We were lucky to catch up with Kimberly Kriegh recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kimberly thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I grew up as many of us did, my family were all hard workers and it was ingrained very early in my life that in order to be successful, you needed to secure a job early on and stay the course in order to move up within your position and create a healthy retirement for your family. I had dabbled in entrepreneurship in my younger years and although many times successful, it had its failures as well, and all were met with an earful from, mainly my grandfather about how not to, “jump around” in careers and a sense of judgement that I was wasting valuable time that could’ve been spent climbing the corporate ladder.
When I was expecting our first child, I was on the tail end of a business I had started, it paid the bills, but was extremely demanding on me physically and I longed for the ability to work at set times, with set vacation and days off, and paid health coverage. I applied for a Government position with the Health and Human Services office and was hired and felt a sense of pride from my family that they could set aside any worries because; so long as I showed up and clocked in and out like a, “good government worker” I could have all the things promised, from retirement to 401K’s and pensions.
There’s no doubt the sense of security of these kinds of careers. The government does a good job to be transparent and show you what everyone makes, and increase COLA’s and milestones are spelled out for you. I often refer to this stage of my life as the career escalator….you hop on….and when you retire, you hop off. Simple.
I was young and ambitious, I had a fire in me to want to do things, “the best”, the “fastest” and move up to the tippy top as high as I could go while I rode the corporate escalator. But I quickly learned the hard way, the harder you work, the more work you get. Advancements are saved for nepotism, and friendships. Managers and supervisors work the least and the crap rolls down hill. Looking back on this time in my life, I’m amazed at my willingness to just accept, this was my life. In retrospect I believe a lot of people are like this, their trials and tribulations and nightly venting sessions with their spouse about how much they hate their jobs is just a package deal and a consequence to the career escalator. We forget that our career is a CHOICE. Blinded by the tunnel vision of the escalator mindset, we clock in and out, day after day….the same old thing.
In my family, I had the Government job, and my husband worked in the private sector. My job was stability, slow and steady. His job was fast and risky…the yin to the yang. It was honestly the perfect scenario, neither of us were “happy” but we were proud and committed to showing up, doing the work, and coming home and venting….like most American’s do. We bought our dream home, had two children, a boy and a girl, and good careers…we were set. We didn’t question if life could be different or better. We knew what we needed to do to make more money, each respectively within our own careers and that is what we did. My husband got an opportunity of a life time and a salary to match, but it would involve us selling our dream home and relocating from our small town country farm lifestyle to a major city. Clearly motivated by money, we rounded up the animals and gave them away to other small farms, we listed and sold the home I said I would die in and selected a storage unit (turned time capsule of some of our most cherished items) and went from a four thousand square foot home to a two bedroom apartment in Silicon Valley…but hey! It was all paid for! What could possibly go wrong?
I landed another Government job making more than the small county I came from and on the outside everything was appearing to be “better”. We are a resilient family, and do just about everything together. Silver linings and all we made the best of it. But apartment life soon started to take its toll. Our quiet country evenings were now social events with outfits to match. Money flowed very freely with restaurants and a lifestyle to match. We bought in cash one of the nicest cars I’ve ever had in my life during that time. We decided to move to a house along the coast and I switched careers to working with a local real estate firm. All the while still collecting “things”, other cars, RVs, a boat, you name it, we had it. But something was still missing.
Segway to “taking a risk”.
While working with Element Real Estate I met someone who would change my life; Matt Haugen. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was watching his world and his business that he created everyday. He had a fire and a drive that I have never seen in another person before. He was already very successful, but pushed himself everyday and jumped out of his comfort zone to keep himself moving forward. His energy was infectious. I could’ve stayed at Element and under Matt’s mentorship would’ve been very successful. I soaked up his information like a sponge, I went back to college and took some Business Administration classes and wizzed through them with my new found spark of a fire that used to motivate me everyday until my Government job rewired my brain. I was working hard and my efforts mattered again, my dreams were my motivation and I felt invincible.
My husband had finished a long project that quite literally gave some of his coworkers heart attacks and strokes, and a vacation was in order. Hawaii, here we come! While sitting on the beach that summer, we asked each other, how do people live here? What a stark contrast from our city life, the grind, and nine to fives. the fake people with expensive outfits, and a “keeping up with the Jone’s” mindsets. You don’t see that in Hawaii. We were at ease, relaxed, surrounded by aloha and families.
When we returned home, we couldn’t shake the island mindset and a longing to be in a better place. We wanted a slower lifestyle, quality family time that wasn’t absorbed in commuting hours and rushed dinners and evenings filled with social events we didn’t feel like attending. Money and career milestones didn’t matter anymore. I was still working with Matt and I knew that I had the entrepreneur bone in my body and could make something happen! We were willing to risk it all!
We found a business none of us had an experience at but we were motivated and ready, in 5 months time, I sold everything we didn’t want to take with us. Closed escrow on a new home in Hawaii and a business and moved our pets and our children across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. Saying we risked it all would be an understatement. We didn’t want the lifestyle we left, we wanted something better, slower, organic and without all bells and whistles, just simple, honest family living.
Looking back we would do it all again, just several years earlier!
Kimberly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As I mentioned before, we purchased a small organic grocery store that neither of us had experience with. We joke around, but it’s true, if you’ve shopped at a grocery store before, you kind of know what goes into it. Pauwela Store is our families pride and joy. It is in a remote area of the island of Maui and cherished by our local neighbors and tourists alike.
We make every effort to source locally first and pride ourselves on the kama’aina (local) business relationships we have made along the way. We offer local grown organic produce when it’s in season, and boast an impressive wine and spirit collection.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
One of my many career ventures was designing and selling items on Amazon. We have since navigated away from creating and doing that, but it was a fun project and we learned a lot along the way. I purchased some software that was able to see and source algorithms from amazon of top selling items in particular categories. You could select and “watch” specific items to see how they were performing both on amazon sales and google trends.
At the time, sand free beach blankets were a new thing and trending really well. I decided to redesign them by making them more colorful, larger and added a storage pocket and neck pillow. The money to be made in selling top items is in your ability to differentiate them and make them better. We found a supplier and ordered our beach blankets. We created our own logo and launched our online store and sent our fulfillment items to amazon. We took all of our own marketing photos and were very successful selling them through Amazon. The minimum order quantities are steep leaving us with a healthy supply still at Amazon warehouses. Having purchased a brick and mortar business store of our own, we liquidated the Amazon supply and now sell them at our store, cutting out the middle man and reaping the benefits without having to pay Amazon fees.
Have you ever had to pivot?
When we purchased Pauwela Store it was all organic groceries only. Being in a more remote area of the island we immediately saw a need to be able to offer a, “something for everyone” approach that would allow us to provide some non-organic food staples and guilty pleasures and also offer a wider price point of products that are more affordable.
We are still true to our organic roots, but also offer a little bit of everything. The neighborhood customers appreciated our ability to differentiate our items and save them a trip “into town” to find mo9re staple groceries every uses.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pauwelastore.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauwelastore/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pauwelastoremaui/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8LkM4IQR00
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pauwela-store-haiku-pauwela
