House of Mana Up Features Locally Made Products by Hawai’i Entrepreneurs

A visit to the retail store House of Mana Up located in Waikiki’s Royal Hawaiian Center takes you on a unique voyage discovering all local Hawai‘i products from clothes, specialty foods, and home goods. Entering the shop is reminiscent of walking into a home in the islands with a lanai, living room, and bedroom, plus all that the eye beholds is for purchase. Set up in a show-and-tell-like experience where locals and tourists alike relish in exploring and learning about the stories of the Hawai‘i makers and artisans behind their products

The House of Mana Up retail store in Waikiki features a wide variety of locally made products for home, mind, and body. (Ronen Zilberman photo HonoluluVibes.com)

Opened just over a year ago, over 40 Mana Up brands fill the House of Mana Up, some already well established both in Hawai‘i and globally, along with newcomers – Coco Moon offers cozy, colorful, and organic baby swaddle blankets made from soft bamboo fibers; Nick Kuchar’s collectible travel prints talk story about favorite Hawaiian hangouts and memorabilia; Kailua-based Mānoa Chocolate Hawai’i, is one of the largest specialized craft chocolate makers in the US; Jules + Gem Hawaii’s candles are inspired by local aromas of fresh, ripe mango, juicy pineapple, fragrant guava and liliko’i, Maui Crisps is a full-flavored line of artisan beef chips and Lyn & Terry Lam’s non-toxic line of Kapa Nui Nails is formulate on Hawai’i Island.

With its strategic location in the Royal Hawaiian Center, the House of Mana Up highlights the newest generation of Hawai‘i entrepreneurs, introducing them to the visiting world of tourists, in addition to local residents. What brought all these creative minds together in this Hawaiian home setting is that they are all graduates of the six-month accelerator Mana Up program. Yearly, over 100 applications are received and ten are selected. The upcoming Cohort 6 application deadline is February 19. Mana Up is a Hawaiʻi economic development initiative aiming to expand opportunities, entrepreneurship, and jobs, for local consumer brands. These companies are guided to expand within Hawaiʻi and abroad. The accelerator and robust alumni programs curate workshops, executive mentorship, resources, sales, and venture capital opportunities along with a strong community of collaboration.

“Small businesses employ 126,000 individuals and make up more than 99% of businesses in Hawai’i,” informs Mana Up co-founder Meli James. “Our goal is to create the next 100 Hawai‘i product companies with $10 million or more in annual revenues each, adding $1 billion dollars in revenue to the state of Hawai‘i every year.” A win-win opportunity can be created where more companies are headquartered in Hawai‘i, with higher-paying executive-level jobs, increased wealth for the founders, and a continuation of that wealth into the local communities with further investment.

Recently, another first for Mana Up was a three-hour live-broadcasted QVC-style product showcase held a few months ago in November. It successfully transformed a normally in-person pop-up marketplace attended by 1,000 guests at Waikīkī’s T Galleria by DFS into a grand global event. Over 80,000 local, national and global participants tuned in to listen to Hawaiian music, hear the stories of the entrepreneurs, and most importantly, shop! More than $80,000 in sales were made and opportunities were created for exposure to Hawai‘i brands and future investments with local entrepreneurs.

Honolulu Vibes met with Mana Up entrepreneurs who shared their stories.
Amber Thibaut, the mom who created 5-year-old Coco Moon of buttery-soft keiki family essentials such as quilts, swaddle blankets, infant and toddler clothing, and maternity wear is so grateful to be part of the Mana Up community. “In addition to the great vote of confidence, Mana Up provided me with access to additional learning, opportunities, resources, and networking. From a good idea, I was able to grow the business and now I also have a distributor in Japan. My company also gives back to the community – 1% of our sales go to a local charity supporting the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children,” informed Amber.

Locally made products in Hawai’i make the House of Mana Up a unique place to find gifts and souvenirs from Hawai’i. Everything from art, clothing, books, candles, skin care, and more can be found inside. (Ronen Zilberman photo Honoluluvibes.com)

Nick Kuchar established his art & design company 10 years ago creating vintage-inspired surf and travel art featuring popular local destinations such as Haleiwa. He was also commissioned to do the lobby wall illustration for the newly remodeled Queen Kapi‘olani Hotel. “From the start, Mana Up helped me to hash out what my business means to me, how I can give it the most value and take it to the next level. I am now benefiting my community with my business by creating new jobs, for example, we do the printing on the island. In addition to my webstore, I work with local galleries and others abroad in Europe and Japan.”

Mānoa Chocolate Hawai‘i is the brainchild of Dylan Butterbaugh who spearheaded locally grown cacao in Kealakekua on Hawai‘i Island and Ko‘olaupoko on O‘ahu. Riding on the shoulders of local craft coffee and beer industries, as a university student of sustainable forest management, Dylan took the local cacao bean from the experimental labs of the University of Hawaii to manufacturing specialized craft chocolate produced on the Hawaiian islands. “Sales is the oxygen for any company and Mana Up has been amazing with networking opportunities to get our business to the next level. We have been able to grow through collaboration with other Hawaiian businesses such as Kō Hana Rum, and agrotourism with President John Morgan’s Kualoa Ranch. They have also helped us connect with our biggest accounts such as Hawaiian Airlines and Duty-Free Stores.”

Founder Lana Gronwald launched Jules + Gem, Hawaii in 2017, creating environmentally safe, hand-poured candles from wax made with virgin coconut oil and soy. In addition to the local fruity smells, she is adding a floral line with local scents of white gardenia, pakalana, and puakenikeni. “Mana Up has shown me how to expand my sales outside of the Hawaiian Islands to work with online customers. I have learned strategies through digital marketing, been in contact with local media, and networked with other professionals and local businesses. Mana Up assisted me in introducing my products to diverse mainland accounts on the Pacific Northwest and Colorado.”

To learn more about the accelerator visit manauphawaii.com. To shop from over 40 local entrepreneurs and more than 1,000 of their fresh and innovative products, head to houseofmanaup.com.

by Dina Pinos

Dina Pinos is a Canadian-born Greek, former UH graduate student and EastWest Center grantee. Thriving world traveler, seeking to uncover passionate stories to share with and serve the community.