# Scaling Hawaiʻi's Economy with Mana Up | Meli James | Shangri La x HumanizeHer

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/humanizeher-with-erica-lockheimer-7021072/scaling-hawai-i-s-economy-with-mana-up-meli-james-shangri-la-x-humanizeher
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/humanizeher-with-erica-lockheimer-7021072/scaling-hawai-i-s-economy-with-mana-up-meli-james-shangri-la-x-humanizeher.md
Podcast: [HumanizeHer with Erica Lockheimer](https://stenobird.com/podcast/humanizeher-with-erica-lockheimer-7021072)
Published: 2026-04-15T01:41:00+00:00
Episode link: https://7e64d1a1-45af-410a-a143-b6452cad0951.libsyn.com/scaling-hawaiis-economy-with-mana-up-meli-james-shangri-la-x-humanizeher
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/7e64d1a1-45af-410a-a143-b6452cad0951/HH_Episode39_MeliJames.mp3?dest-id=4725527
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/humanizeher-with-erica-lockheimer-7021072/episodes/scaling-hawai-i-s-economy-with-mana-up-meli-james-shangri-la-x-humanizeher
Duration seconds: 1691

## Resource

HumanizeHer x Shangri La "Visionary Voices" brings HumanizeHer's signature conversations to Shangri La, a Center of Cultures & Ideas and Museum of Islamic Art in Honolulu, Hawai'i, featuring three special episodes with visionary women leaders from Hawai'i. In this episode of HumanizeHer, we sit down with Meli James - born and raised in Hawai'i, she left for Cornell University and caught the entrepreneurship bug in Silicon Valley during the early era of iPhone apps where she co-founded Nirvino, the number one wine app on iTunes - and then came back home to Hawai'i and changed everything. As Co-Founder and General Partner of Mana Up , she has helped over 100 Hawai'i-based brands - like Kō Hana Rum , the first class beverage on Hawaiian Airlines . She has scaled to global markets, generating over 113 million dollars in revenue and creating hundreds of jobs right on the islands. Her mission: keep the talent, the opportunity, and the economic power in Hawai'i - where it belongs. Episode Highlights: Silicon Valley Blueprint: Meli shares her "quarter-life crisis" at 25 and how life coaching led her to launch Nirvino, a mobile wine app that dominated the iTunes platform for five years following the launch of the iPhone. Birth of Mana Up: Driven by the desire to ensure local entrepreneurs don't have to leave Hawai'i to find success, Meli discusses the founding of Mana Up. She addresses the skepticism she faced when pivoting from tech to product-based companies and her goal of creating 100 Hawai'i-headquartered companies generating over 113 million dollars in revenue. Scaling the "Hawai'i Brand": The conversation delves into why Hawai'i is one of the world's most aspirational and trusted brands. Meli explains how Mana Up helps local makers navigate the "not-so-sexy" side of busi…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/humanizeher-with-erica-lockheimer-7021072/episodes/scaling-hawai-i-s-economy-with-mana-up-meli-james-shangri-la-x-humanizeher/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/humanizeher-with-erica-lockheimer-7021072/scaling-hawai-i-s-economy-with-mana-up-meli-james-shangri-la-x-humanizeher.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.