 Aloha, and welcome to this week's edition of Business in Hawaii. I'm Dalen, and we are here broadcasting live from the ThinkTech studios in Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we're at www.thinktechhawaii.com, and you may also subscribe to our programs and get on our mailing list at that site as well. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local people, local businesses by local people. Our guests share with us how they were able to build successes in our challenging business environment. In the ThinkTech studios with us today is Max Sai, president and owner of TC Kokua, located in Kihemaui. Max, thank you so much for joining us today and making the trip to Oahu and fighting the Honolulu traffic that I know you are a little nervous about, but we're very happy to have you on the show today. Thanks for having me on the show. Great to be here. So many things to talk about, TC Kokua, how you got started, the numerous recognition that you do receive for the business that you built. So why don't we start at the beginning and tell us how you got started. Wow, this actually started back when I was in college with my ex-business partner who were roommates, friends, and we got a little tired of the poor customer service you get from all these different service providers, you know, and we want to change that. So we basically went on, pursued our degrees, I had an engineering degree, he was in finance. So afterwards we did our work in Silicon Valley and 18 years ago we decided to pursue our idea from college, which was how to improve the customer service experience so that your customers, your clients feel special. And we looked at obviously call centers and Maui or Hawaii became the top location for us, Aloha Spirit. And when you have majority population in the sort of service industry, tax credits, just everything about starting a small business here in Hawaii makes total sense. And that's how we started. So how did you pick Maui? Good question. We started at the Maui Research and Technology Park, one of the part of the incubator program. And I guess you can call us a success story. Absolutely. I think it's so wonderful that we do have opportunities in Hawaii with Maui Tech and in Anahu, we have something very similar to foster the startup of businesses, incubator businesses like yours. So along the way, what year was it that you opened TC Cuckoo? 2000. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I thought it was 2003. No. We started putting it into the whole thing in the works 2000, officially actually opened our doors at the MRTC because we had to go through the whole application process and so forth in June 1st, 2001. Wow. Well, congratulations. Thank you. I mean, you've been in business 18 years now. Yes. Your baby's all grown up. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. So I know that you've also moved your business a couple of times in Maui. My guess is that that was because of expansion. Could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. Of course, as people wear MRTC Research Technology Center is an incubator program and as part of that, we are supposed to graduate when we achieve certain point of success. So we did and we found location just Makai, ocean side of MRTC and was there for a few years and then finally due to growing needs, I've actually purchased our own office space in North Kihei, Maui. So it's served us very well there. How did you find MRTC? How did you find that that was going to be the avenue that you were going to get started? That's a very good question. You know, when we did the research prior, we looked at other locations. Obviously, I was always interested in Pacific Northwest. We thought about going from California, of course, going more easterly like Arizona, Colorado and of course, West because I was who doesn't love Hawaii, right? I've been here many times on location and I started doing research and incubator startup programs and MRTC came up and believe it or not, originally I was going to move to Oahu and the secret is I did spend about three weeks end of 1999 right here on Oahu. I tried to get settled and I obviously was overwhelmed with traffic. Yes. And my whole thing is I didn't want to move from one busy San Francisco Bay area to another busy place with nicer weather and beaches. And MRTC came into play and Maui was the perfect choice for us. So did they help you build your business from scratch, from business plan to? Not so much on a business plan. They offer support mainly very favorable rental rates and space in the tech park, infrastructure. As you know, we have a lot of connectivity, high speed fiber that runs underneath the ocean here. And so we took advantage of that. That was very nice. And just the support of the people there and a couple of my, I guess, early clients were actually from the tech park and I talk about it too if you want. So at what point do you have to graduate from MRTC? I think it was more of a mutual thing, you know, because MRTC is the sister campus I guess to the Manoa Innovation Center. So HTDC was running the show at the time. So it was, it came a time where I guess my stay was due to expire. So you know, that's what happened. Did you feel ready at that point? You know, I felt so. I think so too. I felt it was the right time. It was a good opportunity for us to move on and to expand and the tech park at that time was changing too, as you know. So at that point, was it just you and your then partner? The business? Oh, we had a staff too. How many? How many did you start with? Oh my gosh. Well, we started with two. Right. To me and my business partner and then we slowly built the company up. We started with a couple employees, then we grew to five and then I think when we left the tech park, we had about 10 employees. Wow. And today? Today, well, we got to almost 30 employees at one time. Very nice. Thank you. So the spot that you're in now, is that in Kihei? Yes. North Kihei, very convenient. And I picked that location because it's, as most of you know, Maui is kind of spread out. So North Kihei is very central for everyone, especially for my staff who I've seldom lived up country, Maui. So it's very convenient and some of them live south Maui and central Maui. So very central not just for our staff, but our clients too, as well. They're 15 minutes from Kauui Airport. TC Kokua has survived through some of the most difficult times, business periods for small business in Hawaii. Yeah. Tell me about the struggle, the challenges. Yeah. Well, as you all know, we opened, I mentioned, June 1st, 2001. So three months after that, we had 9-11. That was very much a struggle because at that time we had, I'd say, a number of clients. There was three of them that were ready to sign with us. And that whole 9-11 thing kind of put everything on hold. So that was the first one, economic downturn. And then we also had one, another one, early 2000 as well. So we're survivors. I'm sure there are a lot of viewers who are thinking about starting a business or perhaps already did or are in the infancy stages. What kind of advice would you give them? I mean, you started up your business three months before 9-11. Yes. I mean, there had to be a part of you that thought, oh, maybe this wasn't a good idea. Yeah. Well, my number one advice is don't ever give up. Don't let go of your dreams. Believe in what you intend to do, your vision, your dreams. So that's the best advice. And it serves us well. Along the way, TC Cocua has gotten quite a bit of recognition, Max, I'm sure it's because of your leadership and your perseverance through those difficult times and of course running a wonderful business with your employees being very satisfied. Let's talk about some of those accolades because they certainly are notable. The first one was the PBN top 40 under 40. And I think we have a picture of you in this one. Here you're accepting the award. Tell us about the award. Oh, it's very much an honor to receive that award. Yeah, I was under 40 at that time. That was yesterday, right? Sure. So it was good. I had some wonderful support and to be recognized from an outer island, that was a big deal, too. Yeah. There are a couple other recognitions that you received. And that was the Small Business Association, Small Business Person of the Year, Maui County. And we've got a picture of that. And I think we have a picture of you accepting the award, right? I was actually at a celebration event at Chamber of Commerce. And that was a very much honor because I was with some of the most recognized businesses in Hawaii, Maui for sure. And to be part of that, it was truly an honor. And I can't say enough about it. When we come back, we're going to take a short break. But when we come back, let's talk about some of the other things that you're doing in the community and let's talk about Tsukakua and how you filled a gap in Hawaii and what you saw that opportunity to be. We are going to take that short break. This is Business in Hawaii. And we'll see you back here shortly. Aloha. I'm Jane Farrell, founder of Think Tech Hawaii. And I'm Andrea Gabrieli, the host for Young Talent's Making Way—wait a minute. This is not a new episode, is it, Jane? No, it's not a new episode. That show is over, Andrea. So what are you going to do now? Why don't we have a summer edition of Young Talent's Making Way where we focus more on education as a mean for our young talents to max out, become role models, and achieve their dreams? What a great idea. So when do you want to begin, Andrea? July the 3rd, 2018, Tuesday at 11 a.m., Young Talent's Making Way summer edition. Stay tuned. My name is Stephanie Mock, and I'm one of three hosts of Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series. Our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pamai Weigert. And we talk to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system. We talk to farmers, chefs, restaurateurs, and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawaii. We are on it Thursdays at 4 p.m., and we hope we'll see you next time. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii. And today I am honored to have Max Tsai of TC Kukua with us in the studio today. Max, I want to talk about your leadership attributes, you know, because TC Kukua has been in existence for so long because you started it when you were three. Of course. And it takes a great leader to have businesses be sustained, especially in a challenging environment. We talked about 9-Eleven and how you weathered the storm. And I know that one of your passions is giving back. We do have a picture of Max at a Maui United Way event where he was board chair. And I know that this is just one of the small ways in which you surround yourself in the community by helping the community, supporting community, and giving back. Tell us about some of the things that are important to you and how that makes you a good leader. Oh, thank you. I live with the belief to always give more than what you take or live in the gratitude of attitude of gratitude. Giving back is one of my true passions. I was very fortunate, and that's kind of going back to the question we talked about why Maui, right, why Hawaii. Well, coming from a big place, San Francisco Bay Area, I've traveled a world when I used to be in high tech. It really makes a huge difference when you're in a smaller community where everything we do can have a profound effect. You can make a difference. And I'm really grateful and blessed to have a successful business and everything I was able to accomplish on the business front. And it only makes sense to be able to give back to the community and to serve a purpose and to be a true leader. It's not about just making your business successful, but what you can do for the rest of the community, help each other out. And that's actually a segue way to what my business does, TC Kukua too, because we believe we can help bring the community together, and we have service to local businesses, and as well, even in mailing companies too, as we've done. I know that you're involved in quite a few things. You want to share with us some of the ways that your volunteerism has touched the lives of many? Well, thank you. I don't like to talk too much about myself here. It's not about the accolades either, but I've served on a number of boards, nonprofits, chaired a lot of them. I have served on multiple commissions for Maui County, namely salary commission, the planning commission, both in which I was a chair, and then also most recently I was on the police commission also. Wow. Wow, I don't know where you find the time. You make time. Early last year, Hawaii Business Magazine did a beautiful piece on you, and I know that you have a printout of that article, but they basically talked about how you started and right out of college. And tell us about that article, and how did that come about? Yeah, it was actually a surprise, because I got a call from Jackie, Jackie Young. She says, well, she was referred to me by a colleague, and she wants to do an article on us. And I said, OK. So, and it was very, very nice. She did a great job. Thank you, Jackie. Let's talk about TC Kukua. Tell me about the business. Let's talk about what you do and the services you provide. Absolutely. Well, TC Kukua is an all-sourced support center, customer service call center. When you say call center, is that for a specific type of business? Well, no. Actually, we service every type of industry pretty much you can imagine. Any business, anyone who needs any type of customer interaction, customer service support, we've done it. We've done tech support for local businesses. We've done even airlines. We used to provide the call center services for Muculele Airlines. Local cell phone service provider, MobyPCS, used us. We had worked with Hawaii Department of Human Services for their Crest Enrollment Plan. There's some things we did for even for a back-to-end spectrum before it was Oceanic. We did some stuff for their Kupa Kiziloyi program. Most of our, a lot of our work right now is in hospitality, tourism related, charter boats and zip lines, horseback riding, luau's, it's a perfect fit. What's unique about our service is that you all know we live in the middle of nowhere and there's a very unique culture here in Hawaii. It really boggles my mind why certain businesses went on the outsourced to somewhere outside of Hawaii. When you're customer base or you want to portray the loha, the Hawaii, and that's what we can provide, you know, very much a niche market and my pricing's very flexible, can be customized to pretty much any budget and we also track our pricing to mainland call centers, contact centers, so you don't pay a paradise tax for accompanying for service right here in Hawaii and my staff, 100% local, you know, local service. So we, and that's what I believe in. We should support each other, help each other to, you know, grow and make a difference. So you have a number of clients in many industries, how do you school up your employees to understand each of those separate industries? Right. In a typical call center, outsourced, contact center, support center model, you have different variations how you can support. We've, for example, have certain clients that has dedicated support staff, so essentially almost like a employee services where we staff all employees but we do all the work for them too and that's one model, that's our dedicated agent model. We also do a shared agent model where basically a number of agents are cross trained to provide services to multiple clients and one way we do this is typically it's called train the trainer method so a new client comes on and we will assign a dedicated liaison project person that handles that account and that person basically or multiple people depending on the size of the account gets in contact with our clients just like if a business wants to hire their own people you've got to train it, right? The same process and then we rely on different forms of follow ups and we don't ever consider ourselves be a separate entity even though we're separate, we integrate so much seamlessly with our clients it's we call extension of their business even though we might be somewhere else because there's so much communication that happens daily. We like for example for one of our clients that has a charter boat tour in Amawi, well we don't just work with their owners we work with their office staff for changes and so forth we work with the captain for things like oh if there's delays or there's weather related cancellations we talk to the clients directly we even work with the marketing staff to put on stuff on their website we work with even the cater on the food orders so essentially what I'm getting at it is as a business imagine you have a basically a whole staff of people at TC Kukua that takes over are your customer interaction your virtual support staff office staff even as simple as a receptionist you know office manager. And so is this in-person interaction or do you use technology to drive that? Very good point well we are a call center not really that sexy of a model I guess but it's a support center and we started I started actually doing the first multi-mode customer contact technology in Hawaii when I first started that's the old system of using when I say multi-mode it means that when people normally think about call centers you think about telephone well that's majority of the interaction right we obviously have that but there's also email and you guys all know about live chat and there's also web co-browsing where you can go to some support site or some site and somebody can actually drive your search engine it's kind of freaky but it's when somebody take control of your you know if you call Apple for example they do that so we use all these forms of communication and to support whatever needs of our clients email chat we have a very awesome state of art phone technology our technology state of art we have dedicated fiber internet access we have separate voice and data lines sift trunks and everything is redundant and co-location stored in multiple locations so everything is very safe I'm sure there are a number of businesses that definitely could use that support so that they can push that out and focus on core business why don't you tell our viewers how they can find you absolutely we're actually redoing our website right now as we speak but you can go to tccucua.com and that's Tia's and Tom, Cia's and Charlie, K-O-K-U-A .com and feel free to call us 808-270-8700 Fantastic Max it was such a pleasure having you on the show today please keep us up to date on all your changes and what you're doing and of course we're going to follow you with all these accolades that you that you amass but thank you so much for sharing with us today making the flight over absolutely braving the traffic braving the Honolulu traffic it's all good thanks for having me Aileen oh it was it was our pleasure business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at two o'clock if you're interested in joining us and being a guest on the show please email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com we are out of time but we look forward to seeing you here next week huge thank you to max and to our production staff and we're looking forward to seeing you again have a great day