 I'm Mellie James, host of Let's Mana Up. So thrilled for our second show. This show is meant to dive into stories of local product entrepreneurs and how they're growing their companies from right here in Hawaii. My guest today is Zach Noyl, co-founder of Hyen based on Oahu. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. Of course. So let's get you started off with sharing how you guys started Hyen, how this amazing footwear company got started. Yeah, absolutely. I think slippers is something that's a part of our culture here in Hawaii. It's something you can wear to a wedding, to a birthday, to any kind of occasion here in Hawaii. It's really acceptable. And as we looked at all of these brands, a lot of them were not from Hawaii, but they were telling a story of Hawaii. They weren't based in Hawaii. They weren't even manufactured or any type of thing to do with Hawaii. And so by seeing that, we started seeing a shift. It's like we know this culture so well, we know our backyard so well, and they're selling our lifestyle from around the world. So how can we do that ourselves? I like that. So I know that the title of our show today is the color palette of Hawaii. Can you share, and obviously everyone knows you being this big wave surf photographer, famous surf photographer, can you share how your surf photography is helping to really drive the product design for Hyen? Absolutely. When we start to design the colors and just everything has to have a meaning. Everything has to have some function to it. And we started looking at it and we started pulling the color of pantones from my images. And that really then helps us to lend to inspired by Hawaii. And that's something that we want to keep true. It's something that we can take one of the photos and pull five, six different colors and that's our next line for the season. And it's something that then is truly unique to our brand and truly unique to Hawaii. And it's something that we can tell and you can take it anywhere with you and have those really those blues to those greens to the colors in the sky and have that upon your feet. I love it. So some of your color like pantones are not just surf though. Like you've got your Malasata slipper and other. Can you share some of those stories about Hawaii that are kind of coming into your product colors? I mean, we're using photos of the Kuala Mountains to the Big Island to Maui to Kauai and everything in between. And what we're able to find is just truly unique colors to Hawaii from when you put them next to each other as a slippers, they compliment each other. But you're like, why is this one from red, orange to this color? And because of that is there's such a wide variety of like gradients throughout my imagery that when you see the image next to it, it all makes sense. So can you share a little bit more about your co-founders and kind of how long ago you guys got started? So David Lynn came to me with the idea and he's like, I want to make a slipper. I'm like rubber slipper like, you know, David's in a medical field as well as like the co-founder of Kix, which is a shoe store. So he had the footwear like knowledge, but something like a rubber slipper. It's like that's a $24 price point sold in the stores, very different from like a high-end shoe or anything like that. And as he started telling me his vision a little more, everything started clicking for us and it's cool because with David, we actually went to Japan, met with different designers. We had one slipper that we'd walk around with us all the time and we'd be able to show people and this is what we want to do. And we actually went to the factory to pick up all the slippers. So it's a natural 5L tie rubber and we went to Thailand and I ended up hand carrying back 600 pairs of slippers for our very first order. So the first order was going to Sig Zane. We had a deadline for Mary Monarch and I ended up hand carrying back all these boxes. David had to stay in Japan and I somehow made it through customs, hand delivered it to Sig and now we're four years in and it's so exciting to see the growth of it. So there's a couple of things that just came up and what you were talking about. So one, can you share a little bit more about the 5L rubber? And I know walk lightly is your tagline and it's really important to you. Can you share more around the sustainability and all rubber and the walk lightly? Sustainability is a massive part of our company and it's something, our tagline is walk lightly. So we really want to leave less behind than when we came. And it's something that we have in our main like core line. Our main inline core line where it has a white bottom. So it's to kind of signify the walk lightly. It's all natural rubber. So it's 100% recyclable. We wanted to make sure that we didn't have the plastic straps that many of the brands do now. And those are quick fixes. Those are ways that they can pump up more product quickly. Ours has an incubation time and by having that incubation time, we're able to get this full recyclable natural rubber, which no one is doing. So a lot of slippers out there now, the top part is made of plastic. Oh, absolutely. You see those clear plastic, clear blue, the black, a lot of the different like brands sold in the convenience stores or places here have a plastic strap. And there's a kind of a rubber tree farm that you work with in Thailand. Absolutely. So the 5L rubber is a type of rubber and it's like signifies like the process that it goes through. So we're working directly with the farms and the factories and we're able to get the highest quality of that rubber and we're creating it in a dual density. So it's a little bit firmer on the bottom and a lot softer on the top. So you get the comfort as well as the durability. That makes sense. So if you step on Kyave thorns heading down to the beach, it's not going to go through. Yeah, you should be OK. Yeah, I wouldn't try to step on them, but you should be all right. All right. So I know you brought some images today. So we'll move over to those and you can share more about the things we're seeing. Thank you. So just some of our color palette in there in the middle, you have the Sig Zane Slipper and Sig Zane helped us to coin walk lightly. And Sig Zane is really like our cultural ambassador, cultural guidance. And he comes out every year four to five times a year with his custom colors, prints and designs on the left there. We have our Makai blue and that's kind of our evergreen and brand color. And on the right is lihimoi. So everything has a fun name and like a connection back to Hawaii. Awesome. So can you share who Sig Zane is? I know that we know who he is, but Sig Zane is an amazing designer and of Aloha shirts. So he's based in Hilo, Hawaii. And for a long time, he goes into nature and he's finding the shapes, plants, leaves, and he's then turning into these like hand drawn artwork. So it's a lot. It's on Aloha shirts and different. That's where he's really got his like name from is with Aloha shirts. But it just goes further with the brand culturally and just like a lot of significance. I'm actually wearing a Sig Zane. There you go. He also does women's dresses. I feel like when I was getting dressed this morning, I was thinking about our interview and I was like, all right, so I got to wear my Malasata slippers here. I got to wear my Sig Zane dress. So we're all set to go here. A lot went into it. I barely put on a shirt today. Well, thank you for putting on a shirt. Thank you. All right, let's go back to the images. So this is just about our brand, how we we're a, you know, environment environmentally conscious, natural 5L rubber slipper company. So we're owned and operated right here in Hawaii. So we have an office just right up the road here, small team, amazing staff. And there, our employees are really how we're able to keep operating. You know, we don't have a big team. We have about four employees and everyone does their job as well as much more. And so we're very lucky to be able to do that. And it's not easy to have a office and own like a business here in Hawaii, you know, to find great help. We have people that are so dedicated going above and beyond. I think that really makes a difference for why we're still in business. Yeah, absolutely. Let's go to the next image. Some of our color palette there, as you can see, the white bottom, which signifies the walk lightly, what a variety of colors we have here. This was our first in line colors that we did. And this was before we started doing the pantones pulled from the images. These are just some of our favorite colors, you know, from Fruit Punch, Passion Orange, Sandy Beach, Makapu. So we got a variety of colors. OK, next image. Sandy Beach at Sandy Beach. So you got the Sandy's color at Sandy Beach. And we really try to put our imagery and present our content in a way that's like in the environment and it makes sense. Next image. More colors, more colors. I like it. All righty. All right. Next image. There's a little bit more. So this is our women's silhouette. As you can see, it's a little bit more of a trimmed down footstrap, as well as like the shape of the slipper, but our men's one is unisex. So we have men and women wearing this. This is just a little more like of a feminine design shape. I know you mentioned the Sig Zane partnership, and that's amazing. People always can tell it's immediately some of his designs, especially the Helo map with the street. Can you share a little bit more about some of the other? We have the Helo design here, so we just look at the Helo design here. So it connects. I mean, one of the most important things to me was quality. And when I got that first pair of slippers that I hand carried back, I put it on and I was like, please don't come off tomorrow. Please like the print, you know what I mean? Like it was so important to me because we're putting this out there and we we barely had time to test it. So putting it on, I'm proud to say it wore very well. I've been wearing these for months and you don't lose it. I mean, eventually you're going to wear down in parts, but the print stays on. It's like a quality print. So that's a very important part. I don't I don't want to put something out there that we can't put our names behind and stand alongside. So can you share with some of the other collaborators that are in partnership? Some of our other collaborators that we've been working with are a lot of Japanese streetwear brands. So we have a strong connection. Our third partner is actually Bebe, Bebe Watanabe, and he owns Bedwin and the Heartbreakers. And it's a big fashion brand out of Japan, Tokyo. And he's connected us with amazing world renowned street brands from Sakai to undercover neighborhood, Wacko Maria. And these have been on the Paris runway fashion shows. They've sold only at exclusive boutiques. Some of them have retailed at two hundred dollars and sold out. So it's amazing to work with that and get that high end aspect as well as having like the beach vibe. So you kind of mentioned this earlier around, you know, you stuck the six hundred slippers in your bag. You guys like just literally rolled into Mary Monarch. Is that where your launch was? That was our launch. So how did it how did it go? It sold out. It was amazing. I mean, being a partner with SIG is just like incredible. And it was. I still remember that we did a black with orange and a blue with white. And they sold out so quickly down at in their shop. And every year we do a special launch with them for Mary Monarch, as well as throughout the year, we have special releases. But that's our big one always is Mary Monarch. And we go and we do a party with them and we do an event. And that's kind of always will be a very special time for us. It's like kind of the launch of our brand really closely tied to, of course, Hawaii, as you guys are here and all come Aina. Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, you sold out of the six hundred and you're like, all right, we're onto something here. What happened next? Well, we started buying, you know, we started chipping more into Hawaii and trying to get it in just really grassroots style, trying to go into the different surf stores in different places. It hasn't been easy and it's been just a lot of learning process, but we're learning a lot as we go and just seeing what works and what doesn't from colors to patterns to prints to sizes. Everything is something new for us to learn. So being like a local business based on Oahu, what have been some of like your biggest challenges? I think one of our biggest challenges is making sure that we can tell the proper story of like Hawaii and how we're inspired by Hawaii and we're based here in Hawaii. You know, this is the livelihood of like many people and not just like, you know, we have a full staff that depends on it and everything and everyone that works very hard. So making sure that we can tell that story in order to get to the next level. Very early on, we expanded very quickly, had a lot of interest, but we didn't have a proper foundation to tell the story of Hawaii. So the sell-through wasn't quite there of what we had expected. So it was something that we learned a lot, but we're still here and we're still going. So that's the most important. So the sell-through means that you had placement, but people didn't know who your brand was. So people weren't actually picking. Absolutely. There is no like brand connection to that. And so that really makes a big difference because what separates you from this brand to that brand? If there's 10 brands on the wall, you want to be able to create something that's significantly different to the brand identity. How do you feel you're differentiating yourself now? We need to learn all this. Absolutely. You know, we're just going through and telling a better story through like our social media to how we build out our display. So a lot of our buildouts are very immersive. We don't want to just put a rack on the wall. We want to be able to do it. Obviously, you need to figure out if the store allows for that space, if you can even build something out like that. But when we do, we've seen such a significant like change in like numbers of like sell-through and we can actually tell that story of like what it is and how it is and everything like that. So it's fun. All right. Well, we're going to take a break right now. And when we get back, we'll be hearing more from Zach Newell and Haiyan Slippers. Thanks, everybody. 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 Jampel, 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. Aloha, y'all. My name is Mitch Ewan. I'm from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. And I'm the host of Hawaii, the state of clean energy. We're on every Wednesday at four o'clock, and we hope that we have interesting guests who talk to us about various energy things that are happening in Hawaii all the way from PV to windmills to hydrogen. Most of my heart, electric buses and electric vehicles. So please dial in every Wednesday at four o'clock on Hawaii, the state of clean energy. Aloha. Welcome back. I'm Mellie James, host of Let's Mana Up. We have Zach Noyl here, co-founder of High End Footwear. And we're just talking about all these amazing partnerships you have. I remember at our Mana Up Showcase that was back in June, you guys had brought someone really special over. Yeah, that's right. So we did a collaboration recently with Mark Avalo, who was born and raised here in Hawaii. Now he's an internationally known artist. And we did a special collaboration just for Mana Up Showcase. And it was amazing. We had Mark come in and he did live art everywhere. I think it's still up on the glass in DFS, which is quite wild. And I don't know how we got permission. I think everyone was so excited that night that we're like, you can do this. They're like, OK, yeah, that sounds cool. I'm like, so he painted across the glass in there and it was cool. You know, it was something that like we want to create that type of more like immersive art, more visual and everything like that. And to me, that's cool rather than just having it on like the pegs or something to for sale. I want someone to be able to remember that. And that's who our brand is. Well, speaking of vision, let's go back into some of our images so our audience can see this gorgeous footwear and your photos. This is one of your photos. Yes. So this is one of my photos, my friend, Keoki. And we shot this was in the very beginning, just kind of shooting our look book to kind of get everything launched and picked off that Keoki Keoki. Yeah. OK. Yeah. All right. Next image. You know, we want to create. Yeah, we want to create that lifestyle. You want to create that like wish you were here, put you in that moment. And this is by my friend, Kyle, is a great photo. Which which which location is this? I do not know where he shot it. Looks like, yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Next image. So this is our Makai blue and this is our like brand color. And you can see on the bottom of the slipper, the pattern there. And we don't, you know, many brands or many things, they just throw something on there because they got to fill space or do things. This has meaning. This is a pattern of the rubber tree leaf. And this is something that we wanted to bring to show. It's walk lightly. You leave less behind. It's kind of more of a nature pattern to kind of leave behind as you step away. So it kind of has dual meaning. You see the white bottom, the pattern along the strap of the slipper, to has significance as well. So everything. Next image. Recent collaboration we did with Neighborhood. This was a very high end one retail for well over a hundred dollars. And Neighborhood is one of the biggest up and coming brands out of Japan right now, Tokyo. And this was a pretty big drop that we did. It's all over print. This is our slide. So as you can see on the left side of the slide there, there's a slit down the middle of that. And that is actually an expansion joint that we have a utility patent for. So many slides on the market right now are either one size fits all or they're with a Velcro. And with this one, we were able to do a neoprene expansion joint so that it kind of one size fits all in that way, but it expands to your foot and feels comfortable and more secure. Next image. That was is that the Sandy's? Yeah, that's the Sandy's Sandy. I'm sure that's your photo. Yeah, absolutely. So shooting it in the water like this and kind of doing a pretty big challenge to keep them together. I found like putting like a paper clips between and different things like that. I found I had a little leash to it with some like fishing line. But, you know, it was really fun to try to shoot them, float it and kind of get it into that moment. But I love this whole series. So kind of speaking of your photography, what's what's going on with you? I know, you know, obviously, everybody knows you as big surf wave photographer. But can you share where you've been traveling and kind of what's up with you? It's been a lot of fun. I've been all over the place and I leave again this week for another trip for a very long time. And I've been shooting kind of anything and everything water related. So I recently just shot for Aqualung, their whole scuba campaign for this next year. I'm going to be shooting Michael Phelps in a few weeks and heading out to Japan this week for an art show and a talk followed by going to the Maldives for some photoshoot to do some like research and development on a new product. So it's a very busy time and it's a lot of fun. And I don't know. I wouldn't be able to do this with high end without my team again. You know what I mean? Like they are the day to day. And I'm kind of there like making sure that the ship doesn't tip over, but they're the ones rowing and moving us forward constantly day to day. And it's just incredible. And we're very lucky to have them. So do you think when you're with Michael Phelps, you guys will do like a who can hold their breath longer underwater competition? No, I was really scared to shoot him. I actually like wore fins like in the pool, but he was like cruising. He was the time that I shot him before, but we'll see. You know, it's amazing athletes. So it's what an honor to be able to shoot him. I know I've seen so many pictures of the gorgeous footwear, but where can people find? Yeah. So our website is live high end dot com. So L I V E H A Y N dot com. And we have the same social media handle. Are there any retail locations people can find? Yes, we're in many of the surf shops throughout Hawaii as well as boutiques, surfline jams is a great one. They have a great variety of different colors and slippers, TNC and to the sea. And yes, so there's quite a few. So I guess, you know, being a local business, you're a local entrepreneur. You've got your hands in so many things. I know we've talked about kind of some initial challenges of the company just, you know, getting all this great placement but not having buy through. What are there any kind of tidbits or advice that you can give to local entrepreneurs that are trying to get started here in Hawaii? I would start small and I would definitely build out that foundation. It's great because, like I said, we had all this interest from like worldwide and people like, oh, we want that. We want that like from all these places. But we didn't think of that like foundation of having that proper foundation. So really like firming that foundation of like identity that you want to have is so important before you take it to something like that, even off of Hawaii. Like we should have kept here strong and built that foundation and the want for Hawaii around the world is so demanding that it's like you need to build that like proper like look and like brand identity. And in terms of, I guess, inventory and managing inventory, do you folks have warehouses locally or off island? No, so they're off island. I mean, we'd like to be able to bring it back here to Hawaii. We just have to find the right space and then you need to have someone that can fill the orders and do everything like that. So it's about manpower and just finding like the correct space for what we need. Right now we're off island. Can you share more about this awesome team you keep talking about kind of what their roles are and who they are? Yes, so we have Ryan Matsumoto and he does all our management and logistics. And I feel like he's also the mama bear that kind of just handles and like holds everyone together and kind of makes things happen. Every odd end and thing that he can do. Russell Saito, he does all our sales. Not only as our sales rep in Hawaii, but he handles the sales like nation and worldwide. So all the sales reps report to him. He wears many hats in that way. We have Yuri who's our amazing designer that you see everything and all the designs that she does from the colors to just like the graphics and everything. We have Kirk who just joined us. So Kirk was actually a intern and we just hired him on to help us with our marketing. So he came from UH, interned with us for several months and then we hired him on when he graduated. So it's been amazing to kind of pull the team together like that. Yeah, I love stories like that, you know, as, and I think that's what's so important about having a headquarters here in Hawaii and creating that kind of job opportunity and growth where you can start off with being an intern at UH and grow all the way up. So cool. Yeah. So is there anything next or is it kind of confidential with any new partnerships or collabs? Or I know you just did Mary Monarch which was just a little while ago but anything coming up next for Hyann? No, we definitely, we have some amazing new like graphics that we're coming out with a whole Hawaii line and different things. So that's all kind of coming out. And yeah, we're getting there. All right. Well, I know that we were so thrilled to have you guys and Monah up and have the whole team and just really neat seeing all of these different types of companies and entrepreneurs really working together. Well, it's very valuable for us to come to Monah because as you know, my background is not business but it's something I'm very passionate about. I mean, mine is more of a creative and photography background but it's something that I, everything I learned to Monah up I'm able to apply across my different businesses and passions. And to me, that was such an invaluable, like that was insane that like for me to be able to do and learn, it was like going back to school but I was excited every day to be able to go back to school and learn and it's gonna help me not only for Hyann but like exponentially for all my brand. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm so thrilled that you were able to join me today. This is our second show. I'm excited. And we're just really focused on great product entrepreneurs and how they've really risen up and as we're really trying to help build this product industry here. So, just wanna thank you, Zach. I'm excited to be number two. Thank you. Well, thanks you guys for listening today and for hearing us and seeing us and please do check out Zach's company. Is it Hyann? Livehyann.com Livehyann.com and check out their slippers. I'm wearing some right now. They're super comfortable. I know every time I see him and his team, they're all in the slippers. So anyway, thank you. Thank you very much.