 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Adventures in Small Business, a collaborative effort by the U.S. Small Business Administration, Hawaii, District Office, the SBDC Small Business Development of Hawaii, VBAC, the Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Pacific, and the Pat C. Teaming Center for Business and Leadership. All great partners. Today, we have Valele Malecki here with us today. She is the CEO and owner of the Vaheva Soap Company. So, tell us about yourself, your background. My background, so I have a business degree. I worked for a bunch of different corporations before I actually started my soap company, worked for, I mean, advertising for the Honolulu Advertiser and then I worked for Kamehameha Schools. I just really wanted to start my own business. I wasn't sure at that time what exactly it was going to be in, but my partner and I, we both worked at Kamehameha Schools for the soap company and we decided, hey, let's just start off a little soap company, do it as a partnership and do it on the side. And so, for a whole year, we just did it on the side, like a little hobby. Wow, because you have a really diverse background. So, how long ago did you start this company? We started, maybe this is going on the fourth year, I think. But the first year was just like a hobby and then the second year I said, okay, I'm going to commit myself to the business and I left Kamehameha Schools and so it's been three years full-time. Wow, that's a big move. So, what really motivated you to, you know, leave that security of a job and kind of do your own business? Just the independence, I guess, that you get with your own business. It's not the money for sure in the beginning, but I'm sure that'll come. But it's definitely the independence and the flexibility that you get when you operate your own business. And then, yeah, someone asked me, I think my son that asked me what is it that I like about being my own boss and I think it's, you're able to push your own, I don't know if agenda is the right word, it's a little bit strong, but push your own agenda so you get to do all the things that you thought was porno, you thought was right, so you get to do it in your own business. Well, that's great and I know you have, you know, your family, you tell us about them and how you juggle everything for being an entrepreneur, you know, mom, you know, and all the things that you do for the community. I have four kids and I have two businesses, so the soap company and I have a retail shop in Kapolei. It's hard to juggle, you know, it's super hard. Yeah. I know, I've known you for a while and the store is doing great, I mean, and you're so busy with your soap company and your family, so give us some advice on, you know, how you manage that. I think now I'm kind of at a point where I dedicate certain days to certain businesses, I mean, they're all overlapped because there's things that pop up for different things that I need to take care of right away, but for the most part, certain days I'll say, okay, this is for the soap company and have to like fully dedicate myself to that and kind of ignore other things, you know, so kind of let that sit on the back burner for now. If there's hard deadlines and there's just hard deadlines, you can't do anything about them, but it is a lot of work. I would definitely work more than I did in a lot of my other jobs. So, you know, with that, what is your vision of success, you know, working for yourself? So I guess for the brand for success is if people are able to tell me, oh, I love your stuff, it's great on my skin, you know, that kind of thing. The feedback from the customer is that success from that perspective. From the business perspective, I think when I get to hire people and, you know, you get to give them a job and they've never had a job or you get to see them grow into a position that, you know, they feel comfortable and they start to thrive in, that's kind of a success for me. And when we all thrive as a business, you know, you see the numbers start to grow to that success for me too. Right. I mean, small business is so important to our community. So can you tell us, you know, what makes your brand unique? You know, I see all the products here and I love them. I've tried them, but tell us, you know, what makes it unique? I think there's a lot of soap companies out there. I'm not sure if there's a lot of Native Hawaiians soap companies out there. So I think we come from a different, we have different lens when we see businesses or when we see our products, you know, like we really understand, like, why we use certain products and how our ancestors use them as well. Like kakuna oil is such a big deal in skincare for local products. And, you know, you understand, you read all the stories about it, how to use, how Hawaiians use it in different things. So that's kind of a cool thing to bring to the table as far as being different. So did you see any challenges, you know, getting all that information on your soap? I mean, I have some samples here and they smell really good. Can you tell us, like, you know, what goes into this? And like you said, you use a lot of Native products and it's, you know, based around a lot of culture. Do you put that on your products, the message? I try to, we just put the, it's hard to fit everything on your packaging. So we just try to keep it as far as the design wise. We try to use Native fauna or the pele. You know, it has some, they all have designs that are inspired by Hawaii. And so as far as making soap, we make it from scratch. And so it's kind of interesting. Commercial soaps, they, all soaps are made this way. So it's kind of going back to basics. And commercial soaps, when they began to commercialize soaps, they actually take out the great things in soap and they substitute it with synthetic material that can be irritating to your skin. And so we've just actually handmade soap is just kind of going back to the basics and what we're able to do now, the way we were able to do now, we get to pick and choose really good skin care products to put into it. So like I use olive oil, a lot of soap is coconut oil, because it's a lot cheaper. But I use primarily olive oil in my soaps. It's much more mild. It's nicer on your skin and moisturizing. Oh, great. So are there any challenges trying to get these ingredients and putting it together? Oh, yeah, it's hard. There's not too much local manufacturers. And so we have to kind of scour to see who's making what in in Hawaii. And so getting honey from a no honey, or we get the Makai soap here, we use the luffa from whole farms and kind of grind it up. So you have to be kind of creative and you have to find certain farmers that do certain things that we can use. The here, this one is made with turmeric or alena from locally. So you just have to be creative and try to try to find find local ingredients. I know that's one of our challenges, you know, with small businesses, you know, getting the ingredients right and trying to scale up in your business, it depends on the agriculture. Yes. I know we work closely with the Department of Ag to make sure that all our farmers can produce all the ingredients, like you said, the honey, the alena. So I noticed you also have lotions. Is that something new or? Yeah, the lotions came on came online after the soaps. So we definitely wanted to add more products to our product line. So that came on after and we use the cocoa butter just kind of hooked up with Manoa chocolates. And so we get all our cocoa butter from them. Oh, great. So sounds like, you know, one of the ways you solved some of your issues is collaboration, and really working together with the other businesses. So is there any advice you want to give to like how to solve these problems, especially what made in Hawaii, Hawaii products? I don't know. I've always kind of thought like business you kind of who we up together, especially when we're making stuff. So I've always thought that we should kind of figure out what other businesses are out there that's doing something similar to you and try to collaborate to see if you can bring things in together, go into it as a hui and bring our costs down and hopefully make more profit that way. And that's something that we've been kicking around for a long time at the store. How do we get the vendors together to kind of hui up and work together as a team as opposed to yes, we're always going to be competitors. But let's, you know, let's figure out a way. And so supplies is definitely issue. Everything shipped in. Can we like figure out a way to get all the shipment together, bring it all in one time and then kind of disperse that to other different small businesses that to me will be an awesome thing if somebody could figure it out. I know you're working on it. Yes. And what kind of resources have you found, you know, to get you to that goal? Well, SBA has been super awesome. Every time I reach out to SBA, Patsy Mink Center, they've always been an open door for us. And so I know there's some things going on in the community and why and I went in peace and they're doing a lot of talking about supporting small businesses. And so I know there's a lot of wanting to create some economic development and supporting that in different communities. And I would definitely love to see that happen in my community as well. So yeah, I think there's a lot of talk going on about it. So right, right. I know we're we've been talking earlier and we're kind of seeing how do we get all the artisans and practitioners together, right, even for some business education, so that they can do a strategic plan and see work together not only for the manufacturing ingredients, but for their livelihood. Yes. So yeah, thank you for that. I know you've been instrumental in trying to get everybody together. So tell us a little bit about the lotion. Can we try? Yeah, sure. So what's what's the popular seller? The popular ones are like pretty much the the pikaque and the plumaria coat. These are pretty much the popular ones for the lotions. And I think because a lot of people or tourists are buying it to take back home. And so they like the sense of Hawaii. And so that's what is kind of in their mind when they think about Hawaii, coconut, the pikaque smell and plumaria. So yeah, that's that's my top three for the lotions. So you sell to the locals and the tourists market? And so do you know, like can you tell us like about that? What's the split do you think? I want to say now it's like 6040. So 60% tourists? Yes, 60% tourists. And you didn't even tell us why you chose soap in the first place? Oh, yeah, we did. So my partner and I, we both have children that have eczema. So my son, he really bad all over. He doesn't have really bad eczema, but on his legs. He's allergic to grass, dirt. So when he's in sports, he just gets really bad skin issues on his leg. And my friend, her daughter has really bad eczema too. And so when we started to use that it doesn't heal it. Because you know, it's an environmental thing. It's what you put in your body. But it does kind of soothe the symptoms. And so after that was it was kind of like you never use a commercial soap after that. So well, that's great. I mean, I always say that you know, as women entrepreneurs and you know, business owners, we always solving a problem, right? You know, and that that's what triggers us to do more. So yeah, thank you for that. So with that eczema, is there any suggestions like on the lotion and the so specific ones or so that you have to read the label whenever you use certain products and I would stay away from if you see parabens or phthalates and whatever you're using, definitely stay away from it. And what we wanted to do was just use ingredients that you're familiar with. So you'll never usually you'll never see a natural soaps ingredients that you can't pronounce. They're not made with synthetic products. And so you really want to stay away from a lot of those preservatives and synthetics. Oh, okay. So you know, where do you can ask you where do you see yourself, maybe in the next five years and 10 years. I know, it's a hard one. I've always, I've never wanted to be a big manufacturer of soap kind of wanted to keep it on a smaller scale, but it was starting to grow. And so I'm starting to kind of look at that model and understand that I really need to scale up in order to keep up with my orders, starting to get into Japan and starting to get bigger, getting to bigger stores. And so really trying to understand that I need to become, you know, I need to step into that rule and become a bigger manufacturer of the products. So. Oh, great. So and then tell us a little bit about the store. Okay. Yeah. The store is like, we try to focus on Made in Hawaii's products and artisans. So we have over 70 different local small businesses in our store. The store is called Noel and it's, you know, some it means someone that's very skilled. We're looking for people that really skilled at what they do. They've been in the craft fairs. They've been around. People know them. So we're looking for that type of brand to come into our store. It's really fun. When people come into our store, they see all these different brands that they've loved over all these years and new ones too. And so that's kind of a neat concept that we get to work in. So where is the store located? Like Kamakanali. And do you have any plans to expand? Yeah. More stores? Yeah. We definitely are looking into seeing where we can find a place for us. Great. Okay. So we are going to take a short break and when we come back, we want to find out more about how they can get into the store. Okay. Great. Hey, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii. And they won't let me do political commentary. So I'm stuck doing energy stuff, but I really like energy stuff. So I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime at noon on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman. Aloha. Aloha, I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on ThinkTechHawaii.com 1pm on Friday afternoons and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up and please follow us. We're always giving you current relevant information to protect you. Keeping you safe. Aloha. About her soap company and during the break I was admiring this one and smelling it. This is a rainbow? Yes, it is. Oh, so how many flavors are in here? There's just one scent but it's just we had to layer it with different different colors. Oh, my favorite. Okay, I'm taking all these samples home. Lucky you. Okay, so I wanted to get back and talk to you about the store, Noyal Designers. You know, there's a lot of local artists and practitioners out there who have wonderful products like you were saying. How do they, how can they reach out and get in the store or you know, get to that level where you guys can display their things or help them? Well, definitely email us at Noyal Designers, S at the end, so plural, Noyal Designers at gmail.com. Send us your top five different products, maybe links to your social media pages and just kind of give us a synopsis of what you do and we'll definitely get in touch with you. Oh, great. Is there any types of products that do better than others in the store? For sure, it's apparel, like local apparel, which is which is great, like local sayings, you know, I think people can connect with that, so that and jewelry does really well in our store. So, I know you said the stores in Kamakana Lee and Kapolei. Yes. So, do tourists go there or is it mostly local shopping? We do have a mix because the Hampton Hotel sits right on the property and then there's one other hotel down the street and then they're building another one nearby. So, within like a three mile radius, there's like three different hotels and so we're getting a different mix now. So, we're getting you see tourists from Canada, you see from Canada, you see tourists from Japan come through. So, yeah, definitely a mix of customers. Oh, great. That's awesome. So, will we be seeing you in Waikiki soon? Yeah, we'd love to go there. Okay, we got to get together. Yeah, that's great. So, do you see any future products for your line, your specific line, anything new coming up? Yeah, so in Japan, they definitely ask for certain specific products. We had lotions that we didn't have the matching soaps and Japan, they want the matching soaps. So, if we had a coconut lotion, we didn't have the coconut soap there, so they wanted all to match up and so we're starting to work on the label to satisfy that demand. So, is it going to be a special products just for Japan? Maybe, we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. We'll test it here too to see if people like it here but. Yeah, I heard that Japan, they like you know special packaging for their omiyage, their gift set. So, how do you how do you figure out the packaging and everything for them? You mean like how do I design the packaging for them? So, now we so I thought that we would have to change it because I know Japan, they like it kind of muted the colors but our we have someone, our importer is testing it now and he's telling me that it's selling itself. So, yeah, so I'm thinking we're going to be okay. He said it looks Hawaiian. You know, when they look at the packaging, it looks Hawaiian. They know that it's coming from a Hawaiian company and so I think people are responding well to the products. Oh, that's great. You know, so in retail we always know that whatever Hawaii loves, Japan loves more. So, you know, how did you get into the Japan market? Did you have help or any resources? Yeah, so I attended the Tokyo International Gift Show with SBDC. I got to a goal there last year and so there we were able to network with a lot of different Hawaii businesses and you're able to find out who you should talk to if you need an importer. SBDC also has a lot of resources too and so I was able to find someone that took my product, got it tested, or able to put the right packaging label on it for Japan customs and then now he's starting to go through the market. Oh, that's great. I know the program you're talking about all of the partners participate. It's the high step. Yes. Yeah, we go to the Tokyo International Gift Show. Correct. And then we have a Hawaii Pavilion where we feature all local vendors. Right. So, that's amazing. We've been there for several years and, you know, it's great to see local companies thrive in Japan. So, I'm so proud that you're in there. That's great. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for everyone to help. Yeah, I wouldn't have gotten there if they weren't supporting us along the way. So, yeah, to all your partners, Fatsiming Center, SBDC, High Step, yeah, total support along the way. Yeah, they're all great partners. So, you know, that's one message we can give is, you know, for entrepreneurs is get those resources. I mean, their very low costs are free. Yes. A lot of resources, yeah. Right. Great. So, what do you want to leave your audience with today about your company? What do you think? If they haven't tried it, maybe, you know? They haven't tried, like, starting their own business or just, I mean, if you really have a strong desire, you have to be ready for it to be an entrepreneur. Now, everybody can be an entrepreneur. But if you really want to do it, I just say, find, you know, learn as much as you can. Connect with as much people as you can. There's a lot of resources, like we've been saying, that can help you along the way. And just go for it. Yeah. And what are some lessons that you've learned that you can share? Oh, gosh, so many. Learn quick books. Yeah, learn quick books. And never stop learning. Yeah, I think that's definitely for me. Like, I've been to all the fairs at Leeward. I don't know who puts them on, SBA, probably, but I just constantly trying to learn. I mean, I have a degree, but I still work with people to understand more about how to run businesses. So, yeah, just keep learning. Yeah, I know a lot of people with business degrees, even masters, and, you know, they sit without that hands-on experience. It's totally different. It's true, you know. It's so true. I go back and I read my books, my accounting books, and now I'm like, oh, now I get it, because you're actually doing it. Right, right. Well, that's great. So, another thing I wanted to ask you is, how did you actually build your brand? Can you kind of tell us, like, how it came about? So, we actually hired someone to be hired a professional, Cicely Long Designs, to help us develop our brand. She's this brand specialist. So, we kind of sat with her for a long time and kind of told her what we're looking for. And then she came up with a bunch of different concepts. And so, this is what we kind of settled on together. So, it was kind of a neat process, but if you're unsure, like, you're not a professional at everything. I think that's the thing that I've learned too. A big lesson for me is that you're not a professional at everything. So, find the people that are and, you know, kind of trust them and know that they mean they will do well for your company. Oh, this is great. Yeah, because, you know, a lot of people say, well, I don't know anything about, you know, how to bottle or get these things. You know, where do I start? So, that's a great resource too. Awesome. So, find the resources, the right resources. So, what else do you want to tell us about anything about your business, you know, how it developed and any of the challenges you had along the way? It's definitely finding labor too. Finding the right people to work with. That's been difficult. A lot of the times it's our family, my husband, my kids are helping to stamp the soap. So, and interesting enough, like, the boys, my sons, they don't want to work in a soap company. They'll do, they'll work in the store, but not at the soap company. So, finding the right people, I think, getting the right people on the bus is super important. And I know you guys do a lot of fun events, so, you know, you never make it a boring thing. Oh, you mean at the store, you're talking about, oh yeah, we have monthly cultural events, we do a lot of hala, coconut, onion, papaya, new weaving, haku making. Yeah, we try to definitely keep it fun there. And the artisans too, sometimes they'll come out and participate too, they're volunteer or they'll work for us. So, yeah, just a lot of different things going on to keep it fresh and fun. And so, where do, how do we know what's happening at the, at your store with all the artisans? Is there a schedule or? Yeah, follow us on social media, for sure. We're at Noyal Designers for Instagram. It's definitely one of the best ways that we communicate with our customers. And so, what were some of the popular ones? Did you say weaving? The most popular ones is the coconut, the coconut hat weaving, the papale new. I know, surprisingly, that every time we do it, it's sold out. So, yeah. And so, who participates in it? We have different customers that sign up, we always sell out, but we have like a master weaver from Waianae or Makaha, I can't remember which one they're from, it's a husband and wife and then they come out and they teach the class, but every time it sells out. So, it's kind of fun. That's cool. Yeah. Oh, what other classes do you folks offer? Let's see. Oh, we had Namaka Kahiko, you know him, he does the hairpics. Right. He's done that. Oh, and then his kids did a slime workshop. So, that was fun. Yeah. So, he does the Ohe Kapala, right? Ohe Kapala. Yes. So, how does he do that? I mean, because that's really difficult to finish in a workshop. I think it's on a smaller scale. So, I think they take it home and they finish it. So, he starts them off and then they take it home and they finish it. Yeah, because I tried one a little bit forever. I think he had to finish mine. It's beautiful. It comes up beautiful. I know. I mean, it's really sturdy too. I was surprised at how, because we have such long hair. So, it's nice to find something that sticks in your hair. Great. And I know you said you had what, over 70 companies? Yes. Wow. So, can you just give us a name for a few? You know, every time I talk to, you know, entrepreneurs who are helping, I just like to, you know, give a shout out to the others that you're helping. So, let's see. New Orleans, we have twine and luxe. She does like vegan leather bags. So, that's kind of neat. We have Strong Arm Hawai'i. It's a little strong. It's his products, but everyone loves it. So, he does hoodies and he tells, you know, a lot of Mo'olelo on his hoodies. So, those are really cool. So, that's cool. So, you know, if I want to know more and everybody else wants to know more, we got to go down to your store. So, again, tell us where we can find you. We're at Kamakana Ali in Kapole next to Coffee Bean and Tea by Center Court. No way out, designers. No way out, designers. Thank you so much, Lele, for joining us today. We'd love to learn about your company in the store. Great. Thank you. Thank you.