 Tam, thank you for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii's Connecting Hawaii Business. My name is Kathleen Lee with Kathleen Lee Consulting, and I am your host for this program. This afternoon, we have some very special guests. See, I'm already settering, and it's not even a minute into the program. But today, we have the owners of Essential Peace. They are both police officers. We have Kaipo Paiva and Graham Wong. So thank you both for being on the show and welcome. Well, thank you for having us on the show. Oh, absolutely. Appreciate it. Yeah, so go ahead and introduce yourselves to our viewers out there. And just as a note to everyone who is watching, this is live stream. So if you would like to send us any questions, you can email questions at thinktechhawaii.com. So Kaipo and Graham, go ahead and introduce yourselves. So I'm Kaipo Paiva. I'm a police officer with the Honolulu Police Department. I'm a sergeant, and I work out of the Pro City Police Station. And I've been a police officer for 20 years. And we opened this company about back in March. And here we are today. What about you, Graham? My name is Graham Wong. I met Kathleen when we used to work at the Prince Waikiki. So I'm kind of honored that she had us on the show. But I'm also a police officer with the Department of Defense. I've been a police officer for 13 years. I'm actually a sergeant now. I'm assigned to the Wahewa Annex as of now, and then we'll rotate later on. Me and Kaipo have been best friends for ever since we attended Damien High School together. So maybe, I don't want to put it out there too, so everybody will know our age. But maybe close to 30 years of friendship, he had this great idea. You want to support your friends. So we collaborated together more for networking. The whole concept is his idea. And when you're believed that your best friend has a great idea, you just go and you run with it. Let's go run with that then. So your business is called Essential Peace. And it is a business that sells PPE, personal protective equipment, and it's inspired by first responders. So could you tell us a bit more about how, when that came about, what inspired you to do it, and why highlight first responders with the theme of your business? So this started back in March of 2020. And my mom had been diagnosed with leukemia at the beginning of February. And so she opted out of chemo. And she went straight to hospice care. And she came home and she was still joyful as the same as ever. And I chose to go and live with her and help her throughout all that time. And in that time, COVID was just coming out and it was just starting out. And we didn't know. And my mom, with my mom having leukemia, you had to wear a mask. We were wearing masks around her and trying to keep a bubble around her. And as we watched, as I watched the COVID pandemic take more in Hawaii, I noticed that more people started to wear a mask. And they're saying it can help to reduce the spread of COVID. And so our first responders, police officers, EMTs, fire departments, firefighters, they're the first ones there at any situation. And we didn't know much about it, but we had to wear masks. And I noticed that I didn't, wearing those paper masks, you know, they were just, they were great and stuff. And so I wanted to wear stuff that I wanted to wear. But I've always wanted to look for clothing that I want. I go for clothing that, you know, that sends a message. And so I created a mask with a design that I liked and I created a handful and I wore it one day to work. And I took a selfie because we were all starting to wear a mask and everybody was like, Oh, where'd you get that mask from? And I said, I made it. I said, can I, could we order one? And I said, sure. And so I, one turned into 400 of them and said, okay. And there and behold, I was at home with my mom a lot. So I was playing around with a lot of designs and a lot of messages that I want to send out. And you know, people will always see your face. So I was like, you know, maybe we should put some positive messages on there, especially in a time where, you know, law enforcement are being seen in a negative way. I think that if we could send some kind of positive messaging to people regarding law enforcement and the name of the company itself came about because I'm also, I also have my own company as a, as a speaker, a speaker and a professional speaker and I do a lot of youth classes. And one of the, one of the subjects I teach is forgiveness. And I think the goal of every police officer, well, the goal of forgiveness is to help you find peace. And I think in my opinion, I think at the end goal, whether you want to be successful or you want more freedom or you want something to be a certain way, I think the end goal that everybody's searching for is peace. Because when I have freedom, then I have peace. And so police officers, when I learned the forgiveness skills that I, that I teach is that I think every end goal is that police officers, our end goal is that we want peace. And then I thought to myself, I go, it's not just me, it's, it's about everybody. And I think we're all the word, the, you know, essential workers when COVID was sort of, we're starting up essential workers with all those that go to work. And that word essential kind of stuck with me. And I thought, well, you know, peace is essential. And I think we're all essential pieces to creating peace together. And that's how the name of the company was formed is essential peace and that peace is essential. And we're all essential pieces to creating peace. So let's, let's pull up the second photo here. I know you had mentioned police officers. And that's the theme that your company is running here. Could you tell us more about the colors that you've used as well as the logo and elaborate more on that and why you decided to go that route or made those selections? Well, the colors are pretty much the thin blue line colors or the colors of, you know, thin blue line and the theory behind the thin blue line is, you know, in darkness where the blue or the police represented by blue are the ones that, that, that protect our community from the evil that's out there. And if people don't know or don't realize how bad it is out there, and I think we're doing a good job. And the shield, if you look at that, the shield and the, the, the, the Cahili with the cross panels, that shield and that Cahili with the cross panels are actually on the center of our Honolulu police department badge. And the theory behind it is there's a story called the law of the splintered paddle. And because I wanted to research, I see, you see it all over the, the, the Kamako Maoli flags and Hawaiian flags and it's, it's there and I never knew what it stood for. And I'm part of Hawaiian, so I did some research and I read about it. And I was like, it's, it's makes perfect sense. And it's a story about how I can come in and try to take over Hawaii Island or one of the towns that he failed and he was going to take over another, another village. And he saw, he ran to shore and left his army behind and he saw these two fishermen fishing and they were just minding their own business. He goes over to try to attack them, his foot gets stuck stuck in a rock. And the fishermen, they're so scared, they whack Kamena over with the, with the paddle and he hits them so hard, the paddle splinters and they run away. They don't finish him off. They run away and they're just trying to get fine safety. And when Kamena woke up, he realized that what he did was, was wrong. And the, these, these fishermen weren't a part of the, the war, the fight and the whole premises, the why we, why there's a shield is because police officers want to, want to shield and protect our community. And the law of the splintered paddles is anyone who's, who's not involved with the war, anybody, which is Kapuna, our community members, our youth, we're here to protect them. And our goal is to help subdue the evil that it's out there who are trying to victimize our community. And that's why I chose the, I like the, the shield with the Hawaii flag with the blue line behind it, because the whole theory of all that about protection and being a guardian for our communities. Okay. Thanks Kypo for explaining that. We actually do have a question from a viewer that I'm going to try to kind of rephrase. So because of everything that has been going on in the world, and again, your theme came from that, right, essential piece. It's to counter a lot of, you know, the disenchantment that has been going on in our society has the question is, has anyone given you grief about your company? Because it is, you know, police officer first responder theme. Personally, not to me, I guess. Not to me personally, I haven't heard anything. It's, it's been, it's been supportive so far. And I'm not going to bounce at every police officer on the planet is perfect and follows all the rules all the time. I, you know, I understand there are people just like in every other profession where they make bad decisions where it hurts people and it hurts the community. I myself, I do a lot of community work and I really believe in helping the community. I do a lot of work with the youth as a, as a police officer and educating the youth and community service work. So and at the same time, I've done a lot of work where we've had people break the law and we've had to arrest them or give citations, but I haven't had anybody give me too much grief yet. And I hope I can change their mind about police officers through our clothing line. What about you, Graham? What is your take on that? I think I haven't got any bad feedback, but I think more of our clientele we cater to first responders. So I don't think first responders would, we're trying to branch out. We're trying to, we're going to, we're trying to expand. We want to get everybody involved, but I understand right now, as of now for business-wise, our clientele is basically first responders. But as a police officer, we're not, we're more trying to educate than trying to punish. Like, you know, sometimes, like they say, the punishment has to fit the crime, but we also want to educate people so they can, you know, rehabilitate and go back all into the world and, you know, and be useful to society. And I can speak for Kiteville, but, you know, I think you kind of have the same mentality. It's not about always hammering down, hammering down, hammering down. We want to, you know, educate. We want to, you know, tell people, we understand that times are, sometimes times are hard. You come from a family that's struggling, you live in a certain area of the island and it's just hard. You have bad role models, but we just kind of, and I know Kiteville is really, really into like helping the youth so that when they come, when they get older and they try to, time to function so society, he gives them the tools. And I try to do that when I come across any individual that we get a call to, that you kind of want to listen to both sides and educate. So as far as getting negative feedback about our product, as of now, I haven't received any negative feedback. Thanks for sharing that, Graham. We will actually be going on break, but when we come back, we will be talking about some of the challenges that essential peace may have encountered while starting their business during a pandemic. So stay tuned. Back to think tech, Hawaii's connecting Hawaii business. My name is Kathleen Lee with Kathleen Lee Consulting. And on the show today, we have Kaipo Paiva and Grandma of Essential Peace, which is a company that makes PPE for first responders. And again, as I mentioned earlier, they are police officers. And that is what that is why their target is first responders as well. But let me go into that because we did get a question from a viewer. Do you only sell local and do you plan on expanding to include designs for other states? Because it does look like it is, you know, Hawaii themed. So I'll let you guys respond to that. So yes, we do. We have a website, ESN, TL, PCE.com. You can go to our website. And we can order and we ship as far as Virginia and New York. And we love it. I mean, it's a positive message. I wouldn't mind if somebody from other states had an idea and there's a bunch of people that want it and could give me an idea of what's behind the design because it's not only about designing something that looks cool, it's about having a purpose behind the design is what I believe and what kind of message it's going to deliver at the same time. I think apparel and masks are a great way to send messages, especially in messages with a purpose and hopefully that purpose is moving towards peace. Let's show that third photo. So people have an idea of what you guys offer. So it looks like you make PPE for adults and children. Is that correct? Yes, we have adults and children's sizes. That's my son over there and he loses masks left and right. So I mean a lot more designs and this is probably one of our newer designs that's going to be coming out and probably my favorite message that we like. But yeah, we definitely can ship. I think to answer more into detail for that question, because I think because we're a base employee and we're such a small business, it's only being quite full. We're only employees of the business. So we started small and we're kind of catering to friends and family and co-workers that it kind of expanded out to, you know, because at one point we were doing delivery and we're meeting all these new people. We're delivering to all over the island, but once you're business-wise when you start expanding, you can't do as much deliveries as you want. So we do shipping, but we shipped to the mainland and we got to look at it for the business-sense-wise and expansion is always in the works. Like we are more than willing to expand to other states, other for ideas, but if we're only going to get a small hand of individuals from the state, we can't bring in a lot of bulk stuff for that state. If only a handful of individuals are going to purchase it and then we're going to be stuck with, you know, I don't want to sound bad, like, you know, but now I'm just learning the business side of it, you know, like I explained to you, Kathleen, earlier that me and kind of are good frontmen. We're good sales people. Like we can stand up. We can talk to everybody, you know, sell our product, but behind the scenes, like the inventory, the bookkeeping, the business sense, you know, we took us three times to get our business account set up at the bank because, you know, we're fairly new to business. All our career, we just been, we were never owners of a business. We were basically first as far as police officers and now we're venturing into this new idea. And it's a learning process. Every day it's a learning process, but expansion is always going to be available as in any business. Yeah, let's go more into that. So you need a little bit of the challenges that you have ran into as a business owner in Hawaii, a new business owner, especially during the pandemic, but that's kind of, that is how the business came about anyway, is because you guys are first responders, you responded to COVID-19 by coming up with the PPE idea. What other challenges have you ran into since building this business and how have you guys been solving for it? I think, so in my opinion, one of the parts of community policing, which is what I've been assigned to for the last 10 years is problem solving. And one of the ways that I went through this class called, it's from, oh my gosh, I forget what the company name, I just went blank, but there's a course at Stanford University called design thinking. And with design thinking and problem solving with community policing, the whole goal is to listen. It's all about listening and design thinking, they tell you the difference between an invention and an innovation. An invention is something you make and you deliver to people and say, hey, do you think you could use this? Design thinking thinks of an innovation where let's go talk to people and see what they're at and what's going on, what challenges are they having? And I talk to people, I listen to people about what the challenges are, I hate wearing a mask, you got your ear solar or my nose, it doesn't fit right. And what I noticed was, yeah, if there was something like for police officers, we could be more inclined to wearing it and probably protecting our people. And I said, well, okay, and I tried out several different designs of masks. This is the design part and I found the mask that was cost effective. Our goal was to keep the costs down for our customers. And at the same time, trying to figure out what could fit most people. I mean, I understand that our stuff isn't the only one out there and I'm not saying this is the best for everyone, but I try to cater to as much people as possible. And the business side of it, like Graham said, it's setting up our account between an LLC and an LLP. We thought we were going to be partners. We went through a partnership and oh my gosh, we filed another partnership. And we had the goal, it took like 90 days or three months and the DCACA people were so kind and so patient. Talked to me and I said, I told them straight up, I don't know what I'm doing. And they said, oh, you know, but, you know, they were helpful. And, you know, I think if you just ask questions and you're very transparent and honest about what you're trying to do and what you don't know, there are people out there that want to help you. And I say, you know, accept the help because yeah, I don't know everything. There are people out there too and maybe ask them. So you had mentioned accepting help, but I understand that you guys also give help and you have donated a bunch of these PPE to organizations, schools. Can you tell us a bit more about that? So one of the community policing, one of our really close nonprofits that we work with is We Didn't Seed Hawaii and I have a really close relationship with them. They hold a lot of community events and during the COVID, this whole pandemic thing, it was starting out and where kids started staying home from school and one of the hot spots was actually where Papa were in the community that I work. And so Lori Connell, who I work with close with We Didn't Seed, she's one of the coordinators. She said, oh, you know, do you have any connections with masks? And I was like, yeah. And she said, oh, okay, because we're looking for masks because we want to make, you know, bag care bags to give to the kids and give to the community so they can start wearing masks and put wipes in it and stuff. So how many masks do you donate? And I said, I got a few hundred. Do you want some? So I had this model that made this one that didn't really sell so good. So she goes, oh, okay, how much do you think? And I gave like a couple hundred to her adults and kids sizes. I said, here you go. And she said, thank you. And she was able to get it to the people that needed it most. And you know, one of the philosophies that I like is a win-win. I mean, it's good for us that we're getting our name on and it's good for our community because in the end it's all about the community. That's free publicity to people wearing our masks. And we're donating it to a good cause. So I think it's very, it's, we donate to other things too. Like, you know, people's been asked, individuals been asking us to help with, you know, I don't know, it's trying times during these times. And we really appreciate everybody, you know, that come on the website and purchase stuff from us. Because, you know, I know you see it, every struggling, they're asking for the second stimulus check, people complaining about the unemployment not being to get him. And we're so appreciative that people actually go on our site and buy stuff during this time of, you know, uncertainty in the world. So we really appreciate that, you know, people support us, you know, and it's expanding. So business, we don't concentrate this on this full time. And, you know, this is our full time, you know, situation. We have full time jobs. We have families. And then we just do this, people put orders, we do this. But I think the partnership is what was I was really worried about is that, you know, because sometimes partners disagree, but we've been going on five, six months. I think we had one disagreement. And then we kind of squash that. So it's kind of, yeah, we're moving in the right direction. We just got to, you know, we were human, we're learning, we make order, we make what we've been, we make order mistakes all the time. But as the customer service part aspect, we want it, we will correct the mistake. We will come back, we've been getting quite a few and it's both, you know, in me, it's kind of, you know, but we will correct it. We as soon as possible. Okay, let's pull up that last photo. I know we talked about you, too, and your company creating personal protective equipment, but I mean, it goes beyond that. Your product line goes beyond that. Could you kind of go briefly into that? And then anything else that you would like to add that we may not have gone over in our last two minutes of the show? Well, I mean, it's, Graham and I have talked about doing like our own t-shirts, saying our own things and basically that shirt says it all. It's as essential. And in the end, just go to Aloha. And the hat in that picture is from a different company from another police officer called Monty's Apparel. You go to our website, they have a lot of good stuff, too. And there's Got Your Six, there's Blue Line Hawaii. And people ask, you know, you know, how do you feel about your competition? I'm like, I'm not in competition with them. It's, why can't we all succeed together? And I tell people all the time, you want cool hats? There's also Got Your Six, there's Blue Line Hawaii, there's Monty's Apparel. We'll check them out. They have really great messages, too. And it's not about stepping on anybody to get to our goal. It's more about let's collaborate with as many people as possible so we can all get to our goals together. And it's about sending positive messages to people and about our company and about everybody. And how can people find you guys on the web? I know Kaipo, you mentioned it earlier, but could you repeat it one more time for our viewers out there? You can go to our website. It's abbreviated, essentialpeace.com. So esntlpce.com. You could search us on Instagram. Same thing, esntlpce. Or on Facebook, esntlpce. You'll find us or Google us and put those letters together and find us on our website. And if you want to give us a message, go on Instagram. We're really good about answering messages. And like we said, the Graham said, if we make mistakes, please let us know between messenger or anything because we really want to correct it. And we do apologize. And sometimes a little bit extra stuff in there when we make mistakes. Final words, Graham. Like I said, I just want to thank everybody that's supporting essential peace. I know during these trying times that people are spending money on our apparel like that. We also support other, like Kaipo said, others like Back to Blue and Monty's apparel, Got Your Six. There's a lot of business to go around. We don't feel that we need to take all the business. We're not about that. We're more than happy because I see people were interested in Back to Blue shirts, but they have our mask on and they're asking Back to Blue, Oh, do you guys have those masks? And Back to Blue, Wayne Sherry always direct them to us. So we want to do the same. When people say, Hey, that's a cool shirt that says Back to Blue. We want to push them towards Back to Blue when people are posting with our mask with their shirt on. I'm with Monty's apparel and Back, Got Your Six and Blue Line Away. So yeah, we appreciate everybody supporting us. So I want to thank everybody, type Kaipo, you know what I mean? He puts it up with me. Sometimes I'm calling in late at night and asking them all these kind of questions. So I really appreciate that. Kaipo's patient with me. You know what I mean? I appreciate that. I think that's the partnership that is coming out. And on that note, we will go ahead and conclude the show. Thank you again, Kaipo, Paola, and Graham Wong of Essential Peace. Thank you guys very much. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us on the show, Kathleen. We appreciate it. Absolutely. Have a good one, everyone.