Rob Robinson of the Hawaii Angels
Yesterday Rick Kuwahara and I attended the June Hawaii Angels meeting at the Waialae Country Club. After lunch and announcements, I was given twenty minutes to pitch Paubox to the angels.
There were a lot of familiar faces in the room and it was nice to catch up with folks like:
I also made new contacts like Casey Lau, Veronica Wong, Steve Baker, Mark Agne and Sumner Garber.
Rick and I planned ahead to make sure we put our best foot forward during the pitch. This included things like updating our deck to properly address questions ahead of time, having Rick sit at a different table (the folks who write checks tend to sit in the back), showing up early, and power networking the room before and afterwards.
The Hawaii Angels provide a forum for members to review investment presentations and share opinions about these opportunities. This forum also allows for networking with professionals of various backgrounds, and exploring new opportunities in Hawaii. The Hawaii Angels process is well-suited to Hawaii's start-up scene. Since its founding in February 2002, the member angels have invested more than $40 million in 100 companies.
After my presentation, Henk Rogers and Chenoa Farnsworth gave an update on Blue Ventures Fund III. The fund is attached to Blue Startups, an accelerator based in Honolulu.
The Waialae Country Club is one of the premier private clubs on Oahu. It was built by the Territorial Hotel Co. as part of a promotional program to develop luxury travel trade to Hawaii. Matson Navigation Co. built the luxury passenger liner Malolo as part of this. The hotel and golf course lands were leased from the Bernice P. Bishop Estate and the Golf Course was opened for play on 1 February 1927.
Before the meeting, Rick and I met at Kahala Mall to strategize. It was Rick's birthday and as you can tell from the photo, he was ecstatic. Hauoli la hanau Rick!
