 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game are about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is the CEO and founder of Kalohae, who opened her first store two years ago at the Alohi Lani Resort, becoming the youngest store owner in Waikiki at 21 years old. She is Rose Wong, and today we are going beyond custom jewelry. Hey, Rose, welcome to the show. Hi, Rusty, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and I'm so honored because your books are one of my favorites, and so it's just a big honor to be able to be here with the author live. Well, I feel so great to have you on today. You've been having such major success with your business, but I wanna first ask you, Rose, if you can share with me what schools you attended. Sure, of course. So I guess starting, I homeschooled until fifth grade, and then I went to Waikiki Elementary, which shortly closed down the year after because it was such a small school, and then went to New Valley Middle School and then Kaiser High School, and I graduated at UH Manoa. And so at Kaiser High School, I didn't really, I wish I played sports after reading your book because just seeing how much discipline and how much leadership you learn in sports, but I went the other route. I started working when I was 15 years old and my first job was actually at Hoso Sushi. So that was really fun and interesting, and I just got really into working hard at an early age and I've been working since then. And then at UH Manoa, my first year, I thought I was gonna be a psychologist. So my freshman year, I went in for psychology because I love learning about people. And then I realized to do anything with that major, I had to get my master's and I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in school that long. And I had my jewelry business. I started when I was 15 years old in high school. And so I had it since high school. And so when I was in college, I joined the Entrepreneurs Club and now it's thought of my jewelry business as a small side hobby could never turn into anything big. And from UH Manoa, I kind of just kept growing and growing it naturally. I kept building my local network here in Hawaii. I did a lot of pitch program I was president of the Entrepreneurs Program. So I put together a lot of local initiatives for student entrepreneurs in Hawaii. And so it kind of just kept building and building the brand naturally. And that's how the Wohi Wani Resort first boutique there came to open to actually reach out to us because of all of our branding that we were doing. And so that's kind of where everything started. Well, Rose, it's incredible. And you won numerous awards. I mean, it's amazing how many awards you have won. And I want to know, Rose, what ignited your passion for business in really wanting to become an entrepreneur? Sure, well, I would say it all goes back to my story and my upbringing. I'm one of seven siblings and I actually grew up with 12 siblings because my dad got remarried to a woman who had five kids. And so it all started because there was first, there was something small inside of me that really wanted to make money for myself. My dad could never give us an allowance. He had so many kids. And so that's why I got my first job. And then from there, after kind of seeing what was working, what wasn't working, I always had this internal fire to open up my own doors inside of me. And I think that's what really translated into being an entrepreneur. And so when I got my first job, when I was 15, between the ages of 15 and 16, I had like eight different jobs. It was anywhere from retail to making gourmet popsicles, to doing the A-plus after-school programs at elementary schools. And so I had eight different jobs and I was trying to really figure out what I liked to do. And what I figured out was I didn't like working for anyone. I didn't like going home smelling like food because my restaurant jobs or I didn't like what the, I didn't like a minimum wage to make sense to me. And so I started my first, I started my business when I was 15 years old. I remember taking $50. That was my first investment to Ben Franklin. And back then that was so much money to me. And I made really rinky dink pieces, really ugly pieces. And I tried to sell them on to my high school and on my Facebook, high school group or whatever. And it actually started selling. And just from there, it just naturally started building and building. And then I think when I was at UH Manoa, when I really realized the potential of it, I was actually at, I was actually in Vegas for a women's entrepreneurship pitch program. It's one of the biggest national programs that I was invited and selected to. And I was actually picking another idea. It was a app tech idea that I had. But because it wasn't as built out as my business, I didn't place, I didn't do as well as I could have if I had just pitched my business. And also at the same time, there was a business fair going on. And my mentors were from Dell and actually had another table for the business fair set out. And so she said, hey, why don't you just set out some of your jewelry? Cause I always brought with me just in case. And so she said, why don't you set out some of your jewelry? And so I had no display. So I remember going to the convenience store and getting anything from poker chips and shot glasses because I was in Vegas to use as displays and set up a little display table. And we ended up selling out and people just loved it. And so that's when I was thinking, okay, I can make this like an actual thing. It's the actual business. People want to buy my product. And so from there, that was the first pitch competition. I learned a lot. I never wanted to do that again. I froze up on stage because I couldn't talk about this new business idea that I had like how I could talk about my business. And so I said, okay, I'm never doing that again. I never want to freeze up on stage. I want to get really good at speaking publicly. And so I became the president of the entrepreneurs club and I would speak in front of classes of like 300 students. And I was nervous at the time, but it was just college students. So I figured I might as well practice now. And then that just opened up so many doors in terms of leadership, in terms of my business. And so I owe much of my success to the entrepreneurship program at UH Manoa case, the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship and Hawaii student entrepreneurs. They really helped a lot in my business. Well, you're definitely right. I mean, it takes courage to speak in front of a group of people for sure. And I like hearing how it all started. And I like the name Kaloha. Why did you choose the name Kaloha for your business? Yeah, so this is a funny story. Since I started when I was so young back then, I just thought Kaloha was a cute word. I thought it kind of matched me. It means rascal in Hawaiian. And as the business grew and matured, Kaloha kind of means thinking outside of the box, being unique in different challenging norms, being unconventional. So it's kind of like being a good Kaloha, a good rascal. And I've tried numerous times before to change it because it's a Hawaiian word. So most people don't know what it is, but it kind of just stuck. And so now we have this beautiful meaning of what it means to be different and unique and to really step into that place and embrace it. Oh, I like that. And I like hearing that you're the youngest store owner two years ago at 21 years of age at Alohi Lani. Now you're 23. How did that first store come about? Yeah, so actually the lease agent reached out to me and he said, hey, we just did this big $100 million renovation on the Alohi Lani Resort. I'm not sure if you remember the old Hawaii Pacific Beach Hotel, but that's what the hotel was before. And now it's this beautiful Alohi Lani Resort. And I was finishing up my senior year at UH Minoa and I was like, oh my gosh, I never thought of having a store before, but yes, let's do it. And I remember distinctly this week I was in Baltimore. So that women's entrepreneurship program I was first invited to as a student in Vegas. They invited me back for their program in Baltimore as a mentor. And so I was in Baltimore, I arrived back in Honolulu on that Friday. I met up with the general managers on that Monday, got the signed the papers, got the keys on Tuesday. We built out everything on Wednesday and Thursday and then we moved in on that Friday because I wanted it to be open for the fourth of July crowd. So our build out was really quick. And it was only supposed to be a two month summer pop up. And so what we did is a lot of the hotel employees naturally would come in and ask me, hey, Rose, how old are you? Kind of like, who gave this young girl a store? Like, I see you here all the time. Who are you? And so that really drove me to prove a point for young people and young entrepreneurs. And so we did really, really well. We exceeded expectations. They love what we brought to the hotel and we actually had an agreement to extend the two months to six months and then it got extended to a year. Now we're on our two year lease and we plan to stay there long term because the hotel is really, really great with working with us. And it's just such a perfect marriage between brands and they're just really well aligned with where we want our brand to be. And so it's very exciting that they gave us a chance. They reached out to us. They supported us and now here we are. Well, Rose, I've been to your store and it's beautiful. And you opened up a second store on Beachwalk during the pandemic. And that store is absolutely beautiful as well. Now why did you open that second store during the pandemic? Yes, people asked me this all. And I said, what are you doing? Are you crazy? And in my mind, it was a smart business move because we kind of got in at a time where no one was looking for leases. And so we got in at that time and it's a really, really gorgeous space. Waikiki Beachwalk is one of the nicest little pockets of Waikiki, I think. I could be a little biased, but it is gorgeous. And so the reason why we chose to go there, we always wanted to expand. So one thing about the Kalahe ladies is we never sit still. We always dare to dream big. And so when we toured this place with our lease agent, we said, yes, we want to open here. This is the next step. It's a gorgeous space. And so for me, honestly, that was kind of a test of myself and my leadership. And I've always been one to take risks, right? And so I wanted to see, okay, this would be the biggest risk that I take investing in a new store, investing in solid gold materials, a new team. This would be the biggest risk that I take, but I wanted to test and see what would happen, Rusty, and see what would come out of taking that big lease because I've always done that. And so I wanted to see, okay, will it work this time? Will it not work? Should I not be taking risks that big? And we of course had to go through our rough months in COVID, which everyone did, every business did. And then we kind of broke through and we just kept going at it with determination. And because of that, now it's thriving and it's doing amazing and it's giving us opportunities to open at other locations. And so we kind of wanted to take a time, we call our solid gold collection that was born out of that store and out of the pandemic. We call it Oasis by Coloha because we kind of wanted to take into mind the consideration of the time it was in a pandemic. It was in a very dark time for everyone. And we kind of just wanted to give a little sliver of hope, something exciting and new for the community to look forward to a good story instead of a sad story that we often saw in the middle of the pandemic. And so that's what really kind of drove the storyline behind our new store and behind our new solid gold collection and kind of just moving forward. Well, Rose, it's absolutely impressive what you're doing. And you also just recently opened up your office in downtown and you have an executive team of women that are all in their early 20s and you guys are all smart and dynamic. It's super impressive. How fortunate are you to have such great women working with you on your executive team? Oh my gosh, Rusty, I think about this every day. These women, they're crazy, they're insane. And if I think like I'm motivated and I'm like hardworking, these ladies put me to shame. I think it's a really amazing team that I was blessed to kind of meet these ladies in our own special way with each of them. And I just knew I had something inside of me that said, hey, these are the ladies. And so I scooped them up real quick. And it's really amazing because we're all minority, we're all young in our 20s. The youngest is Faith, she's our marketing executive and she's 21 years old. And she is just driving the business forward. She's our newest member. And then we also have Mia who handles our operations. She's been with me since the longest and we got introduced because she was president of Entrepreneurs Club before me. And then when I had a 10,000 piece wave ring order for an order of subscription box and LA, Mia helped me. She stayed up with me late nights, early mornings, throughout the night making those rings. And then we have Megan who's our senior jeweler. So she really takes on the techniques and beautifying things. And then she's also our director of creative and community outreach. And so she helps us a lot of our creatives from building out and designing the new headquarters all the way to developing out our new social impact by the end of the year. And so it's really, really amazing to see just this dynamic team all together. And you know, we're, I think that it's a very brave and bold thing that they're doing because we don't have our business set out. We don't have all the corporate structures set out yet, but they're building that. And I think that's what's so impressive about them. They're just, yeah, I have really high standards for people and these ladies have been able to meet it and exceed it. So it's really awesome to see what we've built. And it's kind of like a symbol to what you can do when you work together and you just have this amazing team and amazing group of people around you that just help move each other forward in different ways. It seems like you guys are all so driven and you all thrive on each other. And yeah, having that high standard of excellence that's what it's all about. And Rose, you, I wanna ask you about your custom design jewelry. I mean, it's absolutely beautiful. And how, why is it that you wanted to do custom design jewelry? And how does that, how does your business set you apart from your competitors? Sure, yeah. Well, what people love coming to our location for specifically is our custom jewelry bar. So it's much more of an experience than it is a retail store because the customers actually get to be a part of designing their special unique piece. And so they can choose their chains, they can choose their charms, they can choose their style, the length that they want because not the standard lengths fit all the right body types the same way. And so we really allow that flexibility for the customer to be part of the process. And this is why people have love coming to our locations. This is why the Elohilani Resort asks us to extend because we would, or at least because we would do the jewelry design parties and jewelry classes there. And so it's really about making the jewelry fit the customer, not making the customer fit the jewelry. And it's really about showcasing the uniqueness of each individual person and of each individual story and of each individual jewelry piece that makes the business really, really special. And you know, Rusty, we strive on our excellence in our quality of the jewelry. So we're always looking forward to how we can make our business and our jewelry designs better and better and better each time we design a new collection and new piece. And we're really excited to announce all of the new things that we're bringing in and introducing because we've never been at this level of growth before. Well, I got to tell you Rose that some of my friends have gone to your stores and they absolutely love it. I'm glad to how you talked about the experience because these so many customers that have been there are my friends and they all love it. They love that experience that you were talking about. And it's so unique. And I'm glad you were able to share why your business is set apart from competitors. I don't think you have competitors. I think you're actually doing things that no one else has done. And Rose, I wanna ask you, you have my books and what are some things that stood out to you in my books? Every page Rusty, every time I turned the page and read something, there was something that resonated with me, something that stuck out and we just make it really tangible and understanding. But what I love is that you always go back to positivity and bringing about positivity in your team any time in any way. And I just love that you focus first on the character and then naturally the performance kind of just follows. So you're very smart because you peel two birds with one stone and in the best thriving way possible. I think people really need a thriving environment in order to one work and produce but also be the best version of themselves in their own personal lives outside of work. And so I really appreciate that you always return back to that emphasis on character and personal building. I also love the part where you wrote about only high standards allowed because I have high standards and sometimes I'm like, are they too high? Should I lower them a little? But then it's like, no, that's how you keep thriving and that's what you should always be striving for. And so I love that you have that just importance and emphasis on that. And just everything in your book was really, really relatable and I love that it's just focused on superior excellence. And that's what I always try to ingrain into myself, into my business, into my team. And I think that's what really makes you stand out because you see a lot of businesses or a lot of people just not reaching up to their fullest potential. And so I just appreciate and I absolutely love that you kind of just explore that in your book. And I think everyone should read it. And you know, Resty, you never stopped being a coach after Pune Hall. You're still coaching people to this day. That's so true. I mean, yeah, I thought I retired from Pune Hall in 2015 but I think I'm the busiest I've ever been now but you're so right about having that high standard of excellence and that's really what you've created with your business is this superior culture of excellence. You're someone Rose that definitely goes beyond the lines and everyone is capable of doing so much more than they think they're capable of. And Rose, I wanna ask you if you can share with me some of the adversities or challenges that you've dealt with in your young life so far personally? Sure. Yeah, Resty, I would have to say that my biggest event of adversity has to be my upbringing. So I have a really interesting upbringing and I think it's a story that kind of allowed me to thrive. And so where does it start? Well, I told you I grew up with seven siblings and my parents actually got divorced when I was in like the third, fourth grade. And my mom was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia. And since then it's been like 13 years, not 13 plus years. She's been homeless on the streets, Resty. And so that's one of the reasons why I'm so driven to succeed in my business because one day I wanna be able to put her in the, I wanna buy a home for her and be able to put her and be able to provide the right care that she needs because it's hard because a lot of the systems currently aren't equipped to do that for our homeless community here. And so going up with that and then when I was in the eighth grade I actually lived with another family because I didn't get along with my stepmom. So I went and I lived with another family. It was supposed to be a week, a week turned into two months, turned into one year, turned into two years. And so I didn't grow up with a lot of the same things that most people did grow up with. And I remember there was a point, all of my older siblings, so I'm the oldest girl but I'm right in the middle. So I have like four or five older brothers and they all homeschooled or either dropped out or got their GEDs or went into the military or had to work at restaurant jobs. They had it harder than I had it at one point. They were homeless in a van at one point. And so I remember very distinctly at one point in my life I thought, okay, there has to be more that I can show the rest of my younger siblings that there's more that we can do than kind of what was set out for our lives already. And so my older siblings didn't go to college. I was the first in my family to go to college and pay myself, pay my way through that because we could never afford it. And so I really wanted to show my younger siblings that, hey, we can create whatever life and vision and business that we want. So we don't have to call the path that was set out for us. We don't have to fall victim to whatever life was bringing us down on. And so I really was really driven to go to college and get an education to show my younger siblings that. And it worked for, I see my little sisters, they're 20, 20 and they have a beautiful business of their own called our planet and it's focused on sustainability. And so they're very caring people and very caring of just the community and the planet. And so it kind of started as me doing something for my family, for my younger siblings or my mom. And now it kind of turned into okay, doing things for the community. And that's one thing that we hope to bring into our business and introduce into our business, just how we can get back to the things that brought our business where we are today. And so I think it's, yeah, I think that's been the biggest point of adversity in my life, but also the biggest blessing because that's what brought me here today. And I think everyone has trauma, everyone goes through something and you have two options, right? You set it in your book, you can either spiral down into that or you can turn it into something. You can either do something positive or you can turn it into something negative. And I chose to do something positive with it and turn it into something bigger. And now it's this huge, beautiful thing, Rusty. So it's really amazing to see. Well, you're very inspiring Rose. And you have such positive energy that it's contagious. And I have no doubt you'll end up buying that house for your mom. I wanna know, Rose, through your young business career so far, what are some of the big highlights of your business? Big highlights, we covered a lot of them. The first one was the 10,000 piece wavering order that I had when I was my junior or senior year of college. And that really kind of showed us, hey, we can do this, we can get these big orders. And then the second was opening the store at 21 years old, that was a big feat. And I went from being a one woman business just doing online and small pop-ups here and there to being a full-fledged operation, hiring six employees, our business just expanded, expanded and it was crazy what I was managing. And then we opened up our second location, the flagship location during COVID and we brought our business through COVID through the pandemic, we still thrived and we kind of made something beautiful of it. And then opening that store, we needed to bring on new people so that's how we found a date that we added on. She's our most recent addition to our executive team. And now we have all of the parts that we need for this business to succeed. And so I would say we are at the starting point of probably our biggest highlight, whatever it is to come in the next year and the next few years. So you'll have to ask me that again, Rusty, but I think we're just at the starting point and we have everything in place. We've built it really well and now it's executing on all of those big plans that we have. I definitely will ask you that in a few years. And Rose, looking back, what are some mistakes that you made in your business? Sure, I would say people always ask me this and I view every mistake as like a learning thing. So it's always hard for me to think of like, okay, what was the failure? What was this? Because I always learned something big. I would say one of my recent mistakes is after the, when we opened our store and throughout the pandemic, I felt this really big need to create jobs in whatever little way that I can with my business. Because I had that like emotional motive of it. I went and I hired more people than I probably should have. I tried to expand really quickly. And I thought, okay, putting in this input of resources and employees is gonna equal out output. And also it was a weird time during COVID because things were closed. So we didn't have, we couldn't meet outdoors. We couldn't meet at coffee shops. We didn't have our office space yet. We couldn't meet in the lobbies at the hotels. And so we were meeting in my house. And I think one of the things that I did wrong was I became really personal with all the employees of the team as far as like sales associates too. And so I didn't have that. I was really struggling with switching from small business startup and transitioning to doing things more corporate style. And I think when that kind of happened, like I definitely learned a lot about managing people. I learned a lot about my leadership and how I lead people because I'm a very aggressive person, Rusty. And so it was great to read your book and learn about how you can come about these things in a much more positive way because that's what I'm always learning how to do. And I think that's the one challenge and the one thing that I'm gonna have to tackle is learning how to harness that aggressiveness into utter positivity. And so I think I definitely learned a lot with how I manage people, how I handle situations, how I was a leader. And now we're redoing a lot of those things. So I would say that's one of them. And then small little ones, like when we opened the store, we didn't have a budget for things. I just went in and did whatever. There's a small things like that, the growing pains of the business, making sure that all of these things are in place. But there's a lot that I could talk about. I would say those were some of the more recent and I'm making mistakes all the time, but that means that I just learned from them and improve on them all the time as well. Well, Rose, mistakes and failures, those are parts of success. And people have to realize that by failing, that's not the opposite of success. It's actually helping you succeed because you figure out what doesn't work and at least you tried it. Now, Rose, before we wrap, I wanna ask one more thing. What is your advice to some young women or men that want to start becoming an entrepreneur? Sure, I would say never give up. That's one thing that made our team really successful is we never give up and we dare to dream big. So we could have stopped at one store, but then we opened two and during a pandemic, and then now we wanna open our next location in the mainland to just open the headquarters. And so we dare to always dream big. And what we do, this is a very tangible thing that anyone can take from this show, from watching us right now, is we always work backwards. So I always work towards our big idea and then I work backwards and talk about, okay, what small things do we have to do to get there? And that makes it much more attainable because I would say the hardest part for starting anything is just getting started. And I would say a second part of that, it's having the confidence to do that because if you don't believe, how can you ever achieve anything, right? If you don't believe in yourself, no one else is gonna believe in you. And so I think those things and then in addition, for me, it's a lot of self-discipline, self-improvement and self-expiration because if I don't know something, if I'm lacking in something, if I need to grow into something, I better do it fast because I have this business, depending on me and this team that I wanna build. And so I think it's always learning about yourself and learning new ways of doing things and seeking when you don't know the answers. So reading your book, I would say for anyone, read Rusty's books and that'll take you a long way. You're so kind, Rose. And Rose, you definitely are someone that goes beyond the lines and I want more Rose Wongs in the world because you're gonna inspire countless people. And I really wanna thank you for taking time to join me on the show today. Of course, I am absolutely honored, Rusty. Thank you so much. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit rustycomory.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Rose and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.