The search for talent in Silicon Valley by Hawaii expats

I had lunch on Market Street with Jimmy Freese and Tushar Dubey today. They stopped by our office in SOMA and we walked a couple blocks to The Hall. The Hall is a food & drink spot in the Mid Market neighborhood of San Francisco. In other words, it's near the Twitter building. It features six local food vendors, open seating, and a cool bar. It's pretty chill spot and a good call when you have a vegetarian with you =)

Aku Shaper

I hadn't seen Jimmy in at least two years, so it was good to catch up. He runs AKU Shaper, an innovative SaaS company out of Hawaii. They are the world's premier custom surfboard shaping machine and software suite. Jimmy's in town to spend time with one of his developers. His developer lives in the Sunset district and enjoys working remotely for a surf industry SaaS. Finding engineering talent in Hawaii is difficult! Since the talent pool for programmers is so small, Hawaii-based entrepreneurs often find themselves using creative techniques to find engineers. In Jimmy's case, he posted a Craiglist ad in SF for a remote software developer position in Hawaii. Clever!

Open to Cofounders

I've known Tushar since I was five. Tushar has founded and sold two consumer SMB companies and is also an active AirBnb host. His first hit was when he founded Pidgin on da Fridge with Hawaii celebrity Andy Bumatai back in 2004. I remember all of us had his pidgin magnets on our refrigerators. Then in 2005, he founded Hokulani Bakeshop with his devoted wife Ana Dubey. After a stellar eleven year run, they sold the bakery and its multiple locations. Tushar then took the ballsy step to move to Palo Alto last year with Ana and their two kids. Guts! He's been looking for a technical cofounder for some time now and I'm keenly interested to see what he pursues next.

HIPAA Compliant Email

On our end, our HIPAA compliant email service has seen increased demand from across the nation. We have ambitious growth plans for 2017 and are thankful to be in SF. Built in Hawaii. Scaling in SF.

SEE ALSO: My Experiences Fundraising in Hawaii and Silicon Valley