Jacqueline Hall, Maiven Energy

All I’ve ever wanted to do is work on climate, and I did just that, working for 14+ years with utility companies and in energy. As the go-to energy person in my friends and family group, I was always getting asked what they should do to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions at home. I built Maiven to empower everyone to make the right choices for the planet, their home, and their finances in just a few clicks.

Jason Sharp & Stan Gerasimov, Umi

I started Umi from a personal need, studying abroad in China and learning Mandarin. I watched DVDs of TV shows with a paper dictionary in hand and by the end of year, I was the most advanced student in my language program. 10 years later, I learned Japanese the same way and found a community of polyglots using the same method, but with primitive tools. I want to learn seven more languages, so I needed to build a better system for language learners, beginning with myself!

Madhu Vohra & Sirisha Kaipa, dabbL

dabbL grew out of our own struggles helping our teenaged children find internships and apply to college. One day, we were talking at a dance class and realized we had the same problem—and that we couldn’t pay tens of thousands of dollars for expensive private college guidance services. We’ve worked in tech and built products all our lives, so we decided to just tackle this problem ourselves.

Mario Soave, CleverFi

As an Airbnb Superhost, I realized how much people struggle with technology—service providers like hosts who aren’t tech savvy and guests or customers going into many different locations trying to connect their devices, not being able to get Netflix or the Sonos working. So I made it my mission to help anyone connect in a new place so you never have to look up a WiFi network name and password ever again.

Mat Goldsborough, ThreadScribe

In a previous role, my team would have a lot of really long threads in Slack, and we’d lose important context and information for our work. ThreadScribe grew out of a primitive generative AI tool I made for my own team to summarize those threads, then extract information and break down communication gaps.

Melis Dural, Ekos.ai

I founded Ekos because, as an immigrant to the US at 18 and a seasoned BizDev executive, I know how hard it can be to build community and forge meaningful 1:1 connections. My journey brought me to Honolulu to pitch Hawaii Angels, where I also connected with Blue Startups, which has its own communities it manages. Working with our community engagement platform—and then coming on board in Cohort 16—was a natural fit.

Paul Karaffa, AdminNow

I’m a past startup founder in the IT support space, have had peers go through previous Blue Startups cohorts, and am a mentor in the Blue Startups network. So, I was keenly aware of the benefits from a networking and investment perspective and knew it was where I’d want to launch AdminNow, our platform to connect customers and IT contractors in real time for IT support.

Randy Marsden, Arianna Rose and Colten Marsden, Skidattl

Randy is a serial entrepreneur (and Blue Startups mentor) who has built solutions to help people with disabilities, and help people get back into the world more safely during the pandemic. We founded Skidattl to again get people out in the world, but this time, to find more fun with augmented reality.

Stevens Bonhomme, Feedcoyote

I grew up in Haiti, where freelancing is a way of life. Before and after moving to the US, I realized how I was lacking the connectivity to get higher paying contracts—i.e., ones where I could team up with other freelancers. One of my friends was in a prior Blue Startups cohort, so when I launched Feedcoyote to solve this problem, I knew it would be a good place to fuel our growth and help us grow our network.

Vincent Braithwaite, Gidens

Working with small business owners and entrepreneurs throughout my career, I saw how much they often struggle to find the right guidance around how to grow, achieve sustainability, or take the next step. I founded gīdens to leverage new AI technology to help fill those knowledge gaps and give entrepreneurs the confidence and information they need.

Andrew Spencer, Nutmeg Labs

Working first with tours and activities in Japan, my co-founder Takashi Nakaguchi saw an opportunity to help bring a technologically lagging industry forward. That gave rise to Nutmeg. We’ve since decided to focus on attractions and smaller theme parks, and Hawaii is a great launching pad for the greater US market.

Michael Choi, BoxLadder

After defecting from North Korea as a child and struggling financially growing up, I want to help to create as much economic opportunity for as many people as possible (including my fellow North Koreans in case of reunification). BoxLadder is building an ecosystem of startup fundraising for global entrepreneurs like me who don’t have access to big investors—a virtual Silicon Valley.