She creates markets for student entrepreneurs in Hawai‘i

Taylor Yuen, Founder & CEO @ Keiki Makers Market and Founder @ Amataya

You can reach Taylor at keikimakersmarket@gmail.com

Inno Under 25

I spoke with Taylor Yuen about her story, business, and ideas for making Hawai‘i a better place.

At the end of our conversation, I asked her how I could find more entrepreneurs like her. She told me to Google the “Inno Under 25” awards sponsored by Pacific Business News. The awards recognize young business innovators under 25 years old (oddly similar to what I’m looking for).

Then I said something along the lines of “This is really cool; how did you hear about it?”

Taylor is humble, so she hesitated for a couple of seconds before admitting that she received the award!

That’s awesome.

She won the award for starting Keiki Makers Market, a student entrepreneurship program that provides resources and mentorship for local student business owners on Oʻahu.

I love it when people get recognized for their hard work. You can read her feature in Pacific Business News here.

Taylor is an amazing person. No offense to Pacific Business News, but I think you’ll find this profile much more interesting.

Here is Taylor’s story.

Taylor’s entrepreneurial journey began in high school. It was the peak of COVID and the pandemic hurt many local families financially.

Her school partnered with Mana Up, a local startup accelerator, and started an initiative to raise money for the financial aid fund that supports student scholarships.

She jumped in.

“I joined that initiative and started my own business to help raise funds for our school,” she said. “I fell in love with being able to help people with something I’m passionate about.”

Mana Up provided workshops, resources, and a sales platform for student entrepreneurs to market and sell their products. Revenue generated from these student businesses was directed to financial aid.

She called her business Amataya, and she started selling embroidered tote bags, turning one of her hobbies into a business!

Nah, just kidding. She didn’t know anything about embroidering.

“At the time, I didn’t even know how to embroider,” she said. “I learned it solely for the purpose of making these tote bags to sell for this initiative.”

She saw a new opportunity and pounced on it.

Taylor still runs Amataya today, where she offers a mix of branding, social media marketing, and promotional services.

Toward the end of high school, she decided to become more active in her school’s entrepreneurship club. She participated in a few student markets and used that to create a vision for a larger project.

“I really saw the potential for something like craft fairs that happen across the island,” she said.

She contacted the director of the Children’s Discovery Center and learned that, before COVID, the center used to host a student swap meet.

She brought it back to life in the form of Keiki Makers Market.

What is Keiki Makers Market?

I’ll let you listen to Taylor in her own words. She was featured on KHON2 back in July (so cool!).

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Taylor wants to make entrepreneurship as accessible as possible for young people. Her program looks a bit like this:

A young entrepreneur, anyone from kindergarten to university, can apply to the program. Taylor and her team review the application and accept these entrepreneurs to participate in markets as a student vendor.

Right now, the program hosts four markets a year. The latest had over 30 student vendors and was hosted at SALT in Kakaʻako.

Along with these markets, the program provides workshops and Vendor 101 training to support young entrepreneurs.

The next market is on November 10 from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the Children’s Discovery Center.

Ideas for the future

“In 2025 our focus as a team will be building our programs.”

While Taylor is proud of the work Keiki Makers Market has done, she wants to expand in a few key areas.

She wants to start a one-on-one mentorship program, not just for entrepreneurs, but for students in general. She wants to connect students to industry professionals.

“Entrepreneurship is not something that is really taught in school. Not regularly at least,” Taylor said.

She wants to reach a scale where revenue goes back to the students. The whole goal is to absorb costs and make things accessible so young people can grow their ideas.

Eventually, she would also like to make a starter grant program to support students, similar to accelerator programs.

Take a look at the participants in some of the previous markets.

“These students are doing such incredible things and we really want to share their stories and their work with the community.”

2 Takeaways from my conversation with Taylor

1. Good ideas don’t always need to be “original”

Keiki Makers Market was not the first pop-up market in Hawaiʻi. Nor was it the first market created for student vendors. However, Taylor took an existing idea and made it into her own design.

I have featured six entrepreneurs so far in this newsletter, and they all speak about some form of the “planning obstacle.” That is, the feeling that one needs a completely unique, unprecedented master plan to start a business.

The stories of these entrepreneurs tell us that, well, that may not be completely true.

When she started Amataya, Taylor didn’t even know how to embroider. That speaks volumes.

2. Take advantage of existing resources!

• Ashten Akemoto joined forces with an entrepreneur who had access to a warehouse full of robotics “toys.”

• Kaya Waldman started her journey through a program offered at Kauaʻi Community College.

• Kia Yang got involved at the UH student venture fund.

• Taylor Yuen started her journey through resources provided by Mana Up.

These young entrepreneurs didn’t manifest resources out of thin air (wouldn’t that be nice!). They identified and tapped into existing resources that aided them immensely on their journey.

That should be welcome news to aspiring young entrepreneurs.