 All right, folks, here we go, it's time to line up. OK. Ten seconds, guys. Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Adventures in Small Business. This show is 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 the stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses. I am Kathy Wiltsi, the State Director for the Hawaii Small Business Development Centers. And today we have Joseph Burns and Erin Uihara from Chakalaya joining us and enjoyed the show, please. So good morning, everyone. Thank you, Kathy. You're welcome. Thank you, Erin. Thank you. So we have a very interesting show today. Erin has built up a wonderful company, and we wanted to showcase a little bit about what she's done over the last few years. I think most people like chocolate, but everyone likes Chakalaya, I would say. So Erin, just by way of introduction, could you maybe tell us a little bit about how you started the business? There's an interesting story there, and how long you've been in business, and how you came up with the idea and the concept to do this. Wow, that's a lot. Yes, sure. Thank you, Joe. Sorry, he can cue you. I know, we're taking a trip back in time, but the business officially started in 2010, and it actually originated with my uncle, Collins Kauai, and his wife, Joan Kauai. They had been making chocolates in their home for about 12 years as a hobby, and they were doing it catering their chocolates at weddings and parties. But how I actually got involved was I had met Collins at an expo here in Hawaii, started talking a story with him, because like you said, everybody loves chocolate. I loved eating his chocolate, and as I was talking to him, I discovered he was my uncle, because that's the other thing about Hawaii, right? It's such a small world. We found out we were related, and he and his wife, we had been doing this together, really wanted to pass on this skill to the next generation, but they didn't have any kids. So they kind of adopted my husband and I to just spend the weekends together, spending time with family, getting to know each other, and then making chocolates for fun. Not really thinking that that would actually turn into what is Shokulea today, but that's kind of how it started back in 2010, and then in 2012, we actually built a commercial kitchen in Manoa, and then opened a store in 2014. And so now we do retail, wholesale, catering, custom, party favors, you name it, events. So it's really grown a lot in that short time. So meeting your uncle was very unexpected, a long lost uncle, and yet very fortuitous, you've been able to build a business around what they were doing as a hobby. Right. So then that leads to the next question. I'll try to make it not so complex. Sorry. How has that been in terms of, you know, starting out very small and then growing to where you have how many employees now? We have about 16 employees. So managing the business with one person is one thing. Managing with 16 is a different challenge. So I guess it's a two-part question. You know, how did you grow and what were the challenges of growing to that size? And now what is the challenge in managing the business of that size? So how did we grow? I think that happened very naturally, but quickly for us. There was the demand for chocolate. We started with just the commercial kitchen and we actually explored selling our chocolates in another small shop that was adjacent to ours called LMS Boutique. And we set up a little soda can refrigerator that we just put little boxes of chocolates in and see if people enjoyed it. And people really enjoyed the chocolates. And so from there, when that business owner, Linda Sugihara, retired, we ended up taking her space and then building out the shop. And so with that, you need to be there now 24-7, which meant we had to hire staff, find people who, you know, could actually be there because I would make the chocolates, run it to the front, run out, be sold out, go back in the kitchen and make some more chocolates. So we started to build our team of chocolate makers, chocolateeers, as well as our sales team, our service team. And, you know, we were really fortunate because people saw what we were about, which was our mission was bringing peace to our world, one chocolate at a time, which is still our mission today. And so there's a lot of great people that wanted to be a part of that. So we found great workers and we call them now our chocolate family. And we kind of just did whatever needed to be done in terms of figuring out the packaging, to what products represent Shoko Leia and how do we continue to build our product line and then just everything from our display. And so growing was not smooth. I should say it is very challenging, but that is why I'm really fortunate that I have mentors like you and resources like Small Business Development Center, Score, the other local businesses that are willing to, you know, collaborate and talk and say, how do you do this? How do you open a store? Where do you find people? How do you keep great people? And I shouldn't, I can't say that's over because we're still growing. And that's what I'm continuing to do is, is call Joe. He knows that. Call you, call other people and get together and say, OK, let's figure this out together, Small Businesses in Hawaii. How do we continue to grow into large businesses in Hawaii? There definitely are resources out there for small businesses. And I certainly encourage everyone to take advantage of them. Erin is a great example of doing that. So I want to go back to the other part of the question, which was about growing to 16 employees and how you manage 16 employees, which is different from when you have just yourself or maybe a couple of people in the company. Yeah, definitely a blessing because by myself I'm limited. I do have some skill sets, but I definitely don't have a lot. And so recruiting people who had the talents in finances or even chocolate making, I'm actually not the best at making the chocolate. I am very messy. And the production team now can do anything I do 10 times as fast as me. So going through that was a blessing. And in the meantime, we are working with people. And so a lot of actually my time now is spent really empowering the team, making sure that they understand what needs to be done. What is the goal and what is your team goal versus the company goal so that we're always on the same page and then kind of shift people around into what would be where they could thrive the most. Because when we start, we just said, hey, everybody do whatever. You know, and I think that's certainly a pattern that we see in a lot of businesses is that sort of everything is everyone's job. And that's not a way to grow the company, obviously. But I think small business owners do have a challenge in delegating some of the tasks to other people because it's clear that you can't do everything after a certain point. And there are people that do things better. So you've learned that lesson, that's great. But letting go is very psychologically very difficult. So, you know, because you know, it's done a certain way. You want to do it a certain way. And one way to make sure it's done a certain way is try to do it yourself. However, that doesn't work when you're trying to grow. So I had a client once that told me that he wouldn't delegate because he had no one to delegate to. So I said, well, who's fault is that? So try to help them create the job descriptions, the procedures, the things that support being able to delegate to different people. So people are completely capable of it. And they want that opportunity to be able to show up for you and show up and say, I can contribute something. And it is hard, but that's why you need to find those people that really ultimately are on board for the same reason you are, for that same mission. And then from there, we all make mistakes and we have to figure out as we go, you know. But I think that's another key that you hit on, Erin. And that is, you know, in Hawaii, it's difficult to find a good people or find any people, sometimes, to work in your company. And if you can provide some sort of a career path, whereby they're developing themselves, that's one of the keys to retaining good people. So as long as you're doing that and giving them as much as they can handle, then that's great because they're growing most people. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to jump over to the products now, because you did mention products a moment ago. And you do have some products here that you brought with you. And would you maybe just quickly explain what we have here? So actually, everything that we make is made fresh and it's actually made on site in Manoa right next to our shop. In the same building, a lot of people don't realize that, but it's all handcrafted. Our specialty is our artisan dark chocolate truffles. So we primarily focus on dark chocolate. We have a wide range of products. These are our 18 most popular flavors. And there's always a rotating set of seasonal specials going on in the shop. We also do chocolate-covered macadamia knot clusters, which is the big hit for, you know, the Japanese visiting the islands and people who want to take gifts out of the islands. It's really something that a lot of our locals like to pick up. And it comes in dark chocolate as well as milk chocolate. And then we also do those macadamia knots in a bag form. And we also do dipped mango, pineapple, and then the little boxes over here are actually right over here. Sorry. Our favorite boxes so people can come in, customize their box of truffles. And those are really popular for events, weddings, corporate gifts. So this is just a little sample of things that we brought today so you can eat too. So since we're looking at products right now, I wonder if you would speak to the importance of packaging and what role packaging plays, let's say, in merchandising or selling a product. Yeah, packaging is extremely important. I mean, we use all of our senses to make decisions, right? Eating is one thing, visual is always the first thing. We're fortunate to work with a really great local designer named Stacy Nomura. And together with her, along with some local, local packaging suppliers like Edward Enterprises, we were able to kind of sit down together and say, here's our product. Now, what would be the best way to package this product to be food safe, but also very appealing to the eye? And really what our customers always want is gifts, really unique gifts from Hawaii. So what does that entail? And together, we created a packaging that has a story behind it. So if you look at all of our different sleeves, we have those peony flowers in our boxes represent happiness, happy marriage, compassion, palm leaves represent peace and victory. And so it's kind of a way to share those emotions with people celebrating different milestones in life through the chocolate and give them an experience. When they're opening their package, when they're enjoying the chocolates and something to even keep after as a happy memory. So it's designed to not necessarily just be thrown away, especially the larger box. Right. So a lot of time and energy goes into that. But I think that it is really important because you want the recipients to really feel like money well spent, something they can be proud of and something that says to the recipient, I really value you. And I put a lot of thought into what I gave you today. So, yeah, very nice. Excellent. Thank you. So if someone is watching today out there and they have an idea for starting a business, what would be some advice that you would give to them, you know, based on your own experience and your own challenges? Are you ready? I do get asked that question a lot. I think what you have to know is there's a lot of great ideas but before you take off going into starting a business, I think you really need to know who you are as a person and what is your purpose and mission in life because your business is part of your life and you want it to be an enjoyable part of your life, a meaningful, well spent part of your life. And so if you are going into whatever service or product you have behind that, what's really at the root of that? Why are you doing it? What do you hope the result will be? And is it contributing to other people's lives or to any greater purpose? Or is it just, you know, I think you have to have a grasp of that as well as your strengths because you do need other people with you. Not necessarily even staff, but you do need mentors. You need family and you need other people to be on board with what you're going to do. And you have to know what you can handle, what you can't handle and how are you going to compensate for those areas that you might not be able to come through on your own with? So I think that's actually the very first thing. So, you know, before. Before, you know, forming a business, before getting an LLC, before getting a bank account, before doing any of those kinds of things. It's more about, you know, knowing yourself and then coming up with a strategy, making sure the people around you were supportive, you know, that kind of thing. Yes, I think because it's so easy to get distracted, whatever you do, people always have other ideas of what you should be doing, shouldn't be doing. Everybody has their two cents and it's very easy. And all of the ideas sound great sometimes. So you might not actually hit what you set out to do if you don't know what that is when the get go. Yeah, we're going to take a short break here and then we're going to come back after about a minute and talk some more about your experiences that you had. Thank you so much. Thank you, Cathy. Thanks, Joe. Aloha and Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power, Hawaii. With Think Tech, Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, Mabuhay and Aloha. Hey, Aloha, my name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech, Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters, Aloha. To Think Tech and Adventures in Small Business, we're very happy to be talking with Erin today, who has Chocolaya, she's the owner, and Joe Burns, the center director for the Oahu office. I'm going to turn it back over to them and they're going to talk a little bit more about some of the broader experiences that Chocolaya has experienced thus far. Thanks, Kathy. So we are going to shift gears a little bit here in the focus. And I know the last couple of years you've been working to export your products to Japan and you've actually had some success in that area. So recently you went to the Hankyu Hawaii Fair, which is an invitation only fair in Japan. And it's a ninth floor of a huge department store building. And there's something like 250,000 people that run through in six days. Wow. Yeah. And I think we have a couple of pictures that we can show of you at the fair. This is you giving out some samples and people tasting it. They're not really sure, but it was a very effective way, I think, to reach customers is give them a sample. And then the second picture was just of your display and how you showed some of the products in terms of merchandising. So I guess we could start out and ask you about your experience in developing the market in Japan and what sort of challenges you had initially and how did you overcome them? OK. Well, it's really exciting. We love Japan. And the people from there find us somehow, tucked away in Manoa. It's an adventure for them to come and find our small business. And so on the flip side, we wanted to be able to get to them. And that is still a really big adventure for us right now, honestly. Of course, there's the language difference, but what really is challenging, I would say, is you're pretty much creating another team in Japan. You need a logistics team. You need the importer. You need your distributor. And you're building your customer base in a completely different country that you're not in every day. So we're so used to working right on deck. Our kitchen, our shop, our office, our staff are all knit really closely together in Manoa. So now working with another country is learning to time difference, time zones, emails, flying up there, meeting these people for the first time and saying, OK, are we the right fit to work together, represent our products in the right way? And what is the customer base? There's a lot of market research that we had to do, a lot of cultural things we had to learn, and just differences in people's viewpoints are in things. And so just going up there with an open mind and being very just open to realizing that what they say matters, and you don't know what you're doing necessarily. You think you know what you're doing, but you step into a new area and you don't anymore. So that's what makes it challenging, but exciting. So that was a big breakthrough for us to actually get invited. Right. And so I should just point out that you sold out of everything that you brought. So that was kind of a good endorsement of the product. I mean, if you're bringing back half of it, that's maybe not so good. So then in terms of the exporting, there were some technical challenges as well in terms of ingredients, that kind of thing. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so I think that's what's really crucial about working with other small businesses here. Instead of trying to make all the mistakes yourself, is I actually talked to a lot of other businesses that already were exporting and said, what paperwork do I need? What am I supposed to do? Neil Arakaki from Anahuni Mac was a great help to me. And just because he's in the same chocolate industry, how do you keep it cool? How do you make sure it gets there without melting? And they're just as concerned about making sure that everything that comes in is safe. And so it was actually a very good, very lengthy process, but it was tracing all of our ingredients back to the source and saying, hey, where does this exact thing come from? What is the exact process of how you make it before it gets to us? And then in the order of how we use all those ingredients to make it also changes whether it gets in or out of the country. Some things didn't make it in just because of shelf life or just like those 0.01 something percent ingredient. But I think that's why working with people who already export, who have gone through it, is helping me so that we could at least get some of our products in. So at this point, I should probably throw in a plug for the Step Grant, the High Step Program, as an export program that's run through D-Bed and of course other partners such as the Hawaii SBDC, the MIG Center for Business and Leadership, the Hawaii Pacific Export Council, and Innovate Hawaii are the major partners. And so rather than me saying what it is, maybe you could explain about your experience with High Step and what you've done through the program. I think, I'm so glad you brought that up because we as small business owners are pretty much running like this all the time, looking right what's in front of us, but if we do that, we can't see the opportunities that are ahead. So when we're forced to, I shouldn't say forced, but when we actually get up and go out and go, what is Small Business Development Center, which was right down the road for me, what is this thing about High Step or what are you folks talking about? You go to Japan, that's how I heard about it. I think it was made in Hawaii and I heard other companies talking about going to Japan is so much fun. And I literally said, what are you talking about? How do you get to Japan? And that's how I heard about High Step and D-Bed and since then going to the workshops that are provided, meeting people, it's an excellent resource where they can say, actually we have funds available, actually we have classes available to help people, just like me, just like us, take the step to do something that sounds crazy, which is exporting and now making it sound like it's doable and now it's happening. Making it a reality, yeah, that's great. And they prep you and they say, it takes time and they wanna tell you, don't give up, don't worry, it takes a few years sometimes for this to build and knowing that in advance helped me, so when I was discouraged, I knew ahead of time they had said, it's not gonna happen like that. Give yourself some grace and try again, so yeah. Excellent, so let's shift gears again. And we're doing a really sort of long involved project with you right now and it's one that's really important and one that's we're getting toward the end and it's almost complete. So I wonder if you might describe that for the audience. One, zero? Yeah. I'm like, which project? We have lots of projects. Well, you know the one I meant, the financial management piece. Yeah, okay, so you always hear it, you gotta pay attention to your numbers, numbers don't lie, I'm one that strength is not in numbers, but I have been, I've heard the message over and over, you need to pay attention to your numbers, thank you very much. So, you know, getting on a program like zero, which is the one you introduced me to, which is kind of like QuickBooks and a lot of other different programs are out there, but zero was one user friendly one that you introduced me to as well as my uncle, who does our finance and bookkeeping and some of our staff, we've been able to kind of learn, okay, where does all this go? How do we plug it into categories of our expenses or income and be able to now have these spreadsheets that are or reports that are generated automatically just by us inputting, so that we can see how much money is still outstanding. How do we follow up with people? How do we make sure that we're always paying our bills on time? Where are we spending a lot? Where are we making a lot? Where are we not? It's been incredible. It's been a lot of work at the front and trying to get, understand something new. Like anything. But now, I mean, we're talking to Hawaii National Bank about I'm ready for my line of credit. I'm was able to apply for some opportunities for grants as grants need that and as well as competitions. But you need to know your numbers. People want to see where you're going and it's exciting when you see it. And if it's not, then you know where you gotta fix it. Yeah. That's right. You can point to the problem. Yeah, that's great. Wonderful. It's definitely been a challenge because part of it is trying to get all of last year up and running and set. So that, you know, this year is the same thing and we're coming up to the end of this year. So it's a good thing that we're making progress. The other thing I would just point out and add to that is that when it comes to the end of the year and it's time to do your taxes, it's so much easier. You just look at your reports or send the reports to the CPA. They'll probably have a couple of questions, but that's the end of it. Yeah, he's gonna be so happy. Yeah, definitely. I like the CPA. You'll probably pay less too. Yeah, so that's good. Okay, I know we're coming up close to the end here, but I did want to ask you before we go about marketing because that's an area that small businesses are also often challenged in. A lot of times there's not a lot of budget for marketing. And now with the advent of social marketing, it kind of makes things more complicated as to I'm a small business. Where should I put my effort? Where should I put my resources? So how did you develop a marketing idea and what do you do for your marketing at this point? Oh, okay. Oh, go ahead. Quick answer. One minute left right here. Oh, sorry. Oh, okay. Marketing in one minute. The question was on. And make sure that everybody knows what your purpose is and what you're trying to do. And I think once you know what that is, you'll know what avenue, what channel to pass that through and who your audience is and where are they? And those are the people that you want to jump on board with you and say, keep coming with us for this ride and like bring peace to our world one chocolate at a time. That's cool. Yeah, that would be my one minute answer. That's it. Wonderful. Thanks, Erin. Well, thank you so much for being here and sharing your learning and your growth and your wonderful story. We're happy to continue working with you through the Small Business Development Centers and helping your efforts along the way. And thank you, Joe, for bringing your client. Thank you.