrier to entry. And there's room in the space for a lot of people. Hawaii is a destination. It's what makes Hawaii great. It's part of what makes Hawaii great, anyway. And so there's always a party going on. And so there is that space for people to just jump into it. But I think that you can do it for so long, be a weekend warrior, store a little bit of supplies in your garage, do some local events on the weekend, and still have a day job. But at some point, you sort of hit a ceiling, right? And that's sort of where we come in, where we do it for a living. We do it with a lot of consistency and product offerings and breadth and that sort of thing. Did Excel start in a garage? Close. We were probably in a room not much bigger than this one. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. And it was just, like I said, dishes and wedding props. That's what we started with. So interesting. So being a small business owner, and maybe you're not so small anymore, but being that business owner, what do you see as opportunities or as trends in our business environment now? Sure. I think specifically with the events industry, I've seen a big shift with the advent of the internet. Obviously, that's old news now. The internet's been around for a while. But just the availability of information has really made a lot smarter buyers. I always tell people who don't, maybe they're millennials and they haven't really grown up in any old days, to go watch Father of the Bride. Because you'll see in that movie a little snippet of how reliant everybody was on the wedding coordinator. And that's not necessarily the case nowadays. So I think with the availability of information, with the availability to produce a clean website very quickly and get up and rolling very quickly, it does give opportunity for people not necessarily in rental. Because to be honest, there's a lot of moving parts in rental. There's a lot of coordination and a lot of just hard work. But especially for the events industry, just wedding coordinating or catering or anything of those auxiliary services, I think it's very easy to sort of get started. And it's a fun industry to be in. Cool. We're going to go to a break. And we'll be back in a couple of minutes. We'll continue this conversation because I really want to know more about Excel and what makes you tick. So we're going to take that break. We'll be back to see you in a few minutes. This is Business in Hawaii. Are you tired of sleepwalking through life? Are you dreaming of a healthier, wealthier, happier you? You're not alone. And that's why thousands of people tune in each week to watch R.B. Kelly on Out of the Comfort Zone Tuesdays at 1 PM. Make a change. Get the help you need. And stop sucking at life. The Army, we're going to go live. Hello. It's 1 PM on a Tuesday afternoon. And I'm your host, R.B. Kelly. Welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. Which is broadcast Monday afternoons on thinktecawai.com. We cover, we study news and politics in and affecting Asia. We work hard to bring you the most interesting subjects and guests who will raise your awareness. Please join us Mondays every week on Asia in Review on thinktecawai.com and also on YouTube and iTunes. Thanks for watching. We'll see you then. Aloha, Sheshe, and Saigeon. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii. And today, we're talking with Scott Rabe, president and owner of Excel Event Rentals. Super interesting conversation. But I want to talk about Excel. I want to talk about, so it's more than just ideas and passion, right? There needs to be investors and capital. And I mean, where does all that come from? No, it's just ideas and passion. I'm just joking. Yes, no, there's all the business parts of the business. So yes, we have investors. On that timeline, we talked about in the earlier segment. I got in the business to a place where it was pretty saturated. I felt like we'd hit a ceiling. I knew that we're doing great work. It was very successful. We're having fun at it. But I knew that there was more out there. And I knew that I wasn't strong enough to really get us there. And that's where our investors had come in, primarily among them is co-capital partners who are super instrumental in building the business parts of the business where I was lacking in. And people always say, be careful who you do business with. It's sort of like a marriage. You've got to really vet them. And if that's the case, I literally got a 10, because they are a great partner to have. They really support me. They understand the industry enough that they know when to let me take lead. And they know when, hey, this is something that's best for the business. We need to take lead here. And it works out great. So you got to a point where you knew that you wanted to expand. You needed to expand. You knew you couldn't go the journey alone. You looked to an investor. But like you're saying, it's a marriage. How do you pick the right investor? I mean, do you interview them? You'd look to see if the ring's really good. We, when I looked for somebody, I really appreciated the fact that they were local. I know it's a local show. I'm not trying to just plug local business. But really, there's a sense in which they understood the industry because they were from here. So that was really important to me. I liked the fact that they had been there, done that. They didn't just speak from an ivory tower. With our industry, a lot of it is very tactile. We work directly with the end user clients or with the coordinators. We're out there on the front lines, building events, overcoming challenges, the curve of balls that never leave. If you've ever watched BrideZilla, that's all real, except with maybe a little less yelling. So all of those challenges that come through, we experienced together. And so for them to have been there, done that with their businesses and having gone through those experiences maybe in just a different industry was great. And they sort of know what I'm going through being hands-on day in and day out. So an investor doesn't just write you a check and walk away. I hope not. Tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. I think that if you get an investor to just write your check, you really have the wrong partner. Just like, as they say in a marriage, if whoever's the breadwinner is just coming home, writing a check and saying, I'm doing my own thing, not a great marriage. And I think that that plays well in business too. And so I really like the fact that we are a team and I can feel that through and through. Nice. So it is definitely a partnership. You guys have great conversations, bounce ideas off of each other. Is that how it goes? That's pretty much how things go. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. Absolutely. So I also know that you've recently expanded your business and I think that it's one thing to be a business owner. It's another thing to be ready to acquire other businesses to grow. So tell me about that. Sure. So I'll sort of caveat that by saying that I'm a very conservative person by nature. I don't like to take a lot of risks. But what I like to do and I always tell people who I'll give advice to in business is the hardest part about success is being okay with being bored. Because a lot of time success is made up of a lot of little parts of the day. And so you'll have to sort of get good at doing the same thing over and over and over again, but just getting a little bit better at it, tweaking it a little bit more, not getting distracted by maybe some opportunities or fads that'll come up and chasing those and just doing poorly at that and you leave home base empty and you do poorly there as well. So we'd sort of done really well at rental. We didn't deviate out into making flower arrangements or cooking food or things like that. We just got good at rental. And so that when the opportunities do come along and they will and you have to sort of know yourself to say, this is the big break. We can go after it aggressively. And that's sort of what we're doing right now. We're ready and we're expanding both on Oahu as well as now as you'd alluded to, to Maui. Wow, so it's one thing to be home base, right? You go to your business every day, you can see everything happening, but now a part of your business is gonna be on another island. Yes, that's correct. Does that worry you at all? A lot, yeah. Every day, I'm a very hands-on person and it does scare me. My grandmother, who was one of the first executives in Hawaii as a woman, a pioneer in the industry, she'd said, and it's always stuck with me, surround yourself with good people. And I think people sort of emphasize the wrong syllable, if you know what I mean. And a lot of people just say, hone in on the surround yourself part. But I think that the good people was really the heart of that saying. And that's what I really try and do now. So as we grow, it really becomes less about me and more about the team that we're assembling, the people that I've surrounded myself with and not whether there's a lot of them, but are they really, really good at what they do and do they love what they do? And I think that right now, we're trending in that direction. I really like the direction we're going. I sort of liken it to assembling the Avengers. I feel like I'm that person who's finding Iron Man and finding the Hulk here, there, around the world, around our island and just saying you are the right person for this job. Come join the team. That's really exciting. So it sounds like you're on this growth trajectory. Super excited about that, right? So tell me about the vision, where it goes. What's next? Sure. I think that in terms of our process and our product, those are sort of the two things, besides the people element, which we just talked about, but the process and the product, they're sort of the next steps in terms of our growth. We're really sort of turning our industry on its head. It's something that's never been done before, whether it's locally or nationally, is really sort of grow at this scale. And we're really sort of taking everything that's been done in rental before and reevaluating it or re-engineering it or re-imagining it and saying, why have we done this this way? Is this the right way? If we controlled space and time, how would we really do it? And the support of our investors is allowing us to take those risks and take on those challenges and say, let's start from scratch, let's break everything down and rebuild it the right way. So the process is really exciting. We haven't gotten there yet. We're just starting that journey, but I'm really excited about what that might look like. And there's some fun conversations that our team has been having to sort of roll some new ideas and some new trends and some new cool practices out to our industry. Well, I think you're not giving yourself enough credit for the innovation that you're going through because earlier we were talking and you said that you were taking a piece of software that you're using and actually morphing it into your needs. Yeah, absolutely. So share that with us. Technology, like I said, is a big part of how we've been able to grow. We take the boring old QuickBooks, which everybody and their mother has, and a long time ago I sort of started adding in pieces with just their normal process and figuring out with our needs how it would suit us best. So what we were able to build out of that is a system that the sales piece and the operating piece in managing the inventory and controlling those invoices is the same system and integrated with our accounting software. Now most places will have an integrated software, but they're two distinct software programs. Ours is on QuickBooks, we only use QuickBooks and what that does is it gives us information in real time and perfectly accurate information because there's no double entry. So our accounting teams really happy, our sales teams really happy, our operating teams really happy because they all go to the same well to get the same information at the same time. That's really unique. I haven't heard of anybody in the world that does that. There must be other people I'm sure, but it took a lot of time to develop and it really, really works well for us. It's very smooth and it's very efficient. Well it sounds like you've MacGyvered if you will something that you are using that really needed to meet a need and I think that comes from innovation. We've got about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you if you had to give me in one statement what makes Excel stand out in your industry, what would that statement be? Sure, I think it really revolves around our core values. It is who we are and I think that's what we stand for. So our core values are we are good solid people, we have great work ethic, people can count on us, we're always learning and growing and finally we're dedicated to successful events. I think in a nutshell that sums up what every employee is and what Excel stands for. Extremely succinct, extremely. We wish you the best. Thank you. I think you're gonna be amazing. You thank you for being with me on the show. My pleasure. It was a pleasure to have you. So we are out of time, but thank you to Scott for joining us and a huge thank you to our awesome production staff in the studio. If you would like to be a guest on our show, please email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com. Business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at two o'clock and we look forward to seeing you next week.