Origin story: the people
My buddy Jeff used to own a coffee shop here on Kauai - you may have heard of it - and when he was just starting out I happened to show up there looking for a chill place to work. I’d just gotten done traveling for a year (yes, crazy) and was happy to be back on the island. When I’d traveled, I’d really made great use of coworking spaces. And cafes, coffee shops, hotel lobbies, restaurants. All great places to work when you don’t have an office and want to get out of the place where you sleep. Anyway, Jeff’s coffee shop was pretty sweet and I tried to be a good customer by tipping a lot and not taking the great seats while I plugged away on the laptop.
Over time we got to know each other. He offered me the coffee shop wifi, and I offered to pay him for the access, which he refused… but in that convo we looked around the coffee shop. If there were 15 people there (there were; his coffee shop was pretty popular, which is crazy for him and his family being new to the islands, and never having run a coffee shop. But I digress) maybe 12 of those 15 people were working on laptops or having some kind of meeting.
“That’s a lot of laptops,” we later joke to one another at random times, looking over the patrons.
Fast forward 6 months - we’d decided to open Kauai’s first coworking space. We did some discovery; we grabbed imagery online we liked, I talked about a lot of spaces I’d been in and what worked well, and we got a group of people together. This working group was amazing; friendly, competent folks who seemed excited to talk about our idea and move it forward. Everyone loved the idea and was committed to work towards it. We each had our own value we brought as we wrestled with our goal of bringing a coworking space together:
Jeff clearly was a driven achiever.
Char knew the community and who to talk to.
Glenn was a serial entrepreneur.
Carl was a maker, good with his hands.
Bria knew spaces, and had heart.
Lincoln knew Kauai realty.
Rick knew businesses and bureaucracy.
Me… well, I had this idea, that we should start a coworking space.
I know, a little… something. The word lame comes to mind, but that’s what I had to offer at first. The idea. Not nothing, but I’d been in tech a long time, and while the idea is important… really soon after you have a great idea you need to bring something else worthwhile to the effort.
I did work to give a bit of shape to our vision. I put a website up, with the most cliche pineapple graphics ever. We put together a very early guiding doc. And then I figured out what I could do, for real.
I didn’t have experience building a business, I didn’t bring a lump of money, or any real local expertise… but I knew about people, and how they worked together, and how they got together in groups.
So I got together a group of people working at the coffee shop, and started to develop the community of folks that might go on to become (with a little luck and hard work) our clientele at the coworking space. I made some more notes and called that community-building effort “Wave.”
Meanwhile, we continued to work on building out our ideas. We toured more than a few spaces, looking for that perfect fit.
But of course we still had that amazing coffee shop as our “home base” while we worked. That really helped. And one day a week, the folks in Wave would work somewhere different, together.
We didn’t have a true coworking space yet. We didn’t have money yet. But we really felt these places, together as a group and individually. I took that feeling, talked about it, and got that initial group together so we’d have a community when the space finally worked out. We went on to work all over - the Marriott, the Yacht Club, the Beer Company, and so on.
Those were special times.
In time, we found our first home, right next to that coffee shop, as it turns out.
We’re on our third location now, coworking together continually for close to eight years. Early on before we had a space, and then when we did have a space, and were stumbling around figuring out how to do it all, providing a great “third space” and giving a few workshops, having a few artist exhibitions. Then later, through lockdown; still open, but a contraction, and a change in our community. Then growing into something more. Still doing classes and workshops, but now opening an AI lab.
The story continues.
Thank you, and love, and aloha to everyone who brought this family together.
Jeff, and Kim. Bria, and Glenn, and Char. Carl, and Rick, and Lincoln. Renee and Chris and Heidi. Ryan. And so many other people. You built this place, this idea, this community.
