Last month, I attended a Entrepreneur Foundation Association event at the Waialae Country Club. It was a pleasant evening surrounded by innovative thinkers and doers, senior and youthful entrepreneurs. Quite an inspiring crowd. One of the highlights of my evening was meeting a young entrepreneur, Chris Beymer.
A few weeks later, he and I talked about his passion for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Q: Tell me a little bit about you, Chris?
Chris: I’m a junior at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the current Vice President of the Hawaii Student Entrepreneurs Club (HSE). I was born in Florida and grew up in Aspen Colorado. After graduating from Aspen High School in the Spring of 2014, I chose University of Hawaii at Manoa and began attending in Fall of 2014.
I’ve had many interests over the course of my life, my underlying interest would be that of entrepreneurship and the ability to create things in the physical world. At UHM, I began looking for people who had a similar interest and came upon the Hawaii Student Entrepreneurs club.
Q: That’s quite a promising path Chris. Can you tell me more about the HSE?
Chris: The club strives to promote entrepreneurship, support students who have started their own businesses, as well as, network with entrepreneurs in Hawaii. During my involvement with the club, I have held several roles. I started out as a member. Then, I moved into a Human Resource role and now I am the Vice President. I work alongside the rest of the HSE board members to create a semester full of entrepreneurial events. A few examples of what we do as a club: We go on company tours where the owner of a company shows us around their business and explains what they do. We host workshops that walk students through the steps of creating a legal business entity. We have a partnership with the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (PACE) at the Shidler College of Business. With our partnership we co-host “Entrepreneurship Live” events. This is where we bring in a well known entrepreneur to come and talk about their business and their personal journey. We also act as hub, connecting students with entrepreneurial resurces and professional entrepreneurs.
Q: How many students are members of the Hawaii Student Entrepreneurs club?
Chris: Right now HSE has roughly 50-60 active members and an email list of 500.
Q: Who started HSE?
Chris: HSE was started five years ago by the Co-Founders Kurt Cullen and Jessica Ching. Kurt has stepped into the role of advisor. Jessica is working on her career.
Q: How many members own their own businesses.
Chris: We’ve had 33 student owned companies as a part of the club.
Q: Can you share any examples of these companies or projects?
Travis Ito is the founder of Haven Apparel and Zaffee. Haven Apparel is a Hawaiian lifestyle clothing brand that Travis built while he was in HSE. Now Traven has graduated and has created Zaffee. Zaffee is a mobile app that connects people who need services provided with service providers. Basically Uber for labor. Traven Watase is the founder of Scholar’s App. Scholar’s App is a common application for scholarships, making it easier for students to apply and receive scholarships.
Q: Can you share where you might lead the club?
Chris: From here, we intend to continue our support for students starting their own businesses through connections with mentors and entrepreneurs in the community. We also intend on growing our network between students and entrepreneurs in Hawaii.
Q: Any message you’d like to share with students who might be looking to learn more about entrepreneurship? Or, learn more about HSE?
Chris: Sure thing, the HSE website is at hsentrepreneurs.com and we are also active on Facebook and Instagram. We also can be contacted through our email at info@hsentrepreneurs.com If people want to get in touch with me, my personal website is located at chrisbeymer.com
One last thing, the HSE board is looking for new board members for the upcoming Spring 2017 semester. If you enjoy any of the following, LEADERSHIP, EVENT PLANNING, DRIVE, PASSION, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, SERVICE, TEAMWORK, NETWORKING,
reach out to us.
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