Aloha from Blue Startups!

Hope everyone stayed safe during the storm.

Week 7: Honolulu Demo Day

Friday afternoon all 12 Cohort 18 companies pitched at the Entrepreneurs Sandbox during Hawaii Tech Week. 250+ people attended, including investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders from across the tech community. The companies span travel and gaming to ocean tech and aerospace. After the pitches, founders stayed to talk story and connect.

MAHALO TO OUR DEMO DAY SPONSOR

VensureHR is a workforce partner helping growing companies navigate payroll, HR, benefits, compliance, and the challenges that come with scaling a team.

Hawaii Tech Week, Customer Growth, and Deal Making

Hawaii Tech Week opened with a packed kickoff party featuring live music and networking in Waikiki. Events ranged from panels and keynotes to investor gatherings, product launches, and community mixers. Across more than 50 events, Cohort 18 had opportunities to meet investors, customers, collaborators, and future hires from Hawaiʻi and around the world.

Christine Lawton, an IP Attorney, revenue growth strategist, and dealmaker, joined the cohort on Tuesday to discuss building relationships that outlast a single deal. She traced that work through curiosity, honesty, insight, and connection. She applied those ideas to founders’ own questions about co-founder equity and taking control of the first document in a negotiation.

Hoala Greevy, founder of Paubox, urged the cohort on Wednesday to learn what wins customers before cash runs out. He described Paubox’s 200 blog posts a month as part of that experiment discipline. He gave every company feedback on its homepage and asked founders to make two things clear: what the business does and what a customer can do next.

Erica Lockheimer, former vice president of engineering at LinkedIn, joined the cohort Thursday for a fireside chat on leading through growth and change. She gave founders a three-part test for hard decisions: consider what serves the company, the team, and the individual, in that order. She helped them apply that perspective to product focus, AI guardrails, clear communication, and inclusive hiring.

On Friday, the cohort joined Trajectory Media for Founders Lunch before heading into Demo Day. All 12 companies pitched that afternoon, then connected with investors, entrepreneurs, and tech leaders from across the community.

Paws Abroad Featured in Forbes

Paws Abroad

Paws Abroad Is Featured in Forbes

Marisa and Adrian Hoskins of Paws Abroad were featured in Forbes for their work building technology for international pet travel. The article highlights a fragmented industry that still runs on spreadsheets and is projected to approach $4 billion by 2030. Paws Abroad brings cross-border compliance, digital pet passports, and travel planning into one place.

Learn more in Forbes ›

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