Rewriting the Mission

Posted on Sep 05, 2024

This is part of a series of emails/blog posts as we work through some website updates! More to come.

As a naive 22-year-old, I wrote our original mission statement in 2007: "Become the most amazing company in the entire world... and build good canoes while we're at it."

It was hard to imagine then that I'd still be building canoes in 2024. But here we are. We have built a lot of good canoes—something like 4,000 of them— totaling around 300,000 hours of labor, leading to millions of hours of use on the ocean, countless waves, and an infinite amount of stoke.

We've made thousands of memories, employed hundreds of people, and mentored dozens of students. We've cultivated an incredible and supportive customer base (that's you!) who pay a premium for the things we craft. We pioneered the unlimited class of sixmans and experimented with dozens of prototype canoes. During 2020, we made nearly a million face shields in a pivot we never expected; nonetheless, a challenge met with purpose, pride, and unimaginable speed. We have built our latest shop from scratch, with a million dollars of advanced manufacturing equipment. And I can proudly say that we are good at building canoes. The Noio is lighter, stronger, and better built than anything we've ever done.

But, the most amazing company in the world? Laughable. We're not even the top company in the building we occupy. We struggle to break even most years. With some regularity, when enough canoes have gone out the door each Friday, we joke that we survived another week. But it's not a joke. We remain perched on the narrow precipice between failure and eeking out a meager survival. It's a constant battle to keep operations functional, let alone efficient. We struggle to market our canoes and story and have survived by working crazy hours without expecting short-term financial returns. We've made wild strategic errors when we had working capital and debt financing. And, after 17 years, it feels like we're still figuring it out.

But the purpose and the need to exist remain. It's more vital than ever. Canoe building needs to exist in Hawaii. It's one of the oldest trades in the world. It's culturally significant. And the American in me won't accept China straight-up being better than us at making most things. In Hawai'i, where manufacturing is next to non-existent, we must maintain some industrial capacity (our pivot to face shields confirmed it's critical to a resilient society) and prove that local youth don't have to move away to do extraordinary things. Outrigger canoes are the one thing I can stand up for, face the world, and say we can do it best. Not the cheapest or in the most quantity, but the best.

As I consider the next 17 years of Kamanu Composites, we must ensure Hawaiian outrigger canoes are made in Hawai'i. And so, after all these years, here's a little update to our mission: "Build the best outrigger canoes as locally and sustainably as possible." That's it. It embodies our core belief in crafting a great product from start to finish the best way we know how. And while we can't predict the future, this is one thing we'll hold close to our core.

Keizo Gates
Co-founder/Designer/Engineer
Kamanu Composites, LLC
We Build Canoes