Become the defining Pacific Soul artist — a household name across the Pacific, built from Hawai‘i. The Pacific is the territory and the life: making records at home, touring the region with my family.
The Passion
Twenty-plus years as an artist, three Stanford degrees, a music business in Year 5 — all self-funded from my own paycheck. I am doing this regardless. Anyone who joins isn’t starting the engine; they’re accelerating it.
The Plan
Phase 1: build the content engine — a live-filmed, 14-song collaboration album, My Life Is Just a Story. Phase 2: break through Hawai‘i radio and own Hawai‘i through distribution and promotion. Phase 3: expand the Pacific. Every target numbered.
The Ask
$260K across Phases 1 & 2, funded phase by phase and gated on milestones. Phase 1 — the album and the films — is $115K. Reach and recognition are what the money buys. Revenue is the receipt.
Proof · Nā Hōkū 2025 Finalist · Concord songwriter · 7.5M+ streams · in rotation on Hawai‘i radio · revenue-positive in Year 5
01Where this starts
The work already travels.
Warm, honest island soul from Hilo — songs about home, family, grief, and joy. The foundation below is built. What investment buys is speed and altitude.
Awards & Wins
Nā Hōkū Hanohano 2025 Finalist — R&B/Soul Album of the Year · Mana Maoli & Hawaiʻi Songwriting Festival contest wins · Stanford's Carolyn Applebaum Award for Music.
7.5M+ Streams
“Dreams” with Robot Koch (3M+) · “Tales of Luria” (3M+) and “Overboard” (1.5M+), cut by Sail North.
Notable Syncs & Partners
ABC · Sony/Crackle · The Criterion Collection · YETI · Ariat — signed to Concord Music Publishing, Nashville Sync Camp invitee.
Radio Momentum
In rotation: Q103 FM · KPOA 93.5 · KOKO 96.3 · Hawaiʻi Reggae Network — on-air with the Hōkū Awards/Hawaii News Now, Nā Leo TV & Hawaiʻi Public Radio.
Education
Stanford University — B.A. · M.A. in Music, Science & Technology · MBA.
Hawaiʻi Creative Economy
Alumni: Hale Kua incubator (competition winner) · Creative Media Lab Hawaiʻi cohort · Purple Maiʻa · Henry Kapono Foundation.
02The person behind the plan
I've lived a few lives to get here.
I'm from Hāna, and I live in Hilo — a Kanaka Maoli, Tongan, and Filipino son, husband, and father of three young kids. I've been an artist for more than twenty years, and I've lived a few lives inside of it: performer, producer, entrepreneur, builder.
Right now I pay the bills as a tech product executive, working and writing remote. That job has funded every master, every relationship, and every lesson on this page. This plan is how the music stops being the thing I protect — and becomes the thing I do.
None of it works without my wife. She is the partnership underneath everything here — the reason a father of three can build a catalog at night and still be present in the morning.
I left home to see how far the world went. I came home because this is where the songs live. Now I'm asking for the fuel to carry them across the ocean.
03What's already built
The assets of an independent artist.
Everything below was built without a label — every master, every relationship, every lesson, mine.
3
Albums released
70+
Songs in a working sync catalog
5
Sync & publishing partners
2
Custom ad tracks landed this month — local Hawaiʻi businesses
40+
Small-business pipeline — custom music for short & long-form video ads, Hawaiʻi & Pacific
Yr 5
LLC (S-Corp) · good standing in Hawaiʻi · straight books
The studio & the business
A music production studio, owned and operated in downtown Hilo — run through an LLC (S-Corp) in its fifth year of operation.
Sync & publishing relationships
Marmoset Music · PEN Music Group · Secret Road · Position Music · Concord Music
Memberships
Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts · Hawaiʻi Songwriters Festival
Investment doesn't start this engine — it fuels one already running, on straight books.
04The North Star
Become the defining Pacific Soul artist.
The reach, recognition, and revenue of a full Pacific-region career. One ocean, one market: Hawaiʻi, Japan, Korea, Aotearoa, Australia, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, the Philippines, and the Pacific coasts of the Americas — bound by ocean, culture, and sound.
First — the doorway
Breakthrough Hawaiʻi Radio
Rotation, relationships, recognition at home. The credential that opens everything above it.
Then
Breakthrough Hawaiʻi
The cultural capital of the Pacific — the audience, venues, artists, and press every regional market respects.
The summit
The Pacific
The full region — reach, recognition, and revenue across every coast the ocean touches.
Every dollar and hour in this plan climbs this ladder.
05How the three R's work
The flywheel.
Investment buys reach and recognition. Revenue is the receipt.
Reach
The audience
Followers, listeners, and rooms — built with content, radio, and shows.
Recognition
The co-signs
Industry, radio, press, and artists — turns audience into credibility.
Revenue
The receipt
Live, studio, and catalog income — proof for the Foundation, fuel for the wheel.
↺ …and revenue reinvests into reach. The wheel turns faster with every cycle — every dollar of investment is a push on the wheel, not a plug in a gap.
06The plan in one line
Thirty-six months. Three phases.
A phased campaign powered by a content engine, funded by $300K — with reach, recognition, and revenue targets at every stage.
Phase I · Months 0–12
Breakthrough Hawaiʻi Radio
Reach
10K monthly listeners · 20K combined social following · 50 shows
Recognition
3 major stations per island in rotation · 8 collaboration radio stories · first Hawaiʻi press wave
Revenue
$140K Year-1 revenue · My Life Is Just a Story recorded, filmed & releasing
Phase II · Months 13–24
Own Hawaiʻi
Reach
35K monthly listeners · 50K combined social · 65 shows · every major Hawaiʻi venue played
Recognition
Charting singles · Nā Hōkū campaign · Hana Hou & Hawaii News Now features · Keep It Aloha, Chinatown Social & HI Sessions
Revenue
$240K revenue run-rate · second album cycle begins
Phase III · Months 25–36
Expand the Pacific
Reach
75K monthly listeners · 105K combined social · 75 shows · NZ/Australia + Japan performed
~$350K revenue · ~$250K operating profit · sync income compounding
07The Year-1 anchor
My Life Is Just a Story.
A live collaboration album — recorded and filmed at Island Sound Studios.
Cut live, with a live band
Full-band sessions at Island Sound Studios — the record breathes the way the shows do.
Every song filmed, one take
Each track captured as a live performance film in the Scary Pockets style: one room, one band, one performance — built to travel on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
The engine's Year-1 fuel
Every song ships three ways — a single, a performance film, and weeks of short-form cuts — feeding radio, socials, and streaming all year.
Collaborating artists
Henry Kapono
Kamalani
Keilana
Analea Brown
Pohai
Seven Suns
Payton Sullivan
Jason Arcilla
Natalia Pikula (The Jets)
Eight collaborations — eight cross-audiences, eight radio stories, and the strongest possible Nā Hōkū narrative.
Every target collaborator is a cross-audience, a co-sign, and a doorway — mapped to the rung it opens.
Hawaiʻi
The home audience
Josh Tatofi
Anuhea
Justin Young
Irie Love
Eli Mac
Johnny Suites
Izik
Tavana
Kalaʻe Parish
The Pacific
Across the water
TEEKS
Stan Walker
Sammy Johnson
Tribe of Ope
The Bridge
Mainland soul kin
Allen Stone
Teddy Swims
Jack Johnson
Dre Scott
Eight collaborations are already confirmed for the album — this is the circle the album opens next.
09Reach · digital
Grow the audience — every number dated.
Digital platform
Month 12
Month 24
Month 36
Instagram
10,000
25,000
50,000
TikTok
7,500
20,000
40,000
YouTube
3,000
8,000
15,000
Spotify monthly listeners
10,000
35,000
75,000
Apple Music monthly listeners
3,000
10,000
25,000
Email list
2,500
7,500
15,000
SMS list
1,000
3,500
7,500
Owned audience first — email and text are the direct lines no algorithm controls.
10Reach · live
A live audience in every Pacific sub-region.
50 → 75
Shows per year, Yr 1 to Yr 3
150 → 500
Avg. paid audience per headline show
5+
Pacific sub-regions performed by M36
The sequence — one region at a time: Year 1 Hawaiʻi + US West Coast · Year 2 Aotearoa NZ or Australia, Japan · Year 3 the Pacific Islands circuit, Korea or the Philippines. Two trips per new region — relationships first, then the shows. No region entered without a booking anchor.
11Recognition
Known first by the people who spread it.
Booking agents, venue owners, radio personalities, press, and artists — the inner circle whose recognition creates recognition.
Target
Month 12
Month 24
Month 36
Hawaiʻi radio
3 major stations per island
6+ stations + a charting single
Every major island station
Podcasts & digital venues
8 appearances
20
36, incl. regional Pacific
Press features
4 local
10, incl. 2 regional
20, incl. international
Artist collaborations
8 — the album's features
12 released
15+, incl. Pacific-region
Industry relationships
100 managed
200
300
Nā Hōkū Hanohano
New-work submission
Nomination
The win
12Revenue
$250K operating profit by Year 3.
Three engines carry the number — live shows, studio production, and catalog — with the ~$250K revenue run-rate crossed by the end of Year 2, and sync income compounding on top. Streaming is treated as marketing; revenue anchors in live, studio, and sync.
Year 1
$140K
Year 2
$240K
Year 3
$350K
Live showsStudio productionCatalog / syncOther
13How the numbers move
One engine, four systems.
The Content Production Engine
Year 1 anchors on My Life Is Just a Story — a live-filmed collaboration album whose every song ships as a single, a performance film, and 4–6 short-form cuts. 20+ masters over 24 months. Music creates the asset; content carries it across the Pacific.
Hawaiʻi radio campaigns
Professionally promoted singles every 8–10 weeks, backed by station relationships and on-air appearances.
Booking & outreach systems
CRM-driven venue, radio, press, and sync pipelines — an agent-assisted back office so my hours stay on stage and in the studio.
Catalog & rights infrastructure
Every master registered, metadata-complete, and actively pitched for sync — compounding income the calendar can't cap.
Pacific market development
Relationship-first trips, strictly sequenced — never more than one new region per two quarters.
14The team
One artist, all in — a team built around him.
Role
Type
When
Est. cost
Video editor
Contractor, part-time
Month 1
$2,000 / mo
Videographer / photographer
Per shoot
Month 1
$1,500 / mo avg
Radio promoter (Hawaiʻi)
Per campaign
Month 2
$2,500 / single
Publicist (Hawaiʻi → Pacific)
Campaign retainers
Month 4
$2,000 / mo avg
Operations VA
Part-time
Month 6
$1,250 / mo
Mix / master engineers
Per song
Ongoing
$800 / song
Booking agent (regional)
Commission
Year 2
10–15% of shows
15Strategic partners for acceleration
Two in place. Six being recruited.
Concord Music Publishing
Sync & publishing home, out of Nashville — in place since signing.
Henry Kapono Foundation
This partnership: capital, mentorship, and community.
Role
Best match
Why the match
Booking & touring
Ineffable Music Group · Bamp Project (Hawaiʻi)
They own the island-soul circuit — venues, festivals, Pacific routing, artist-ownership ethos.
Press & publicity
Shore Fire Media + a Hawaiʻi press desk
Roots-and-soul storytelling with national reach, grounded locally.
Management & A&R
Island/soul-lane artist development
A partner built for the Pacific expansion phases.
Record label
Concord Records
Deepen the existing publishing home — or stay independent with label services.
Distribution
Stem (Concord-owned) — upgrade from DistroKid
Automated collaborator splits for the album, plus real label services.
Sponsors
Hawaiian Airlines · Waiākea · Manaola · Pacific Media Group · Takamine · BOSS · Shure · Canon
Travel, water, fashion, media & gear aligned with the brand and the road.
16The investment
$300K over 24 months, milestone-gated.
Investment area
Primarily drives
Budget
Catalog production — the live album + singles
Revenue + Reach
$45,000
Content engine — editor, video, design
Reach
$75,000
Hawaiʻi radio campaigns — 8–10 singles
Recognition
$25,000
PR & publicity — publicist, award campaigns
Recognition
$35,000
Paid audience growth
Reach
$25,000
Pacific market development — 3 regions
Reach + Revenue
$50,000
Operations, systems & contingency
All
$45,000
Total
$300,000
$110K
At launch
Album sessions at Island Sound booked & filmed, content engine live, first two radio campaigns.
$110K
Month 9 — gated
Released on: 3 stations in rotation, 10K monthly listeners, 40+ shows booked.
$80K
Month 18 — gated
Released on: Year-1 revenue hit, first off-island market open, Hōkū campaign underway.
At $150K, the plan executes Hawaiʻi-only over 24 months — Phases I–II, with Pacific expansion self-funded later. At $300K, all three phases run on schedule.
17The first believer
The wheel is already turning.
Tim Sunderland funded Nā Leo TV's Beyond the Mix — the series whose on-air feature became one of my first recognition catapults.
Years later, he came to a Henry Kapono Foundation–booked show and heard the music live. He stepped forward — through the Foundation — to back this plan directly, alongside KAPA Hawaiian FM's Kahikina: another open door into island radio.
Recognition he funded became reach. Reach became a room. The room became a commitment. That is the flywheel — already turning.
Committed capital → where it lands
Album recording
My Life Is Just a Story — the Year-1 anchor: live sessions at Island Sound, filmed, eight collaborations. Covers the catalog-production line.
Travel
Pacific market development — the region-by-region expansion: relationship trips first, then the shows.
Every remaining dollar in the investment table accelerates what this commitment has already set in motion.
My commitment
Time, team, money.
Time
This is my sole professional focus outside the day job that funds the transition. Minimum four short-form videos a week, a release every 6–8 weeks, 50+ shows a year, every industry relationship personally maintained.
Money
100% of Year 1–2 operating profit is reinvested into the plan. Founder compensation comes only from the engines I already sustain — the Foundation's investment goes to growth, never lifestyle.
Accountability
Quarterly reports against every target on this page, a live KPI dashboard shared with the Foundation, tranches released only when milestones are met. If a number slips, the report says so — and says why.
Risks, named honestly
Key-person risk
The business runs through one artist. Mitigation: catalog and sync income compound independent of my calendar; systems and team reduce operational dependence on me.
Radio gatekeeping
Hawaiʻi radio is relationship-driven and slow. Mitigation: professional promoters, sustained campaigns, and eight album collaborations with established island artists who open doors.
Streaming economics
Streams alone don't pay. Mitigation: streaming is marketing; revenue is anchored in live, studio, and sync.
Expansion cost
International touring can burn cash. Mitigation: strict sequencing, relationship-first trips, no region entered without a booking anchor.
