Franchise Success and Community Service with Adam Marumoto

Watch or Listen to the full episode

Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE: 
Welcome back, and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, we’ll buy it. I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio. And if you have any questions, you can reach us at 799, 9596 or check us out online at Team lally.com Our

ATTILIO: 
guest today is a dedicated entrepreneur and community minded business owner who has been serving smiles across Oahu since 2015 as the franchisee of Kona ice in Kapolei and Ewa beach areas. His he’s built a mobile business that brings Cool Treats and even cooler moments to school, sports events and local fundraisers, known

ADRIENNE: 
for his aloha spirit, consistency and love, for giving back. He’s not just running a business, he’s creating joyful experiences, one colorful shaved ice at a time, whether it’s a neighborhood event or a school fundraiser, he shows up ready to serve and support. Please welcome our guest. Adam Marumoto,

ATTILIO: 
Hi, Adam.

ADAM: 
Wow. What a nice intro. I didn’t expect that. Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
hey, you know, we’re running a, we’re running a professional radio show. No, we just, you know, before we like, Oh, get the corner ice guy. You can come talk story and then when he was doing the show in the beginning. But we’re like, Hey, we gotta step it up a little bit. But ya know how we met, for the listeners, is that we sponsored an event in Adrienne and Laura’s neighborhood, and we was giving out free shave ice. We was knocking on the doors. It was a nice, hot day. It’s very hot, very hot day, and Adam was over there with your with the Kona ice, just cooling all the neighbors off. Yeah, cool in all the neighbors. I had some of those too. Yeah? A lot of smiles. I mean,

ADAM: 
their bicycles and scooters, and the family stopped by with their cars. It was really nice, yeah,

ATTILIO: 
and then we was like, I and I had come with my son, but he’s 17, going on 18 this summer, and he remembers playing soccer at at the Kapolei regional park, you know, over there by the James candle built building. He’s like, he remembers this truck. And I was like, Yeah, you as a kid, he had to go slap because he was putting your mouth underneath the syrup spigot. No, put your mouth underneath the syrup spigot. But no, I know. I It’s, it’s,

ADRIENNE: 
do kids really do that? Adam, well, here

ADAM: 
and there, you know? Yeah, once a year.

ATTILIO: 
Once a year, driving down the street, get the kids stuck on the back for the syrups, hanging onto the truck because they saw a dick, keep you shooting up. But it’s shave ice. I mean, everybody knows Matsumoto shave ice from the North Shore. And, you know, shave ice has been in our in Hawaii’s culture for a long time. Tell us about this franchise, because, until you said it, I had the same misconception. I thought it started in Hawaii because it’s going to ice, but, but where did, yeah, yeah. Tell us the story.

ADAM: 
Yeah, I mean it. It did not already. It did not start here. Originally from in Hawaii, southern Kentucky, in 2007 Yeah, I found it completely by mistake. I wasn’t even looking for shave ice. I’d never thought about getting into this business, but I was looking into fundraising and community rooted type of, if I could find something that was along that line, that was community, yeah, babies, community rooted, and that’s how I end finding it. So, yeah, my original goal was not to get a shave ice business, but when I find out, when I found out about Kona ice, yeah, and the fundraising. Aspect of it, and getting involved with the schools, the youth sports, YMCA, the Boys and Girls Clubs and that kind of thing, and doing the fundraising, and then trying to grow the business that way, yeah, it kind of opened up my eyes, and I and I reached out to a nice in Kentucky, influence Kentucky, and did my application process and eventually got started and but by that time, they were already on ice franchises here in Oahu and in Maui. Wow. So I was lucky to get one, and I started in Kapolei, like, like, it’s 10 years ago. Started in Kapolei, and we kind of grew from there. Another thing I liked about the business is the low calorie, all natural, yes, vitamin, vitamin infused syrups, stevia and Turkey and sugar. And I kind of like that idea as well, because, you mean, it’s easier to get out there and, and, you know, deal with the schools and, uh, yeah, youth leagues. When we do have a more it’s, uh, we’re not competing with Matsumoto, we’re not competing with the high end side. And it’s, it’s not as expensive, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s a volume thing and a healthier version, and a fundraising aspect. And I kind of opened my eyes and, and I kind of wanted to go into that, that direction,

ATTILIO: 
you know, talk about the flavors. I thought it, I don’t remember, because I wouldn’t get them, and then I got it, and then I was like, what I like is you can put as much as the you self serve the syrup, because you have those syrup dispensers in the back, on the back side of not

ADRIENNE: 
on the back. You always have the same flavors. Or did they swap out? About these

ATTILIO: 
flavors? What it seemed

ADAM: 
Yeah, exciting, is it? It’s a self serve, yeah, basically. And the kids love it. About his eye level two and average six, seven year old kid, it’s eye level and they can they flavor their own shave ice to give them the blank shave ice, and they’ll do their flavoring. We have 10 flavors outside the truck. The most popular with the kids are, like, blue vanilla, the local favorite. And then you have lehing boy. And then you have tiger blood. Tiger blood has, like a coconut flavoring. This is in there with this cherry and strawberry type so you get pina colada and stuff like

ATTILIO: 
that. I can’t imagine the flavoring from Kentucky. Hey, oh, Siam, go ahead and get me some of that Lee hing moey syrup. We got to send it out to Adam and hope no, or you got to make that local. How did that work out? It’s a local

ADAM: 
theory, yes. So we have to get that one from a local distributor, but they know about it. Yeah, yeah. Kona is on it? They’ve heard of lean way before. Yes, they don’t make their own. So we get that from a local, local distributor, but the rest of them we ordered from corporate.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, yeah. Because Have you imagined like in Kentucky? There they have

ADRIENNE: 
different flavors in Kentucky,

ATTILIO: 
daddy, give me some of that. Lee shave, what the heck are you talking boy, but, yeah, but I think favorites out there, what kind one? Yeah. Have you heard of any flavors in the mainland that are like that are popular there, but we haven’t seen them here.

ADAM: 
Oh, there’s hundreds. Yeah. Orange dreamsicle. Which orange dreamsicle they got? Like, cotton candy, yeah? Let me see nothing, yeah,

ATTILIO: 
yeah. So very

ADAM: 
popular in the mainland, and we carry once, and also change up the flavors every once in a while, so we’re not stuck with the same ones all the time.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. And I noticed that the like, so you gotta the shave ice is very, like fluffy they have, like, some,

ADRIENNE: 
yeah, what’s your secret to the fluffy ice? What’s

ATTILIO: 
the secret to the fluffy ice? It’s just

ADAM: 
a good shaver. Yeah, they provide all the equipment for us. Is it good? It’s a high powered shaver. We use cubed ice. We don’t use a block, and it comes out really fast. But of course, it’s not going to meet that level of fluffiness, like, you know, your brick and mortar type, yeah? But it

ATTILIO: 
happens. I kind of

ADAM: 
wanted that happy to hear that, but yeah, it’s not, it’s fine, but it comes out pretty fluffy. Yeah, it’s a high speed shaver. We use cubed ice instead of the big block, yeah, yeah. So the key to speed as well. Because, you know, sometimes we got a lineup of kids, you know, whole team comes with other kids to come. I know we can pretty much serve them within, you know, quick 30 seconds, one one minute, everybody has a shoe rice in their hand, you know,

ATTILIO: 
yeah. And they’re all fighting over the spigots and stuff. So when they’re doing that on there, right, right, right.

ADRIENNE: 
Adrienne, so Adam, I know that, like a big part of this business was for you, was like the community and the fundraising. How exactly does the fundraising work with the Kona ice

ADAM: 
they’ll schedule Well, everyone is different. Schools schedule us for a fundraising appointment, especially then. Or after the school day and or like a meet and greet day, or Movie Night, that kind of thing. And we’ll park at the school everyone will know that we’re coming, and we run the sale, and we give back 25% of our sales for their for their needs. And then sports is a little bit different. If we can get a truck to a sporting event, and they can reserve us a parking Yeah, can we get our permits all lined up like a soccer tournament? Flag Football is kind of big right now? Yeah, soccer, baseball tournaments are big, and they can reserve us a really nice spot, and we have the truck available, we’ll stay there. We’ll do the same thing. We run the sale for the entire duration of the tournament. Yeah, and, and then we’ll, we’ll donate 25% as well. Let it check to donate to for their, you know, they gotta buy trophies. They gotta maybe sponsoring a team that’s traveling, or maybe pay for some of the referees, or, you know, stuff like that. So whatever can help them. And, yeah, we just try and schedule it in when we can. We’re not always available. But yeah, we try to prioritize to those kind of things,

ATTILIO: 
you know, what if I like, what if I like, just you come in my neighborhood because I like, fundraise, because I need to go to Vegas. I don’t know if I want

ADAM: 
those kind of telephone calls

ATTILIO: 
like, oh, you know, I never save enough in my 401 K can you come fundraise for my retirement? I know he’d be like, oh, yeah, I need that truck over here now. But

ADRIENNE: 
how many? How many trucks do you have? Adam, is it just the one, or you have multiple

ADAM: 
started off with one in 2015 now we have three. Oh, wow, we’re gonna stop there. Probably I can only drive one at a time. Yeah, and we got like five employees, so yeah, he get busy sometimes. Yeah, and not everybody can work seven days a week. So we just

ATTILIO: 
Hey real quick, what’s your what’s the phone number? People can call to book. You give me the phone number.

ADAM: 
It’s 808551904605519046,

ADRIENNE: 
okay, but they have to be in whatever or couple a right, in order to to work

ADAM: 
with you. We basically service all it from my Well, we have zip codes. Yes, we have, we have, yeah, there’s five konai trucks on the island. Our family has three articles run from Manoa all the way through to Kapolei. Oh, wow, even if you even because we we refer each other to, yeah, we just call you business, yeah, I refer business to the other owners, and they do the same for us. Yeah, because, you know, they have, they get over books sometimes, and we do too. And sometimes it’s low and sometimes it’s really busy, but it seems like everybody wants the coin ice truck at the same time. So sometimes we actually, yeah, you gotta, we gotta share. We gotta share.

ATTILIO: 
And you guys are like, You guys aren’t like, you know, the monopoly truck driving down neighborhoods, right? You’re always at fixed events.

ADAM: 
Um, if we have time in between, yeah, we drive around. Like, I might have a birthday party, you know, at noon, and I might have a restaurant at three. And, yeah, I’m out on the road this two hours. We might stop at the parks here and there, and people are like, waiting us down, and families come running over, that kind of thing. Or, you know, sometimes we’ll do

ATTILIO: 
that. It used to be like, I mean, back in the day, I was born and raised here, Manny, every truck, I don’t care what it was selling, we always called it the manapua truck. Do people come up to you say, Is this a monopoly truck? Do you have right to start

ADAM: 
the business that way? Because my first truck got here in 2015 Yeah, we basically had to go out, because very little appointments at all, you know, people didn’t know the business was. And I had to pass out a lot of business cards, and, yeah, to give a lot of free samples. And yeah, I had to drive around and maybe Shin couple, and meet a lot of families and teachers and coaches that way, and kids, you know, did you started off kind of like that?

ATTILIO: 
You started that way in manapua truck style. Do you guys, do you have music? Doesn’t just play music or you just, yeah, you know, it’s like Pavlov’s Pavlov’s dog. When you see here that music, we started salivating already, and then and then. But hey, I don’t know. It seems like COVID kind of took a hit on all those manapua trucks, but I wish they would come back and back in the day, because you would, you get everything over there. You could get, like, socks, t shirt, fried noodles, manapua ice cream. No, no clothing, but it was just, it was, yeah, everybody called it the manapua truck, no matter, even it was just ice cream. You call them the

ADAM: 
monopoly truck. But some of the old those who left

ATTILIO: 
out there. I feel going, Yeah, still going, but the the last thing you know, we have a lot of entrepreneurs, listen to the show. What would be your advice to someone looking to be, you know, become an entrepreneur like yourself, like what was part of the key of the keys of. The decision making process for you to choose this franchise and be an entrepreneur,

ADAM: 
I would say, be patient, but plan ahead. And, you know, I, I didn’t think of this doing this overnight. It was something that I had done a bunch of research, and we came down to a few selections of what I wanted to do. And I, like I said, I stumbled upon this by luck, yeah, I was looking at the fundraising aspect and a community based something I could build from within a community, and it could grow for, you know, for years, and maybe even a generation and capacity to my kids, something like that. And I, and I stumbled upon this. And it told me, when I saw the business model of Kona ice, I saw, you know what I mean. It kind of fell exactly into what I was thinking ahead of time about my goal, yeah. And then when you find it, you know, hopefully you can find it, but take your time. Look for something that totally makes sense. Yeah, makes sense for you. And then when you find it, I would say, shed the timing for yourself and and and go for it, but you forgot to do it.

ATTILIO: 
Go for it. Yeah, this is a it’s a known fact from the Small Business Association, but something like 90% of mom and pop businesses don’t make it past five years, but about 90% of franchises make it past the five year mark. So good job hanging in there and doing it and growing the business. And

ADRIENNE: 
so Adam, do your kids? Do they do they currently help you with with the business? Are they driving the other trucks yet? Or no,

ADAM: 
they’re in the military, but when they come home, they’re more than willing to help out here and there. But yeah, they live abroad. Gotcha. But the plan is to keep it going until, you know, they retire and take a move on. Well, yeah, or at least manage it. Or, yeah, that’d be really nice. Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
yeah. So your kids wasn’t small enough where, when you and pick them up from school, you picked them up in the corner ice

ADAM: 
van in high school already? Yeah, they’re good. They’re graduating and out of high school, basically, when it’s in 2015 when I started,

ATTILIO: 
that would have been cool to go pick them up at school. Yeah, that’s your dad. Yeah, no, and, but, you know, they could have, I mean, did any of them take the Kona ice truck to prom or anything?

ADAM: 
No, it took a little slog to, you know, buy something at the store. Yeah. Even the keys, they go, Yeah, put gas for me. And, you know, go get dinner at the store and come back to buy shave ice. And they’re like, no, no, we’re closed.

ATTILIO: 
The kids all chasing you down the street. You know, in your neighborhood, every time you come your house, they’re like, chasing you down the street. Yeah? You ever, you ever arrived at your house and had one child stuck to your bumper?

ADAM: 
He’s waiting at my house? Yeah? Bumper, like, Oh, it is waiting to

ADRIENNE: 
come back. You’re

ATTILIO: 
like, I’m gonna have a beach, and I where you came from. Oh, when you was in Manoa, I went jump on. I wrote them all on the H tree. Everybody was waving you thought he was like, you’re like, Oh, I’m very popular with this Kona ice truck. They were waving at you, but they were telling you that there was a child on your rear bumper that was drinking from the from the spigots. Anyway, that would be a good cool promo, like this corner ice is so good the kids, they just, they can’t resist it in the h1 freeway with the kid on the back bumper. But that is a good one. Yeah. Um, any Adrienne, you had something?

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah? I mean, we’re coming near to the end of our show. Is there anything that we haven’t touched on yet that we should that our your listeners need to know about Kona Ice, Oh, give us

ATTILIO: 
the phone number one more time. Yeah. Oh, it’s 808-551-9046,

ADAM: 
all right. And you know, like being community based is really great, and fundraising is really great. But then they come seasons as well. And then that’s when we really get the other thing. We select the kids, birthday parties, graduation parties, and we get anniversaries. We get we get a lot of safety week for companies that are hiring, you know, vendors for safety week to reward the employees are, like, beat the heat summer things for their business, when they surprise their employees with, you know, something in the summer. Yeah, we do family reunions, we’ve done weddings, we’ve done so, like I said, at least the start in the middle of the business, through the community there to go get a telephone number, because their telephone numbers and on all of our trucks, yes, and then and your name, you know, yeah, my name is on the truck. So it grows from the from the from being community rooted. And we get happy occasions, and we get some sad occasions too. But we do a lot of, we do a lot of that kind of thing, you know, yeah, yeah. Celebration. Oh,

ATTILIO: 
you know, uncle, he loved the shave ice. And one thing he said when his celebration of life, he wanted the corner ice truck. We’ve

ADAM: 
done those, yeah, we’ve done those, and they’re nice. It’s very nice. It has a touch, you know, yeah? Touch to everything new weddings or celebrations of life, or anything like that, yeah.

ATTILIO: 
Well, one last disclaimer. Your last name is Marumoto, not Matsumoto, so no relations to the guys on in Holly Eva, but thank you for having the tree trucks and coming bringing sweet smiles into our communities. Yes, thank you Adam. Thank you for being on the show.

ADAM: 
Thank you for inviting me and never expected any of this, but I’m so I appreciate the opportunity.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, we hope you get some calls, and I know for sure we use you for more events. So if people out there, you have events, Adam was awesome. We brought shave ice to our holiday community in Ewa Beach, and everybody had fun. Beautiful, beautiful community. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Adam,

ADAM: 
thank you. Thank you guys. 

Follow Us On Social Media