Rising Stars: Meet Tom Kowach of Torrance, CA 90504

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tom Kowach.

Hi Tom, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story about Kauai Shave Ice company and Ko Craft brand products illustrates that it is never too late to start something new. My retirement gave me the opportunity to be creative, like I always wanted to be, and contribute more directly to the community.

My name is Tom. An entrepreneur mind-set was instilled within me from an early age, probably emanating from the great success I had with my front-yard lemonade stand when I was about 10 years old. It’s true, we lived across from a baseball field that held an annual pony league tournament. The location and the attraction of a young owner was a good recipe for success. The promise of the American dream of riches was also in the back of my mind, as I saw the struggles my parents had with making ends meet. In my teens, my good friend Johnny and I would talk for hours about starting our own businesses. With this mind set, I was always attracted to business news and events. I would evaluate products that I buy to see if I could think of a way to make them better or think of new ways to solve problems.

With no seed capital or solid means to start a business, I decided to look for a risk-free path with an engineering degree. It was a popular, in-demand vocation at the time. I graduated from Youngstown State University. I was lucky to get a job in the aerospace and defense industry here in El Segundo. My desire for financial stability was achieved but the thrill and personal rewards of being my own boss were missing.

During my spare time, while working my aerospace job, I pursued a few side hustles. This included an attempt at being an artist, a financial retirement app designer, Website designer and photography researcher and webmaster. All were a great learning experiences with varying degrees of success, but no viral moments.

My Kauai Shave Ice business evolved after I married a girl from the island of Kauai, Hawaii. We would travel back to visit with her family every year. The highlights of our trips, was always getting shave ice, saimin and lilikoi pie. I was always looking for a business that had distinct advantages. The shave Ice was the best on the islands and nothing compared to it here in southern California. I figured it would be an easy business to start and fun to work.

This was a perfect transition plan for a second life as my retirement from the defense industry was nearing after 31 years. I convinced our favorite Shave Ice provider on Kauai to help me launch my business and I am forever thankful for his help. I launched in 2013 and it was a slow start but it was overwhelmingly successful in customer satisfaction. The recipe of offering finely shaved, melt in your mouth shave ice, coupled with exceptionally balanced sweet and flavorful syrups ensured growth and success. I learned that product quality and professional service equates to value, profits and customer satisfaction.

I retired in Dec 2015. I was worried that I was peddling only a sugary treat with my shave ice. So, I wanted to add something more substantial to the menu to offset it. The obvious answer was SPAM® musubi. It was invented in Kauai, so it fit with my business perfectly. It is a delicious on-the-go snack. In contemplating this move, I did not find any easy solutions to making this product in quantity. There only existed a single and double molds. So, my solution to this problem was to design a nine-cavity mold, which matched the amount of SPAM® slices you get from a single SPAM® can using a common lunchmeat wire slicer. The protoype for the 9-cavity was made in a friend’s garage by his son who like welding things. It worked and was an immediate success with friends and restaurants. I submitted a provisional patent for my design 30 days after I retired. I wanted to include a few recipes with the mold on how to use it to make some of the musubi types that Hawaiian retailers were offering. I quickly realized there did not exist any readily available recipes, except for SPAM® musubi. So, my wife and I wrote the first cookbook dedicated to making Hawaiian-style musubi, which was published in Honolulu. As I continued to market the one musubi maker, customers began to steer me in a direction for their business needs. This evolved to the first full line of commercial quality musubi molds, that were durable and sanitary, made of stainless steel, along with first-time accessories like metal egg molds, silicone egg/filling molds and spatulas. I marketed them under the Ko Craft brand, a derivation of a brand name that we made up in my teenage years. I was lucky to have identified a growing trend with many restaurants adding musubi to their menu and many entrepreneurs starting musubi pop-ups. This was personally rewarding.

I think one of the qualities needed to be an enduring entrepreneur is to always be thinking of your next step. For example, even though I made a 9-cavity and before I even knew it would be successful, I was thinking about making an 18 cavity. I launched my kickstarter as Mo Bettah and Bambucha, or Bigger and better. But I always envisioned to call the 9-cavity, Mo Bettah and the 18-cavity, Bambucha. It took me 7 years to make the Bambucha after I made the Mo Bettah. All along I was always thinking of my business plan and pivoting when an understanding became clear and situation allowed for expansion. The 18-cavity is now fueling one of the fastest growing, fast casual, Hawaiian restaurant chains in the country.

I knew my next step would either be expanding the Shave Ice catering business to include retail or expanding my products into regular kitchen ware. The later was the easier path, The first entry for regular kitchware was the creation of a mold to make egg for Egg muffin at home, similar to egg McMuffin®. It came about due to info I learned by making the silicone mold for musubi. I devised a stove top poaching process to make the round egg easily and consistently. Another paradigm shift. I advertise it as the Nevah Leak egg mold.

The next step in my journey is the design of the missing link in kitchen mixing tools. I called it a Whixer™. Everyone uses the whisk, the spoon and the spatula for mixing ingredients. I found in my food prep experience that there needed to be a better way to mix ingredients. Whisks were good for watery things by cutting into the material. For thicker sauces, batters, mixes and doughs, cooks were left using a spoon or spatula. These tools just pushed ingredients in a bowl until they combined. What they really needed was a tool that would cut, push and blend. This was the inspiration for the Whixer™. When I mixed eggs, pancake batter and dumpling dough, I felt like there was a better way. And there is. I recently had the first two versions made, a Whixer™ and Whixer™ XL and the feedback is excellent so far.

I find the many dimensions to being a founder interesting and rewarding, from idea to product to marketing and all the processing in between. There is no better feeling then when you create something new with all the necessary operations around it and it makes a paying customer happy. Either with your special treat or a better way to do something, it is well worth all the hardships it took to get you there.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not really. My top challenges are 1) marketing and getting the word out about my business and products. I am more of an engineer than a marketing personality. 2) getting and coordinating help. Luckily my family, cousins and a few close friends have been helping me keep everything running smoothly. 3) Sourcing. Finding good suppliers to help make my products in a reliable and high quality manner. One needs to provide precise instruction and then monitor and direct activities in order to get the best products in a timely manner. 4) Office, storage and operations space as my company grows.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
In all my work I find having a creative and artistic background helps greatly to instill a more attractive appeal and understanding for customers. When I worked in aerospace my presentations always looked professional because I extensively used illustrative graphics to help make a point. As a photography researcher and webmaster my colorized etchings helped to support the story being told. In Kauai shave ice the setup, marketing and aesthetics plays a key role in conveying quality and a welcome message for customers.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Now a days the best way to collaborate is through Social media posting. I have seen the power influencers have in bringing about product and service awareness which translates well into sales. Another is to find retail outlets for my products. By far the hardest part for me is getting the word out. that is the best support I can receive. I appreciate you reaching out to me to help in this regard, Mahalo.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://KauaiShaveIce.com and https://MusubiMaker.com
• Instagram: @kauaiShaveIce. and @Kocraftco
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KoCraftCo
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kauai-shave-ice-torrance-6?osq=shave+ice

Image Credits
T. KOWACH