According to Meli James, there’s no tried and true recipe to entrepreneurial success, but passion, hustle, and execution should definitely be included. The remainder of the ingredients vary depending on the entrepreneur.

A graduate of Punahou and Cornell University, Meli took a big risk when she decided to leave the comfortable path of traditional job success to find her passion in the world of entrepreneurship. Her leap would prove to pay off. Over the last fifteen years, she has earned her way to being one of the most sought-after minds in business innovation.

While living in Silicon Valley, she helped to create Nirvino, the #1 ranked wine app at the time. Surrounded by innovation, she returned to Hawaiʻi with one goal in mind—to build an innovative ecosystem in the 808.

She asked herself, “What strengths and advantages does Hawaiʻi have that aren’t being leveraged?” The answer—culture. Meli soon co-founded Mana Up, a program to help Hawaiʻi based product companies scale to a global market.

Even though Meli faced fears along the way - fear of failure, fear of losing all of her money - she found a way to turn those feelings into fuel. She recognized her failures as learning opportunities to pull her forward!

Q + A with Meli James

+ What sacrifices have you had to make in order to become a successful entrepreneur?

When you get a job out of college, you’re at a certain salary, and people have ideas of what the fast track is - and a lot of opportunities really are the luck of the draw - I was on that path in a similar way. I really wasn’t happy. One of the hardest things for me was giving up that traditional track of having a set, consistent income. Hindsight is always 20/20, but that was really challenging for me, giving up that safety and having that high risk of not knowing where that was going to lead and how I was going to make money doing it.

+ What’s your advice for young people who are interested in the idea of starting their own business?

Don’t quit your day job. If you have an idea, test it out. Do as much as you can while you have your job to really make sure that what you’re going to be working on has legs and is sustainable. You don’t make good business decisions when you’re desperate, and when you run out of money, you get desperate instead of strategic.

If you do have the entrepreneurial spirit and you don’t want to work for somebody else, it’s not just about two opposite ends of the spectrum. You can do something in the middle. An intrapreneur is someone who can be an entrepreneur and problem solver within their own company. People who are less risk tolerant can have that and be really satisfied.

+ What advice do you have for students today who are interested in entrepreneurship?

It’s so popular right now to be an entrepreneur, and that’s a good thing, but if you’re in high school and you’re thinking about being an entrepreneur, try it out to see if it’s really for you. Get an internship at a local startup in the summer, do a startup weekend, or even go through the process of starting a little small business on the side with some friends. Any kind of small experience in startup-land or entrepreneurship will help you make better decisions later.

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