 Welcome to Adventures in Small Business, a collaborative effort by the U.S. Small Business Administration Hawaii District Office, the Hawaii Small Business Development Center, the Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and the Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Pacific to showcase stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses. I'm Colleen Macaluni from the Patsy T. Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and today we have Liberty Peralta from Papokian Tea. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. Yeah, of course. So let's get started and tell us about your business and how it got started. Sure. So I visited several cat cafes. I used to travel a lot for both for work and for pleasure, and this was sort of in between, this is before I got my cat that I have now, and I had actually heard about cat cafes from a former boss. He had supported a Kickstarter campaign for a cat cafe that's now in Washington D.C. So that's how I initially heard about the concept, and then I got curious and visited a bunch up and down, like LA, Seattle, Portland, and just really like the concept of using a business to also help promote some sort of social cause, and that causes for animals and animals can't speak for themselves. So that really, I really spoke to me as someone that grew up, I grew up in Waianae, and my dad, my dad had all these animals. So from a young age, I was just used to having animals around me. And the thing was we never really had cats growing up, and through the influence of my boss and just other friends that liked cats, I was like, oh, like cats are actually really cool. And going to these cat cafes kind of helped solidify that, and then I just thought like, oh, it'd be really cool to open one here. So I kind of came back from my traveling and did a bunch of research, reached out to other cat cafe owners, and kind of picked their brains a little bit about running a cat cafe. Oh, terrific. So can you explain what the concept is? Yeah, I was just going to say, I should probably explain what a cat cafe is. So a cat cafe is, so picture a regular cat cafe. Starbucks likes to use the phrase third place. It's sort of a place that's not work and not home. It's sort of like a place where people go to socialize, right? So you take the concept of a cafe and you add cats to it. So a lot of cat cafes in the US have a separate room where cats that are available for adoption are in this particular, it looks like a cat lounge where people can pay a cover fee and hang out with cats. And the idea is it's, there are several purposes for this. The idea is to kind of alleviate shelters or fosters from taking care of these cats and having them in this sort of third place. And that way they can intake more animals because there's always going to be a need for, I guess, houseless animals. It's a revolving door, right? So if we can help alleviate some of that and also provide a place for people to socialize, then it's sort of a win-win for everybody. Right. Yeah. So does your cafe, will your cafe, follow that model? Yes. Of having the separate lounge, cat lounge. Yes. Yeah. And it's to hang out with the cats. Yeah. And part of the reason for that too is because it's also to comply with the permanent health regulations because they don't want animals intermingling with where food is being prepared. When you go to other countries, particularly in Asia, it's kind of a free-for-all where the cats are just all over the place. But in the U.S., it's a little different. Yeah. Okay. So separate area for the cat lounging and separate area for the cafe. Right. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. So okay. So now we know what motivated you. So you have a love of animals? I do. Yeah. And it was instilled in me from very young. Again, like because I grew up in sort of a rural area and my family just always had animals around. So I think and I think also introducing kids to animals, it kind of teaches them a lot of things. It teaches them empathy and learning how to think outside of themselves. And I think it helps develop good citizens of the world. So that's kind of one of the things that I hope to accomplish with Papukinti. Sure. Understanding that others than themselves need caring. Right. Oh, okay. Okay, great. And then so explain your business model at the moment, your current business model. Right. Yeah. So actually, so Papukinti has been operating as a pop-up for the last year and a half. We started doing pop-ups in June 2018, primarily in Kaimuki because I as a cat owner, I have one cat and she has needs. She has, you have to feed her. Yes. So I'm a customer of this pet supply shop in Kaimuki called the public pet. Okay. And we had started talking. This was very early on a couple of years ago when I was still thinking about this idea. And just I was just like, oh, what if we did like a cat cafe pop-up? And Jordan, the owner just like love the idea because his pain point was his dog adoption events are very successful, but he had a really hard time with cat adoption events. And kind of attaching sort of this cat cafe concept to it, I think really resonated with people. So when we started doing the pop-ups at his space, I think it we kind of found sort of an untapped audience. And obviously it helps his business too because more people are going into his shop. And yeah, it's another sort of win-win situation. Right, right. Well, that's so nice that you've been able to collaborate with another small business owner in helping both his business and in getting your business up and running and off the ground. Yeah, for sure. And it's part of a community, right? So I live in Kaimuki too. And when you're part of a community, you just kind of want to see everyone all succeed. And he's a friend too, I consider him a friend. So yeah, just kind of everyone's boats are a float. Yeah, that's fantastic. So when you're at the public pet, how do you handle the cafe? Are the cats are there with everybody? Or is there a separate area? Yeah, so that was sort of one of the things we had to figure out in the beginning was it wasn't like how a permanent cafe would have two separate rooms because a public pet is one big room, right? One big shop. So the way that we do it at the pop-ups is we have the kittens in an area in the back and we have we have them in like small kennels in the back and people can kind of like take them out and pet them or like carry them around. Right. And for us on the food and beverage side, we actually prepackage all of our cookies and our tea. So that was sort of our way of getting around that because the Department of Health just really doesn't want like any food prep happening when there's cats around. Sure. Yeah. Sure. So okay, so why don't you explain the food cafe section of your Papokian tea? Oh yeah, sure. What do you offer? Yeah, so we specialize in milk tea and Bulba tea. And the reason for that was just because I have just like a genuine love for milk tea and Bulba tea. And I also felt like there weren't a whole lot of other cat cafes that we're doing that we're that we're focusing on that product offering. A lot of them that exist kind of focus on just the traditional, you know, primarily coffee. Oh, but also we have a small tea menu. And I've always been more of a tea person anyway. So it just kind of made sense to go that direction. Oh, definitely. Yeah. And there also seems to be sort of this small subculture of people that really like cats and Bulba tea. This is something that I discovered after we did the pop ups like oh, like it's such a cute, you know, combination. It is. Yeah. It is. It's very cute. And your logo is adorable. Yeah. Yeah. I made this actually in PowerPoint, I think. Yeah. Excellent. That's great. You're a small business owner. Yeah. Figure it out, right? Right. So how often are you doing the pop ups than at public pet? So only at public pet right now? Yeah. For the most part, we did. We did a couple of others at this other Kimuki business called 10 Tomorrow, which is a boutique because the owner Summer really loves cats. She has two cats of her own. And so we also tried out pop ups there too. And the advantage to doing it at her space was she had separate rooms. Oh, okay. So we were able to experiment with that model, like a traditional cat cafe model. But yeah, we primarily do them at the public pet just because we kind of want to, well, there's several reasons we want to help them out. They've been such a great partner. And also kind of getting people used to the idea of coming to Kimuki and coming to the public pet because the space that we've since secured is actually right next door. Oh, okay. So brick and mortar. Yeah. Oh, congratulations. That's fantastic. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Super exciting. So you're already making that transition then from pop up to a brick and mortar store. For sure. Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. And so maybe share with us a timeline on that if you know it. Yeah, sure. So we're still finalizing the blueprints for it. And it still has to go through the whole permitting process. So we're hoping sometime in early 2020, we'll open. Never know how long that's gonna take. Yeah. Right. Oh, that's thrilling. Oh, thanks. That is fantastic. Yeah. So you had mentioned that you had visited other cat cafes along the West Coast. Yeah, primarily. And are there, so I wanted to ask you a couple questions about competition. So what would your competition be in Hawaii? I kind of look at the competition as everything that a person can do in their spare time because, I mean, our offering is an experience. Right. And in Hawaii, the challenge is how can we convince people to come to our cat cafe instead of staying at home or going to the beach or, you know what I mean, there's so many things that you can do on this island. I think in terms of direct competition, there is another cat cafe in Kapahulu. Oh, okay. So but yeah, I just, I was kind of thinking about this the other day because there's this book called Blue Ocean Strategy, maybe you've heard of it, but it talks about sort of the difference between a red ocean strategy when companies kind of operate within the competitive set that already exists. So like, take for example, hotels, we're all competing against each other within a framework that they all know, versus operating with a blue ocean strategy, which is which is focusing not so much on beating the competition because there really is no such thing as beating the competition because success is temporary. Really, it becomes more about what what what value do you offer to the market? And how can you be the best version of that? And what are your what is your mission? What do you want to bring to this world? And I think that kind of sets businesses that do that kind of set themselves apart. Like then the then the competition becomes irrelevant because now people are just gravitating toward you because they're into your into you. Yes. As opposed to like, oh, you're better than X, right? Right, right. Yeah, that's really an interesting take on on competition and dealing with your own business and not having a negative, not necessarily negative, but more of like you're saying that competitive feeling, but worrying just more about yourself and your business, how it's doing. And then also you've already started collaborative relationships with with similar type businesses, which is fantastic. Yeah. I mean, again, it's it's a community and you want to you want to see other people in your community succeed, right? Right. And you know, I mean, any cat cafe that exists now or will exist in the future has the same goal of eventually finding these cat's homes. Right. So it feels kind of silly to be like, I'm going to beat that. You know, it's kind of it kind of is a small game to play right when it really should be about how can we offer the best experience for for the people that come in. Oh, definitely. And I'm sure it's an amazing experience. Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, we're going to go to break now. And we are going to come back with looking taking a look at some pictures of Liberty's pop up cafe where it is and just some photos of some cats. And it's really sweet. Yeah. It's fantastic. Anyway, thank you so much. And we'll be right back. You should watch Talking Tax with Tom. And this is Tom. This is Tom Yamachiki, president tax foundation of Hawaii. And we meet every couple of weeks, we talk about tax tax policy. What else do we talk about Tom? Well, you asked me a whole bunch of hard questions. I want that. Yeah, that's what we do. We recover tax fiscal policy, economics, 101, 102. We try to explore how the state works economically and in terms of fiscal policy and in terms of tax. And if you don't think that affects you, look again. Okay, Tom Yamachika and me I'm Jay Fidel talking tax with Tom every couple of weeks. Watch our calendar. You'll see us. Aloha. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of think tech Hawaii's law across the sea program. My program airs every other Monday at one o'clock on think tech Hawaii. Most of my programs deal with my own life and law experience. Recently I interviewed Alex Gempel, who I have known for over 30 years about his voyage across the sea as a lawyer from Tokyo to Hawaii. Those are the type of stories that I like to bring and like to talk about human stories about law and life. Aloha. Welcome back to Adventures in Small Business. Today we have Liberty Peralta from Papoke and Tea joining us to share about her pop ups seem to be brick and mortar store. Yeah, yeah, congratulations. So we're going to take a look at some photos of Papoke and Tea. We'll see her logo here. Great. Yeah. Was there some kind of inspiration behind the logo? I know I wanted to keep it simple and shapes. I mean, like all the very iconic logos that are out like Apple's logo or Nike's logo, they're very simple. And so I that was basically what I was going for. And also I didn't have all the fancy tools. I literally like designed that in our point. So it was like a circle and two triangles. Yeah. Oh, it's really cute. Yeah. Okay, great. And then there's some photos of the of a kitten. Yeah, that's actually from our second pop up, I think. Yeah. So he's one of the very first kittens that were adopted. And his name was Luigi. And those are the teas that we sell at our pop ups. We bottle them. So do you usually have four flavors? Yeah, usually at the pop ups, we have we have one or two sort of plain tea options, because not everyone likes milk tea. Right. And we have a couple of milk tea flavors as well. And we kind of switch them should switch them out depending on like the season. So right now we have a it's November. So we have a pumpkin spice latte. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's great. So we'll have that actually at our next pop up. Okay. On a Saturday, November 30, which is actually the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Small business Saturday. Small business Saturday. So Kaimuki is going to have a lot of things going on as part of that. But one of the one of the things that people can do is come to our cat cafe pop up at the public pet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So let's see, there's a couple more photos. I think there's oh yeah, that's it one of is that at the public that actually is. So I wanted to kind of show people what my vision was for the cat lounge. And so my friend who has a photography studio in Kailua, she set up this whole photo shoot for me. Oh, nice. And that was one of the pictures from. Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's cute. And then let's see, there's one more, I think. Oh, there you go. This is from the, it was either from the first or second pop up. Okay. Sometimes have lines that look like that. Oh, wow. Because we only let impressive. Yeah. We only let a certain number of people in the shop at a time. You don't want to scare the animals. You don't want to scare the cats. Yeah. It can get overwhelming. So we let about 15, 20 people in the shot at a time. Yeah. That's good. That's why the line. Right. Well, and you must have some boba followers also. Yeah. Some tea fall. Yeah, we do. Yeah. That's great. That's ingenious. I love that. Oh, thanks. Fantastic. I'm a lover of both. So yeah, for me, it works great. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about your affiliation with any of the SBA partners. Oh, yeah. Maybe how, if any of those services helped you to get your business started. Oh yeah, of course. So, so the very beginning. So I was talking about how I was talking to other cat cafe owners. And one of them in particular was very helpful gave me an outline of basically like a roadmap of what I should do. And one of the things that he stressed was, take, if you can, take a local workshop or class about how to start a business. If you've never done this before, because they did the same thing and it was invaluable. Like you couldn't stress enough how invaluable it was. Right. And that's actually what led me to go on a search engine and look up what offerings we had here in Honolulu. And that's how I found Launch My Business, the program that, so it's a program that the Patsy Teemink Center at YWCA downtown has. Yeah. And at the time, it was a seven week program. Right. And it's, yeah, it's like a crash course on how to start a business. Oh, good. Terrific. Yeah. It was very helpful because I don't know how I would have done this without it because, again, it gave me a roadmap. Structure on the path. Yeah. Because otherwise, I'd be like, okay, I file this paper and then I file this paper and then like what order do I do this in? And that program really nicely. And it kind of went in depth with each section. So that was good. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. And then now you're currently working with another partner? Yeah. So now I've been working with the Small Business Development Center in Manoa. And Lori Hiromatsu has been my counselor. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. I actually just met with her and she's also really good about giving me some structure. Well, you're moving into a big phase of your business development now with the build out. Yeah. So I'm doing things like financial projection. So I actually already had that as part of my business plan when I was working with Launch My Business. Yes. But updating it and she's also having me create sort of a mock-up employee schedule. Like how do I envision? Because that'll help determine how many people I need to hire. Of course. And then how much that's going to affect your timeline too. Exactly. Oh, terrific. Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad that you're getting resources that can help you. Oh, yeah. And that are affordable. Right. Right. Exactly. So yeah. That's fantastic. The Small Business Development Center and the Mink Center for Business and Leadership. Yeah. Oh, yay. Yeah. Oh, I'm excited to watch your growth and expansion and to see the fruits of all your efforts because that's a lot of hard work. It is. It is. Yeah. So in this process, do you have any takeaways or any insights for people who are considering starting a business or who are maybe in the same situation you are in a growth phase of really getting their business up and running? I would say for people who are thinking about starting at maybe do some research, talk to some people, see if it's a viable concept. Maybe test it out and sort of that's actually another reason why we did the pop-ups because we wanted to test the market out and see if there is even a demand for this. Right. And clearly that photo of the people standing in line. Yes. There is a demand for cats and teens. Yeah. Because I think one thing, if I could do this whole thing over again, I think I waited kind of a long time. I spent a lot of time kind of hemming and hawing about, oh, should I do this? I'm not sure. I don't know if this is what I want to do. And it took me a while to be, okay, just talk to people and get outside of your own head. Is that after you had visited the cafes and it was an idea in your head? Yeah. Oh, okay. You already had the idea but it was just taking that next step. That's a frightening step. It is. It is. Because it makes it more real. Right. Exactly. Right. So it took you a little time before you set up the appointment to come and see what services or even look it up. Yeah. Or even just like talk to other people that own businesses too. I mean, that also really helps me. Because yeah, it wasn't without reason, right, the whole indecision part of it. Because it is a huge step. Yes. But other people have done it. So it's not impossible. It's just a lot of work to get there. And a lot of it takes a lot of mental grit too. So anything you can do to build up your mental, this is another tip, like anything you can do to build up that mental grit. Because I think sort of even a version of myself a couple of years ago, I think I needed to develop that strength. Because you come across a lot of things that get frustrating. And you kind of have to learn how to keep going and find that strength within yourself. Build up a network of people that you can reach out to for help. Your support group. Right, exactly. Because it's not easy. No, it's not. I'm a small business owner. I think I say that on every show. It's so hard. It's 24-7. Right? And then once you have a actual brick and mortar in a retail location. Oh yeah, that's a whole other beast. It's another level of commitment. Right, exactly. For sure. Yeah. Oh, amazing. Yeah. All right, let's see. What else have we got? So your vision of success. Oh, okay. What do you see maybe short and long term? Well, short term. I mean, I think the overall goal again is to help find permanent homes for more cats. Because the more that we can do that, the more cats that are non, so we partner with a nonprofit. That's where we get the cats. I should have mentioned that earlier. Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah. So the nonprofit that we work with is called Cat Charities. And they're based in Pearl City. They're foster-based, meaning that they have a network of fosters that take care of cats that have either been rescued or abandoned out of their private homes. And so they're developing a system where the cats will be spayed, neutered, de-flea, deworms, basically prepping them for adoption for the cafe. Oh, wonderful. So that's how taking care of by the time they would come to you. Exactly. Oh, that really, I think, increases the likelihood of the cats being adopted. Right. I mean, it's also you, again, that goes back to having, building the best experience for your guests too, because no one wants, you know, you want to play with clean cats that have been taken care of, right? So that kind of fits into that too. Sure. Yeah, right. But we actually already do that with the pop-ups, but it's just another kind of step for the permanent cat cat. Right. So that's what we work with, because people sometimes ask me like, oh, do you foster all these cats in your house? And I'm just like, have you seen my, I live in a 400 square foot studio, like I can't have 10 cats in my house. No, I don't do that. Yeah. No, but that's also, that's an important part of your business. Right. So it's great for people to know right, you know, how the cats have been so well cared for, and where they're coming from. And it's also, again, helping another nonprofit or another organization that's already doing this work and giving them a public platform, because the thing with these foster-based organizations is they don't have a shelter that, where they can showcase these animals that are being taken care of. Right. Because they're being fostered out of homes. Right. So you're giving them a place. Right. Exactly. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. And so let's see, we're going to wrap it up just a little bit. So maybe what's your, where do you see yourself in five to 10 years? Oh, right. So find as many homes that are committed to giving the best life possible for the cats that are in our cafe or at our events. It would be great if we could adopt out hundreds of them, maybe even hit a thousand at some point. And you've hit, what, right now? So right now we're at about 80 kittens, and we started doing these monthly pop-ups in June of 2018. Right. So it's been a year and a half. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. And then are you hoping for multiple locations or right now it's just focused on the one kind of key location? Yeah. Right now, right now I want to, we haven't opened, we haven't opened the first one yet. So I want to make sure that the first one succeeds before looking at expansion, but. Excellent. Excellent small business sense there. Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. Well, I want to thank Liberty for being here today and sharing her story with us about Papoke and Tea. So please be sure and visit her store, her pop-up store at Public Pet and Chime Key on Small Business Saturday, November 30th. And then also, I just want to mention, I always like to plug our Shop Small Hawaii. So Shop Small Hawaii is an initiative to help support small businesses. Papoke and Tea is a registered small business, and we help small businesses through workshops, promotions, and also promotions through our Instagram. So please be sure and support a small business on Shop Small Saturday and actually throughout the whole holiday season and the year. So Shop Local and Shop Small. And then one other thing that we're doing now is we have, we actually have a small business collaboration with Rapoli and Punky Aloha. And they created a wrapping paper for Shop Small Hawaii this year that is three sheets of paper, $10. It's a wonderful way to help support our initiative to support small business. So thank you so much for joining us today. Of course, thanks for having me. Thank you so much, Liberty. And we look forward to seeing you next month on Adventures in Small Business.