Blue Startups Cohort 18 Honolulu Demo Day

Aloha from Blue Startups!

We hope everyone across Hawaiʻi is safe and recovering after Hurricane Lala.

After weathering the storm, Cohort 18 came into Week 5 ready to work. The cohort built reusable company context, practiced speaking with confidence, and kept sharpening their pitches. Here is what Week 5 looked like:

Week 5: Confidence, Context, and the Pitch

Laura Reid opened the week on Monday at the Sandbox for the Demo Day pitch practice. She had each founder name the place where they feel most grounded, write the words that described it, and practiced carrying that version of themselves onto the stage. The cohort left with something familiar to return to before September 4.

Tuesday evening, Cohort 18 gathered at Hokua for the Salon Dinner, a night about the founders rather than their companies. No pitches, no decks, no customers. Five weeks of working side by side, and this was the night they got to meet each other on a deeper level and hear each other’s stories.

Mat Goldsborough of NimbleBrain and Alexi Drouin ran Wednesday’s AI session. They showed the cohort that a reliable company brain starts with reusable context, organized around the founder’s voice, the language customers use, and the company’s current facts. Their live example turned those inputs and a company website into a branded draft deck in 45 minutes.

Friday, CivicNexus led the Founders Lunch, creating space for a candid conversation about the founder journey. The cohort then moved into pitch practice as they geared up for Demo Day during Hawaii Tech Week.

Cohort 18 heads into Demo Day on Friday, September 4, during Hawaii Tech Week at the Entrepreneurs Sandbox.

Cohort 18 Spotlight Series

Nice Industries

Nice Industries Is Putting Big Brand Power Behind Important Causes

Jessica Greenwalt spent decades helping the world’s biggest brands get people to buy things, then set out to flip that playbook toward causes. She and her co-founder built Nice Pass, which lets an event host pick a cause and registrants add a gift at sign-up. Nice Pass has run more than 71 pilots, including SXSW’s House of Tech and Culture. The company says 23 percent of registrants at completely free events give, averaging about $40.

Learn more ›

CivicNexus

CivicNexus Is Making State Legislation Easier to Act On

Pierce Young built the first CivicNexus prototype after consulting for a lobbying firm and seeing how much time teams spent tracking state bills by hand. He later teamed up with Seiichi Nagai to turn it into a platform for awareness, monitoring, and action. CivicNexus surfaces relevant bills, tracks their status, and helps users draft and submit testimony in Hawaiʻi, where about 3,000 proposed laws can appear in a year.

Learn more ›

Blue Startups in San Francisco

Community Events

Investor Night: Angels, VCs & LPs brings Hawaiʻi’s startup capital community together Tuesday, September 1 in Honolulu from 4:00 to 8:00 PM. Co-hosted by OM Venture Capital and Hawaii Angels, the evening includes two panel discussions, pau hana drinks, and lite bites.

Attendance is limited to accredited investors. The event is not intended for founders seeking investor connections, and registrations are subject to approval.

Blue Startups Partners