 Yeah, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech, if you didn't know. And we're talking about community matters. We're talking about Hawaiiverse. Hawaiiverse has been launched to boost local small businesses. And its co-founder is Jared Kushi. Kushi, I say that right? Kushi, yeah, that's correct. Okay, all right. So say hello to the people, Jared. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me, Jay. Really, really, I'm excited to be on here and to share the story for Hawaiiverse. Yeah, okay. Well, first, let's see who you are. You told me that you had been associated and still are associated with blue startups. I want to know about that, and I want to know how you got into this kind of commitment to entrepreneurship that you're involved in now. Yeah, definitely. So I'll try to keep it brief. But I was previously the program director at Blue Startups for about three and a half years, started off as just operations manager and actually an associate at one point. But you really found my passion for entrepreneurship through there. I kind of looked at it as like a master's course for business. So I got to learn so much network with so many entrepreneurs. But after three and a half years, I actually started another company called LifeDNA, which is a genetic-based health report company. We raised some VC money. And it's actually still going, but I did leave that about a year ago to start my own digital marketing agency called Kush Media. And through the pandemic and through everything that's going on, you know, there's lots of opportunities that have arised. And I just really wanted to help out because we see so many people struggling. And when I went back home where I'm from is Hilo, but currently on Oahu, I met with my longtime friend Taylor Martin, who's my co-founder of Hawaiiverse. And he actually started as a Facebook group of over 21,000 followers. And he approached me and was like, hey, Jared, how do we use this platform to turn into a business and actually help local businesses through this time of year? And that's kind of how Hawaiiverse was born, which is really, really exciting. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, but, you know, Hilo, I'm getting a weird feeling about Hilo. Not one, but two Nobel Prize winners this week came from Hilo. And I know so many scientists and people in science from Hilo, I'm beginning to feel there's something funny about Hilo. It could be the water. But funny in a good way, right? Because it's funny to say that because I'm the Nobel Prize winner. I actually exchanged emails with her about three, four years ago for my genetic company, LifeDNA. And she actually replied and I was very supportive. But of course, extremely busy, you know, winning a Nobel Prize. So, but yeah, funny backstory there. Yeah. Anyway, I mean, anybody tells me Hilo. I said, whoa, Hilo. You know, before it was the outback, no, not anymore. We're all famous, you know, with good cause. Okay, anyway, Hawaiiverse. Why Hawaiiverse? You know, tell me the moment in the shower when it came to your mind. Yeah. So if people are wondering, we are a local coupon directory, basically, and we do weekly giveaways. And we use our social media platforms to help spread the word of local businesses to really just try to help them get more momentum, more sales and survive. It's not just a pandemic play. We do plan to be here long after the pandemic. But yeah, we really just want to help. And I kind of mentioned it before, but it actually started in 2016 as a Facebook group. And that's actually kind of like a secret sauce and they want to talk about that later. But a lot of people try to create something like this, which is a double-sided marketplace, right? So you have the users who want to use coupons or seeing new businesses and then the vendors that, you know, want to get in touch with these prospects, I guess you could say. But if you launch both at the same time, it's kind of the chicken and egg, right? Like the vendors won't sign up because there's no users. Users won't sign up because there's no vendors. But since we started off as a Facebook group and already had this big following, all we had to do is figure, okay, what do businesses need? They need more, not necessarily foot traffic, but more sales and prospects and more outreach. And what do people want? Which is we came down to, you know, coupons is the best way to start. And that's really how Hawaii vs. Born. We took the Facebook group, started spreading the word, create the website and really just kind of transition into what we are today. Wow. Some questions to unpack all of that. What's the difference between Hawaii vs. and eBay? So first of all, Hawaii vs. 100% local. So, you know, our team members are 100% local. We're actually, you know, we're doing this part-time like volunteering in a sense, because we all do, you know, have our own full-time jobs, but we're so passionate about the community. So that's the first thing. The second thing is we're actually not selling anything. So we're not a marketplace. Some people think that they get confused with it, but we're not selling any items on our website. All we're doing is providing a platform where, you know, the coupons can be presented. And then we do our best to spread the word as much as we can. And then from there, people just actually go in the store or go onto the website and use those coupons to support local businesses. So that's really the big difference there. We're not a marketplace. We're really just trying to help businesses out. And also people, you know, they're looking for places to support or new things to try. And we really want to be that platform that can help, you know, connect the two. What's a coupon? How do I get one? Do I have to pay for it? And when I have it, what do I use it for? Yeah, so maybe it's a good time. Eric can put on the screen, the screen share. We have the quick 45-second video. Here's our website. We have four different categories, causes, restaurants, services, and shopping. We're on Big Island and Oahu right now. And as you can see, this is our homepage, but there's a lot of different coupons that are presented. This is just the newest ones that signed up recently. We also have a blog. So newest articles like 12 local gifts for your cakey that they'll love for, you know, basically showcasing our vendors. But here, you know, let's try to use this 808 splash body and skincare coupon, which is 10% off. Simply or 15, you just click on it, you go to their page, it says 15% off. And then it's different for each company, but it'll say within the details of how to, you know, redeem that coupon. So at the very least, if it's in store, usually you just literally pull it up on your phone and tell them, like, hey, you know, Hawaii verse, and they give you the discount. This right here is our weekly giveaway section. I'll talk a little bit more about it after, but since we're scrolling through, we're currently doing our one month giveaway celebration. It's over $2,000 in donated prizes. It'll be announced this Saturday, October 10th at eight. So, you know, we're really, really looking to grow and try to get as many users as possible and help these local businesses. But just to quickly jump back at how everything kind of started, I guess, you know, it started as just a Facebook, then it turned into a coupon directory. And then from the original launch, we had so many donations from these vendors to celebrate, and they're so thankful that we're like, hey, why don't we actually do a weekly giveaway to showcase a company one by one instead of just a big bundle. So that's kind of how it evolved into also having giveaways as well on a weekly basis. And I know I mentioned this before, but it's 100% free. So we're really, really just trying to help local businesses and help people out in general. You're not making any money with it. Not yet. I think there's a lot of potential for the future. I think we're a really great platform for potential sponsorships in the future that these large companies are trying to support local businesses. That's what we're here to do. I think we're one of the top platforms out there. And there's other things in the works such as a lot of our vendors ask us to create websites for them. So it kind of feeds into that. So that's some future stuff that we're working on. And we're really just trying to help as many businesses out as possible. And our team has all these different skill sets. And I think that it'll work itself out in the future. But for now, money really isn't our focus. We're just trying to help local businesses and grow as fast as we can. But ultimately, you will have a business model here. What will it be? Yeah. So the first thing is sponsorships. We do have a lot of in theory, in the future, advertising space on our website, our email list. We have 25,000 followers in total on social media and growing. So there's a lot of value there. And then what I talked a little bit about is we're still working on the models. But for right now, we're going to be launching a website creation service for these local vendors for extremely cheap price. And then, of course, monthly hosting and maintenance fees. So these are little ways that we're working around to figure out the monetization strategies. And eventually we're going to have merch, such as this, like Hawaiiverse. But we do plan to donate a lot of the merch sales, because we do have nonprofits on our site. So that's one way that we're going to kind of tie them into all of this, because a nonprofit doesn't necessarily have coupons, right? So what we still want to include them. You're a profit corporation, though? We are, yes, yes. Okay. So let's take me. I want to make me into a case study. Okay. So suppose I want to get logo shirts. I want to buy a bunch of logo shirts. Tell me, set me through how I would do that and have a benefit of it on Hawaiiverse. Gotcha. So you want to make shirts for yourself, right? I want to buy some shirts for our staff. Oh, okay. I'm making this up. Gotcha. Yeah, no problem. So what I would recommend you doing is going into our service section of coupons. And we'll have to double check when we may or we may not have some printing vendors out there that has signed up for the service of Hawaiiverse. And they might be offering a 10% off coupon over a certain size order, whatever it might be. And on top of their listing, it'll explain exactly how to redeem it. And then you reach out to them, you get the 10% off or 20, whatever they're offering. And it's a win-win because you save some money on that end. But then for them, they got a prospect that might have never heard of them if they weren't on Hawaiiverse. So we really look at it as a win-win situation. So that's one way that you could use it. Okay. And that would be a local company. That would not be a California company. In fact, if some California company came to you and said, Jared, we want to sell shirts in Hawaii, what would you say to them? I would say that, hey, this is Hawaiiverse, so we're only pushing local Hawaii businesses, which is what we're doing. Maybe in the future, there might be Californiaverse. But right now, we're just looking on Hawaii for Hawaiiverse. So yeah, it really wouldn't be the target market or they wouldn't be allowed on our site, actually. But there are future possibilities where maybe Hawaii residents or people that used to live in Hawaii, but they live in California, want to support a California-owned business. So in the future, we might allow local-owned businesses in California to be on the platform. And if people in California want to support Hawaii businesses, they can still do that in California or online. Sure, that works. Now, suppose I flip it over and I say, I make logo shirts, I make them. That's my business. I'm in Kakaako somewhere making logo shirts. And I want to expand my business. So tell me how I would get involved with Hawaiiverse and find buyers for my logo shirts. Yeah, so it's actually really simple. Michael from the Taylor Market did a really great job on the website. But if you just go to Hawaiiverse.com, there's a big business owner green button there. And if you click that, it's a very, very short form for information to fill out to apply for a listing, which is, again, free. So all you have to do is fill that out, figure out what kind of coupon you want to offer. And then our team will put it up on the website and it will be live. We'll send you a coupon that you can share on your social media. And we'll also do our best, of course, to share on our socials as well to help spread the word. So that's how it would work out for like a print shop in Kakaako, like you said. Okay, so I guess it's all focused around businesses that want to sell things and businesses that are available to me that I can buy things from. So what I'm going to see in the website is a lot of businesses, right? So actually that's part of it. But so it's a double-sided marketplace. So a lot of these it's not just business to business. It's actually business to consumer is our main focus. So we do try to, you know, take into account every type of businesses, like I said, restaurants, service companies, shopping, retail and nonprofits. But our main focus is actually the business side, but the user side, so the consumer. So majority of our consumers but also there could be businesses would be somebody that's looking to try a new restaurant or looking like to, you know, get their nails done or something. And they'd actually go on our site, look for a coupon or type in the search function, you know, nail salon and then see our vendors that are currently signed up on there. So certain services, you know, I guess businesses can also search on here, but it's actually a lot focused on consumers and helping our businesses get more clients, I guess you could say. What about rating? You know, I'm always interested in rating. I mean, eBay rates, you know, Yelp rates, they give you stars or not and how well you do and people have the opportunity to rate the service and all that. Do you have that? So it's actually a big point for myself and our team actually is that I actually don't want ratings on there. So the reason being is, you know, say Yelp, right? Yelp is out there and a lot of time people compare us to Yelp and Groupon. It's kind of like a local put together. But Yelp really makes or breaks a company, you know, due to the reviews and to make sure that it's not their competitors doing it or it's not just, you know, one off that a customer wasn't happy. You know, we're at Hawaii first really just want to help all ships rise at the time. And I truly believe that reviews, we're not going to put it on their site, mainly for that reason, because we're just here to help. Of course, if people start reporting it or reaching out, then we'd have to talk with a business owner to see what's going on. But yeah, we currently do not have reviews on their site for that reason. Well, but you know, I could go on your site and find a clunker. I could go on your side and find a guy who's doing scams and he'll take my money. How do we prevent that? Right. So there is a flag functionality on our site. So if any reason that does happen, we tell our users to please make sure to flag them and then we're going to take a deeper look into it. But like I said, we are not a marketplace. So we're not, you know, touching any money transaction wise with the user and the business. So, you know, we're here to help local business as much as we can and really build this community of Hawaii verse. But of course, you know, if you're actually going to use a coupon and go in the store itself, you should also do your diligence of like, okay, is this store legit or whatnot and make your own decision on if you want to use it or not. But we're doing our best, of course, and really trying to make sure that all of our listings are legit because we do try to build personal connections with them. Yeah. Okay. Now, what about, you know, publicity and all that? You're trying to get the word out and you're trying to get these guys to come and list with you or look at those listings. How are you doing that? I know you have some public relations going on, but tell me what the plan is. Yeah. So a lot of it is through our social medias. So we have about 21,000 followers on Facebook, quickly growing Instagram in just a couple of months, about 4,000 followers. And also users, right, that actually sign up on our website. So email lists of, you know, I don't know the number, but over 500 at this point and growing. So that's our immediate market that we're trying to, you know, get the word out as best as we can. But we're always looking to grow. So, you know, things like this, we just did a press release recently, and also partnerships. So we actually partnered with the Chamber of Commerce. So they've been a really, really great partner helping to get the name out there, getting all our businesses on board, but also, you know, helping spread the word. And we also partnered with a videography company called Propeller USA, which used to do weddings, but of course with the wedding industry gone, pivoted to businesses. And we're just trying to, you know, connect them with other local businesses. But basically through partnerships and through, you know, press opportunities and social media is how we're trying to get the name out. But we're growing really quickly. We're really excited. We have over 220 businesses, and as you know, like thousands and over 25,000, you know, followers. So we think there's a lot of potential here. And we've, you know, basically only heard really good feedback from our vendors. And it really, that's why we do it, you know, like, like you said, we're not making any money right now, but just appreciation that we've been getting from vendors and users that believe what we're doing is a really good cause is making worth it so far. Have you got metrics to, you know, are you able to keep a record, for example, of the number of transactions that have taken place because of, you know, connection on the website? Yeah. So currently, we do not, besides just the vendor telling us, because, you know, we do have limited resources, which is why we're hoping to get sponsorships in the future. But eventually we would love to actually create on our website an actual coupon functionality, right? So, and they can actually go kind of like Groupon, right? You can see, okay, there's a coupon here and the vendor can go click it, okay, redeemed, and then all the data is being tracked. But, you know, we're, like I said, again, we're 100% free. So a lot of our vendors are just happy with, you know, us helping trying to get the name on as best as we can, even without the metrics for now. But that is in our future plans. And on top of that, I didn't get to mention it earlier, but we do a weekly episode called Hawaii for Spotlight, which is a three to eight segment featuring one of our vendors. Actually, we do Big Island Anahual, who's a twice a week. And they have, we have them teach us something, like how to make a dish or how to paint or whatever it might be. Invented video? This is, we released, it's a series on YouTube and Facebook. So mainly Facebook. Yeah. But we've done about 15 episodes so far. And yeah, we'll be just trying to get the, trying to highlight our businesses and, you know, spread the word as best we can. Well, you know, one thing that strikes me is, you know, as this goes forward and get more businesses and more people looking and, you know, the world turns, I mean, there's nothing so constant as change itself. And so you said maintenance. So you build a website and then you have to maintain it. And what I, what I caught was that the people who maintain it are you guys. In other words, it's not like, you know, the company you're listing comes into the website and says, oh, we now are going to offer widgets at X dollars, another product, so to speak. And that's the way it's listed. No, he's got to call you or write you. You have to maintain in-house, right? Actually, no. So I apologize if it wasn't clear. So we create the initial listing because we want to keep a certain look to all of the listings. So we actually pull information from their sites, from their social media pictures to create the original listing. But as soon as we do the original listing, they get all access to update their listing, change it whenever they want. So they actually have their own login. So we want them to self maintain it as much as possible because you're absolutely right. If we're doing everything manually, it's very, very hard to scale. But we're creating this way of scaling mine. Oh, that's great. That's got to be at least one secret source that I can see here. Because if you didn't have that, you'd be tearing your hair out pretty quick. Right. Yeah. Good point. Good point. Yeah. My co-founder's amazing CTO is working around the clock to try to make our site as functional as possible. So yeah, we have lots of things in the works. But like I said, it comes down to resources since we're all doing it as a passion right now. So any other thing involving the site that you would consider a secret, a secret source, maybe the wrong term, but a special thing that makes you different from the competition such as it is? Well, I think one of the biggest things is this community. We're not just a website. We're really trying to create this Hoy versus community. Literally, even yesterday, I was out there in the field. We taped three videos with three of our vendors. We have an amazing host in Kamaka who is kind of an influencer. And we're really trying to build these partnerships. Like I said, the Chamber, this videography company, we have lots of things that are in the works. We're trying to talk to UH and all different types of things just to really get the word out. Because like I said, all ships rise at the tide and we're really just trying to help build this community as much as we can. So I think that's one really, really big thing that we have over other companies. It's like we're like community first and then expanding upon there. And on top of just the website, I like to say we're like a platform that's a lot more than that, right? Because sure, we have the coupon, the blogs, the giveaways. But like I said, we also do like these episodes on social media trying to highlight these businesses. And we're very active on there. So yeah, we have an amazing team that's like I said, don't need any more time right now. But I think there's a huge potential here too. Well, my big thing is to do well by doing good. And I truly believe Hawaii Grace is doing that. Well, Hawaii needs to reestablish its business community. We've suffered and COVID has cost us a lot of businesses. And that sounds to me like what you're doing will help reconnect or recreate the business community, maybe in a new way, in a way that hasn't been seen before in a way that could be sustainable into the future. I'm wondering also about what kind of coding are you using? What kind of platform sounds like is a big database out there somewhere? Can you give me the architecture of how this works? Well, I mean that's part of our secret sauce, right? So the main thing you need to know that it's I didn't get too far on that one. But like I said, my CTO, Ken and Martin, my co-founder is really the brains behind the tech. So yeah, all kudos to him. But yeah, that's kind of our secret sauce. I could try it, but you know, keep it under wraps. Okay, well, I understand. You know, the architecture actually would be secret sauce because you could be duplicate, you could be knocked off is what I'm saying. Somebody could look at that site you showed us in the little video and they could say, hmm, you know, and they're going to listen to this program, Jared. Oh, we know what he's doing and we can emulate that. It wouldn't be that hard. Just get some kind of database running and a front end and bingo, wordpress, bingo, all done. Totally. And, you know, I'm sure people will. And that's totally fine. And that's why we really focus on community. And that's really where we're trying to build right now. And the site is really just collateral on top of that. And we're doing our best here and we're going to keep doing our best. But yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Well, like, you know, I think I understand now it's the community and the relationships that breathe life into this and that make it, you know, a valuable experience. And it's connecting people. I don't want to say social media. I don't think it's really social media. But what it is, as you said, it's a platform where you can go. And what I really like is the idea of you allowing your listeners, your business listings, to talk to, you know, the potential buyer crowd and advertise that way to an audience that may be a tried and true local audience that will respond. So it's sort of like a special club. But speaking of which, I mean, how do I get in this club? What do I do? So I mean, actually, really simple. You just go onto the website. If you're a user, not a business, very simple to just sign up. Just need your email, you know, name and information. And then from there, you'll get access to all of the coupons and also the giveaways that, you know, like I say, it's 100% free. So why not do it, right? But like I said, we're only on Oahu and Big Island right now, but we do plan to go to the other islands. So, you know, if you're on a different island, stay tuned because we have big plans moving forward. Why do I feel that Hilo's coming soon? Well, Hilo's already on there. Yeah. So that's where it started. Yeah, it actually started there. Okay. So the other thing I was going to ask you is, so we have these businesses listing and we have people who join up and all that. But query, and you let them connect by themselves. They talk to each other. They go the next step. All you're doing is allowing them like a social media thing. Yeah, we're pushing them to each other. Yeah. Exactly. We're providing the platform for them to possibly connect, right? Even through our listing, we built in a chat functionality so you can actually reach out via chat directly to the business, you know, on their listing, which is a very, very interesting functionality for a site like this. But yeah, you're exactly right. You know, besides social media and the platform, really just trying to create this community and a platform where they have the opportunity to at least meet or get in front of, you know, people that might have never heard about their business any other way. So what are the standards for the coupons which we started talking about? Namely, it sounds like when I come on as a business and I want to attract buyers, I put that stuff. You helped me at the inception, but I put my offerings on the site in the system and the database. And then I have the access to change that, add products, change everything really, I suppose. But what are the standards? For example, I say, yeah, I'll give you a coupon, one percent, one percent, my coupon, one percent. The other guy down the row, he's going to give 10% or 15 or whatever. Do you have any control? Do you want any control over how sweet the deal is from this listing company? So I mean, it's their business, right? So we don't want to tell them how to run it or what to do. We just provide the platform, but we do provide recommendations. I guess you could call them. So what we tell the businesses and we're always open to answering any questions for them is basically, you know, the better deal you put out there, the more response you're going to get from it naturally. So it's your choice if you want to give less or more, but we recommend obviously giving more because, I mean, especially in this time of need, you just need more people there. And once they become your clients, the main thing is that they're going to keep coming back or that that's the goal, right? If you have a good business, a good product, a good service, a good restaurant, we're just trying to make that initial contact and then your job is to win them over. So whatever deal that you feel comfortable with, we don't want to ever force somebody into making a certain deal, but we do recommend and let them know like, hey, the sweeter the deal, the more prospects and more business you're going to get from this. So just, you know, create your coupon with that, keeping that in mind. Well, as I said before, this is valuable at a time when we're trying to recreate, reimagine our business community all over the state. And I think we have a lot of work to do on that, because a lot of businesses have gone out of business. I know, it's extremely sad. Yeah, yeah. So are you going to put more time into this going forward? I mean, you're trying to automate it or are you going to roll up your sleeves and spend 24x7 on it? I mean, we've been rolling up our sleeves since day one. Like I said, we do have other businesses that we run on the side to pay the bills, but Hawaii versus really where our passion is. And we have a really solid team of six right now working whenever we have time, really. And even for me personally, I'm trying to offset other businesses so I can put as much time into Hawaii versus possible because Hawaii needs this more than ever. And I do think there's a ton of potential here. But yeah, of course, automation is nice and it helps to scale. But I mean, we're in the thick of things right now. So we are literally working 24x7 around the clock to keep up with everything that's going on and to continue growth and to help these businesses. You know, if I get on Zoom and I can record on Zoom, right? Whatever I do is say. And then I can save that recording to the cloud. And then I can send you a link of that recording. Or I could put that link in my database on Hawaii versus. Then I could pitch that way, couldn't I? Do you have that in your mind? Sorry, I didn't follow everything there. I would pitch on a Zoom program. I would record the pitch. I would put the link to the pitch. You know, it's recorded, right? I put the link to the pitch somewhere in my record of my business on Hawaii versus. Now, everyone who comes around to my page, so to speak, can see what I'm saying. So it's live like this, you and me. Not live. It's a recorded video of what I'm offering. It's who I am. Yeah, definitely, definitely. We actually have some videos like that already made, like the founder's message. And we create a bunch of videos. I'm not sure if you have to see our social media, but we do a lot of step-by-step, how to do things or how to support businesses on top of the spotlights that we do. And like I said, that's made possible by our partners at Propeller USA for video production. And my co-founder, who's a videographer as well. So he takes care of the big guy. And we're taking care on a walkie right now. Very exciting, Jared. Exciting. And I wish you well on it. And I hope that it realizes your altruistic dream of connecting people in Hawaii and rebuilding the economy or building the economy in a new way. Thank you so much, Jared Kushi. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And please help spread the word. I really appreciate you having us on the channel. Absolutely. Aloha.