We started paying attention to BoxJelly, the 307-A Kamani St.-based co-working spot in Kakaako, back in 2011. At the time, Chaminade grads and co-founders Tony Stanford and Rechung Fujihira (both products of Chaminade’s Hogan Entrepreneurs Program) took a real chance that the demand would be there for these services. They understood that entrepreneurs needed more than "executive centers" where solitary individuals rent sterile cubicles, and Internet cafes, where bandwidth is available but the noisy environment is hardly conducive to work.
They also realized creative people needed a space to meet as well as work. "To be successful," says Stanford, you need to be around people who are smarter than you.
BoxJelly has taken off not just because it’s a cool, hip place to hang out with your laptop and sip coffee, but also because it’s a place to explore ideas and find resources.
Since its founding it has become both a catalyst and a barometer to track where the local tech industry is going. Anybody who is anybody in technology seems to show up there.
This couldn’t have been more apparent when the BoxJelly hosted StartUp Weekend April 12-14. Created by a national organization, this is where local developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts came together to share ideas, form teams, build products and even launch new companies. The participating entrepreneurs were coached by seasoned local and national technology pros.
The excitement was palpable as young entrepreneurs sat in tight groups, trading concepts and honing their nascent startup companies. The glue holding this event together was the possibility of building a great company by building the foundations — customer development, idea validation — and building a minimal, viable product.
The medium to germinate these ideas was BoxJelly, which offers office space for entrepreneurs and perhaps, most important, a living lab for Hawaii’s community of creative minds.
Case in point: Wetware Wednesday, perhaps the largest and most influential tech/entrepreneur meet-ups for software and hardware developers, gathered at BoxJelly over drinks last month. In addition, they host New Tech Meetups and the UH Student Entrepreneurs Club.
Stanford says, "We want to become Honolulu’s No. 1 place to find provide intellectual candy."
"Intellectual candy" understates BoxJelly’s influence.
Veteran entrepreneur Henk Rogers was so impressed with their handiwork that he joined forces with BoxJelly to tap its collective talents in his new "Blue Startups" endeavor. Funded by Blue Planet and the Hawaii Strategic Development Center, Blue Startups is a venture accelerator that provides "hands-on mentorship" and funding to promising young companies.
BoxJelly also has had its share of modest success. Tealet (www.tealet.com), now a funded startup, got its start at BoxJelly. Current startup occupants include Mentors Guild, Each One Teach One Farms, Experience Hawaii Tours and others.
Tourism is on a roll now, but gifted local high school grads (such as my own kids) are not going to be interested in working at the Sheraton as bartender. We need good-paying jobs for our youngsters, and companies such as BoxJelly and other startup-associated incubators are key to this trend.
My own feeling is that if BoxJelly continues to flourish, it will be a good omen and even a litmus test that our current surge of promising new tech companies will not simply be a flash in the pan. Time will tell.
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Mike Meyer, formerly Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, is chief information officer at Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.
