Entrepreneurs outside isles seeing Hawaii’s advantages

Silicon Valley isn’t the only place people are building startups. From Charlotte, N.C., to Boise, Idaho, cities across the country — including Hono­lulu — are investing in their startup communities to attract entrepreneurs and retain local talent.

Last month I wrote about how startups are a pathway for kamaaina to come home to Hawaii to high-wage jobs, largely because there’s a thriving startup ecosystem in Hawaii to support them: six accelerators, six Hawaii-based venture funds, and entrepreneurial events enabling networking and collaboration.

But it’s not just kamaaina who see compelling reasons to start up businesses here.

Take Sudesh Kumar. After two startups and a decade in Silicon Valley, he moved to Honolulu and saw a market opportunity in cybersecurity, developing a technology that protects unsecured personal data and documents. He launched Kapalya in 2015 and through the High Technology Development Corp. was introduced to the National Security Administration. Now he’s inked a partnership with the NSA to license one of their encryption patents to commercialize the technology and bring it to market.

“None of this would have happened if I wasn’t in Hawaii. It really helped me get where I needed to go very, very quickly,” Kumar says. NSA’s significant presence on Oahu certainly helped. Brokering a relationship with the agency “could have taken me two years — but all of this happened in just over six months,” he says.

Another benefit of starting his business outside of Silicon Valley, where every week someone pitches a new idea: less noise, more focus. And for the Fijian-­born entrepreneur, Hawaii felt like home, too.

Entrepreneurs Tracy Newhart and her husband, Tom Landers, also saw major advantages to starting their company on Oahu last year after more than 20 years in Silicon Valley. Nau Media builds software to help businesses manage their location-based information, simplifying tasks such as event management, creating interactive maps or mapping infrastructure for strategic planning.

Hawaii made a lot of sense given Nau Media’s sweet spots are businesses and government agencies in the tourism, event, conservation, smart cities and agriculture spaces. Lower costs compared with the valley also factored in, whether it was after-school care or the cost of hiring and retaining engineers.

Finding customers has been much easier here than in Silicon Valley, where thousands of startups are competing to land pilot projects. Newhart and Landers found Hawaii’s business community welcoming.

“When we talk with one person or business about our solution, they know of and can give us introductions to a handful of other businesses they believe would benefit from and appreciate our solution,” says Newhart, who grew up on Oahu. “The community wants to help entrepreneurs who have something of value to offer, and they can make it happen through the tightknit network.”

NAU Media has also involved Kaiser High School students as interns, giving students exposure to startups as a possible career path. They plan to work with University of Hawaii students soon, too.

These anecdotes show that Hawaii’s startup environment has developed to a point where even people outside the state are beginning to recognize the opportunities and unique advantages Hawaii has.

Kumar, the cybersecurity company founder, says friends are amazed he’s been able to develop such a complex technology in Hawaii, which they typically just associate with tourism and surfing. He says, “They tell me, ‘There must be something very special about Hawaii.’”

Indeed, there is — it’s a place to get real business done, too.

Sara Lin, formerly a journalist in New York, Los Angeles and Honolulu, is now an associate with the Hawaii Strategic Development Corp. Reach her at sara.n.lin@hawaii.gov.