(bright music) - [Announcer] This is "Carolina Business Review."

Major support provided by the South Carolina Ports, the state's most significant strategic asset, positively influencing economic development, job growth, the environment, and our communities, Colonial Life, providing benefits to employees to help them protect their families, their finances, and their futures, High Point University, the premier life skills university, focused on preparing students for the world as it is going to be, Sonoco, a global manufacturer of consumer and industrial packaging products and services with more than 300 operations in 35 countries.

- Well, according to nature, at least, it is spring.

That, of course, would be meteorologically speaking.

I'm Chris William, and welcome again to the most widely watched and longest-running program on Carolina business policy and public affairs seen across North and South Carolina for more than 30 years now.

Thank you for the ongoing support.

We will unpack what heading into spring means for all of us and also some of the bigger issues like affordable housing, and we start right now.

(calm music) - [Announcer] Major funding also by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and Martin Marietta, a leading provider of natural resource-based building materials, providing the foundation on which our communities improve and grow.

(lively music) On this edition of "Carolina Business Review," Kevin E. Wimberly of SC Uplift Community Outreach and special guest Dane Barnes, co-founder of Shibumi Shade.

(lively music) - Hello, and welcome to our program.

Glad to have you all joining us and watching, but also our guests, and I'm gonna bring in Kevin Wimberly right now from South Carolina Uplift, SC Uplift down in Columbia.

Kevin, welcome to the program.

Glad to see you again.

- Hey, Chris, thank you for having me.

We appreciate you having us on today.

- Kevin, let's start with not the easy one, but what a lot of people are speaking about, and that is what used to be called affordable housing.

Kevin, is it still called affordable housing, or is it workforce housing, or is it something different now?

- Well, as you're stating, it's changing, you know, depends on what day it is, but it's more so becoming attainable housing.

As you know, with affordable housing, that comes with a negative stigmatism of it's just only for certain low-income individuals.

But now with having the challenges of going through COVID and realizing the need for housing, we see that it's not just those that are on the lower income levels but throughout just finding housing that is affordable.

So we're saying attainable housing, which would include low-income workforce, you know, and early, you know, new professionals that are seeking housing.

- You know, Kevin, as you just described it, and you see kind of the area of dominant influence increasing here, and you know, it's no longer just at poverty line, near poverty line, low income, but the social definition of affordable housing or attainable housing or workforce housing has gotten so broad now because of the economy's grown, because interest rates have gone back up.

I mean, I'm repeating everything that you know probably in your DNA.

So when you talk to the State House, when you talk to your constituents, when you talk to some of your partners in South Carolina, what are those conversations like, and how now do we need to approach housing and development?

It's gotta be different, isn't it?

- Right, you're correct.

I mean, there's various approaches, various models that need to take place, 'cause one size does not fit all.

If you think, 'cause you know, you're talking about housing from renting standpoint.

You talk about housing from a home ownership standpoint, and then you're also talking about, you know, renovations when you're talking about our older population, you know, being able to sustain their homes, you know, and wanting to getting the finances and resources.

You know, they were once working, but now they're retired and things of that nature and on a fixed income, so they're not able to maintain their homes.

So it's various areas that you have to look at when we talk about, you know, affordable, attainable housing, and trying to address all those needs can be a challenge.

And that's one of the things we're looking at with some associations that we're part of and our partnerships.

Who can we work with?

What are the resources that can come from a private and public area for funding?

- So when you talk about the new constituents, the new broad-based constituents, have resources kept up with that, or at least have resources expanded enough to reach the people you need to reach?

- It's there, but there's needs to be more funding, I would say, and I would say our in, you know, especially our legislation, they realize that, they're on board, and then also our private partners understand, but the need is so great, 'cause I think it's sort of where we're being reactive with a lot of our policies and opportunities for financing and funding, and we just haven't been able to catch up.

And so it's just something that you wanna continue, we continue to focus on and advocate for and trying to help, 'cause I'll be honest, and even some of the processes of getting the funding is just taking a time process so long that you can't come out and be able to solve the issue, you know, with that snap of your finger.

You know, if we're able to limit that at times, I think that would, you know, streamline that process.

We could be able to assist more in the people.

- Kevin, I know you're a housing expert but maybe not a healthcare expert, but you know, the line between those two is very skinny.

And the idea now in North Carolina, and I know South Carolina's watching this one closely, that North Carolina is almost over the finish line when it comes to Medicaid expansion.

Certainly the House and the Senate have agreed on a provisional and in principle that it will be accepted by The Old North State as South Carolina watches this.

Do you have any conversations with some of your colleagues in nonprofits, NGOs, philanthropy around what the expansion of Medicaid in South Carolina would do for housing, in affordable, in attainable housing?

- Yes, it would actually, it would improve greatly to be able to assist those individuals that are not only just needing healthcare, but the housing, 'cause they work hand in hand, being able to provide those opportunities for individuals that otherwise cannot get the insurance they need to be health, because, you know, having a safe place, roof over your head and having it, you know, being maintained and sustainable, that leads to quality health.

But also, too, having the resources to get, when you are needing assistance from a health perspective, being able to utilize and connect with resources that can assist with maintaining your health is such a need.

So it's greatly how they, you know, work, our need of each other.

Would you predict that, you know, saying this with a smile on my face, but trying to predict politicians and their behavior, would you predict that the State House in Columbia would in fact consider Medicaid expansion now that North Carolina's falling into it?

- I'll be optimistic and say yes, (laughs) could be a possibility.

It's just gonna take those strong advocates to know what's occurring around our bordering states and hopefully they, you know, would come on board, and it would become moved to the priority for some of the legislation in the, you know, next year or so.

- Kevin, stay with us.

We're gonna bring our guests in a moment.

Before we do that, let you know a little bit about who's coming up on the program.

Within the next couple of weeks, Tim Arnold, I'm sorry, let me back up, Lynn Good, chairman/CEO of one of the largest public utilities in this country, Duke Energy, will be returning to our program, always glad to host her, and then Tim Arnold from Colonial Life out of Columbia, obviously a insurer out of the South Carolina, Palmetto State, and Tim will be joining us again as well.

You know, it seems fitting that our guest is closely related to this favorable weather that we're feeling, this spring in the air kind of feeling and better times ahead.

A few short years ago himself, his brother Scott, and a friend named Alex Slater all banded together because they've been so close for so many years, and they just broke onto the scene when they appeared on this show in late 2019 with a high-profile and innovative product, which is called Shibumi Shade.

Well, the Shibumi Shade was showing up on beaches everywhere, and it looks like so many sailboats lined up on the sand.

Joining us again remotely from The Triangle in North Carolina, one of the founders of this not-so-small startup anymore, Shibumi Shades' Dane Barnes.

Dane, welcome to the program.

Nice to see you smiling, too.

- Thank you for having me.

- You mean, wow, what a ride.

So Dane, let me go back to 2019, and let me (laugh) recount something as I laugh here, because yourself, your brother Scott, and Alex were all with us in the studio, and you were contemplating this idea of giving up your day jobs to chase down this dream you've had and go full time and all in on Shibumi.

Are you glad you did it, or are you thinking, "What were we thinking?"

- No, it was great.

Yeah, the coincidence is that right after we left your show, it was Halloween of 2019 that Scott, Alex, and I all left our day jobs, which were great, and then we began Shibumi or working at Shibumi full time, and we've been so fortunate to just really have explosive growth since that time, so glad we made that decision.

- You know, unpack the idea of explosive growth.

So at the time, and this was second, fourth quarter, yeah, fourth quarter of 2019.

Shibumi was a bit of a novelty.

You would see them, people would stop and ask you about them on a beach, I'm sure, but now it's more of a utility.

So what kind of growth have we seen over the last 3 1/2 years?

- Yeah, I'll give you a couple of stats.

Shibumi Shades are now the most popular beach shade on the East and Gulf Coasts.

In many cases, they represent five or six or sometimes more out of every 10 shades on the beach and that essentially beachgoers are replacing traditional umbrellas and tailgate tents en masse.

One other is that at the time of our last appearance on your show, we had I think maybe 20 retail stores that carried it in the Carolinas and Northeast Florida.

Now there are 170 retail stores and counting which carry it from Cape Cod all the way down the East Coast, the Gulf Coast, and California as well.

- Okay, I'm not gonna hoard you all to myself.

We wanna open this up.

Kevin, please jump in, question?

- Yes, congratulations, Dane, on the success of Shibumi.

Just wanted to find out, as far as an entrepreneur, I know you talked about taking that leap and starting, you know, going full time, but prior to that, what were some of maybe the challenges that you faced?

For those possible entrepreneurs, you know, getting that, you know, a lot of times you, I'm sure you didn't get the yeses that you're getting now or have gotten, so what were some of the challenges that you all faced getting started?

- Thank you, Kevin, yes, you know, some of the challenges, I think, were really what maybe a lot of people face is just kind of imposter syndrome, of not, you know, not being sure that we can do it or know what we're doing, but you know, really having the drive to try to take every challenge as an opportunity to learn and grow.

And I think, you know, another challenge for us was at the time, like Chris mentioned, we all three were working full-time jobs, and Shibumi was a kind of evenings and weekends thing.

So, you know, it was a challenge to juggle both, but we were fortunate in that we were able to do that, which I think really, really helped us so that we weren't being so risky, you know, by just quitting our jobs even before it was a kind of proven product.

- You know, obviously, Dane, you and Scott are brothers.

You grew up together, and you've known Alex, you grew up with Alex, and now you've been working together full time, and this is, it's somewhat flippant, but not really.

I mean, you know, the question arises, 24/7, all in it, are you all still friends?

- Yeah, we've never been closer, and yeah, we talked about that last time on the show as well, but it's been such a great thing to be able to, you know, work on Shibumi together and then spend more time together, so.

- Yeah, Kevin.

- Did you have, you know, with coming COVID as you started in 2019, challenges, you know, going through the COVID period, and now coming out of the pandemic, you say you've had exponential growth.

You know, how have you been able to control that and being able to ensure that you're not growing too fast?

- Yep, you know, certainly the pandemic was a challenge, the biggest of which was just uncertainty.

I remember that when the NBA canceled the rest of its season, that was a really surprising moment to us, and we knew that the world was different, so just not sure what to expect.

And with, I guess, during the pandemic and after as well, we have certainly seen, you know, rising costs for materials and then especially salaries, you know, as we hire more employees as well.

- You know, as you operate now in North Carolina, and as you talked about all the other states, Dane, the Carolinas, South Carolina had its biggest year in capital investment ever in economic development.

North Carolina, same thing, posting these incredible numbers for 2022, and in fact, North Carolina named by CNBC and "Forbes" and other magazines and outlets to be number one in business, I mean no longer top five, number one.

South Carolina's not far behind.

And I say all of this to say, so you have a business.

You have an entrepreneurial business and innovation.

What are the challenges even working in a pro-business region like North Carolina for you?

Are there challenges, or is this tremendous wind at your back, and you know, you look around and think, "Yeah, these are the good old days.

This is the Goldilocks scenarios," or is there a challenge?

- You know, I think we have been really fortunate.

I mean, we have been able to hire, I think living in The Triangle in Raleigh and in the, you know, North Carolina in general, we've had great access to talent to help join the team.

So, you know, I think our challenges come more so not from any sort of like infrastructure, I think all of that is great, in the Carolinas, but you know, more so just from growing a, you know, rapidly growing business and kind of the challenges of management for that.

- You know, a lot of guests, and Kevin, I'm sorry, let me get one more quick question in here.

A lot of guests on the program will say finding talent is just the toughest thing.

Has it been hard for you, or have you had your pick of the litter, so to speak?

- It really hasn't.

I mean, you know, we are are very selective, and I think for us, folks don't have to be located here in Raleigh, that for many of our roles we will, you know, pick talent from anywhere in the US and that certainly remote work is very important to much of our staff.

And so we are fortunate that in our line of work, we can do, you know, basically everything from our computers and phones and that we don't have to be located together in person, which I think just helps to expand the opportunity, you know, pool for us to hire from.

- Kevin.

- Well that's great, and what opportunities, and I guess what's next for Shibumi do you foresee happening here in the next two, three years?

- Yeah, so Shibumi will continue to expand its geographic footprint to more beaches in the US and that we also have what we feel like is a very exciting product pipeline to continue to improve the beach experience.

But, you know, we're investing in the business, both in new product development and also, you know, hiring as well to kind of expand our capabilities and offerings to beachgoers.

- What would additional products be that would be complementary to the Shibumi Shade?

- Yep, so, you know, certainly anything that you would take to the beach for your beach day or beach vacation.

So we aren't disclosing yet specifically what those are, but you know, just anything you can imagine to make your beach experience better.

- So you are gonna find a way to hang a laptop in there so you can watch your Carolina, your North Carolina team?

Is that, how are you gonna do that?

No, of course I'm being kind of facetious, but so I guess, are you gonna build, as entrepreneurs will talk about, how do you build that moat around the brand that is protective of it?

Not the IP challenges, notwithstanding the IP challenges, but I guess expanding the brand with the same innovation and the same creativity that you were able to do with Shibumi, that's like pulling a rabbit out of your hat, isn't it?

- Yeah, so to your point, investing in our brand and kind of telling our story is something that we are really investing a lot in this year through great hires and just being able to, you know, kind of share the Shibumi story for folks who don't know it yet.

And then certainly we take our intellectual property rights very seriously and invest heavily in those, and we expect others to do the same.

- Kevin.

- Great, because that was gonna be my question as reference to, you know, your competitors and how, you know, do you protect yourself from those, 'cause you know, it's, Shibumi's out there.

So what are you gonna do to ensure that it stays at the top of everyone's mind as you continue to grow and develop?

- Yep, absolutely, so, you know, I think it's manifold.

So, you know, one is that we certainly continue to invest in product quality.

You know, we feel like we are the leader in this new category of wind-powered shading devices, and so we will continue to invest in quality to make sure that we have a really compelling offering compared to other beach shades that are out there, and then like we just talked about, continuing to invest in the brand so that it's something that people can really connect, you know, with as they, you know, choose products for their beach experience.

- Dane, I don't wanna over-romanticize this or maybe even put words in your mouth, but a couple times you used, it almost sounds like a sub-industrial term about wind-powered shading devices.

Have you redefined, or have you defined a new place of beach shading that hasn't been defined before?

- So, you know, we refer to it as a Shibumi Shade, of course, that being our product.

And so there are only a few places, or two places now in the United States where Shibumi Shades are not allowed.

One of those formerly was Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, but there was a lot of public support for Shibumi Shades to be allowed on its beaches.

And so they, in writing their rule to kind of go from allowing umbrellas only to also allowing Shibumi Shades, you know, rather than of course putting Shibumi Shade in their ordinance on the books, they use the term, you know, wind-powered shading devices or something close to that to describe the product category and that we think that that, you know, does a nice job of kind of just describing the category.

- You know, as you talk about, and let me, sorry, Kevin, let me do another quick add-on here, but you talk about prohibited places, Myrtle Beach, not the Grand Strand necessarily, but Myrtle Beach proper, and then Rehoboth up in Delaware.

Why do you think that Myrtle Beach, or places that would be resistive to it, why are they reticent to allow it?

- Well, and just going back so that, you know, over 99% of beaches in the United States allow Shibumi Shades.

Only two beach areas currently don't.

One of those is the Grand Strand at large, so Myrtle, North Myrtle and Horry County, and then the other is Rehoboth and Bethany Beach, Delaware.

You know, I certainly don't want to speak for them by any means, but just for a historical perspective, you know, a decade ago or more, there were really only two types of shades.

There were traditional umbrellas, and then there were the kind of pop-up tailgate tents, if you will, and so those couple of places that have these rules of umbrellas only, you know, I think it was a reaction to wanting to ban tailgate tents for various reasons.

But there's been a lot of, you know, new beach shade technology in the more recent years, including Shibumi Shade as well.

But you know, certainly there are thousands and thousands of families in the Grand Strand who live there or who go there who certainly want to use their Shibumi Shades and that they, you know, it's very important to them to have a safe and enjoyable beach experience.

- Kevin, we have a couple minutes left.

- Yeah, given being here in South Carolina, the challenges at Myrtle Beach, I guess I would ask, well, why Shibumi Shade?

What could we do to support your efforts in getting Shibumi Shade to be approved in the Grand Strand area?

You know, what would you say would be the thing, that nugget, so to speak, to get you in the door?

- That is a great question.

You know, I think that just the continued public support of people, you know, writing to the decision-makers, you know, politely and respectfully to tell them their story about why using a Shibumi Shade or a wind-powered shading device is important to them and makes their beach experience better.

So, you know, we're so grateful for all of the families who have, you know, supported us and who, you know, want to see them used there.

So I think that is the best thing.

But I also think Shibumi, you know, has a responsibility to just continue to try to educate.

It is a new product, and we know it's, you know, it just takes time for these things to become better understood.

And then hopefully we'll have an opportunity in the Grand Strand to make it available to families, you know, during the summertime as well.

- We've got about a minute left, and I know that you, Scott, Alex are probably not ready for retirement or the next stage, but, you know, you gotta ask a startup, you know, what's the exit for you, where do you go?

- You know, we don't talk very much about exits.

You know, I think we're focused on, our goal is to be the number one beach brand in the US, and so we certainly need to expand beyond just the shades, which are a really important point.

So, you know, we are excited and, you know, have a lot of work to do over the next several years to continue to, you know, make the beach experience better.

So we're very excited about that path forward.

- Well, Dane, we're glad that you're here, and we're glad you came back.

You know, Elon Musk is always a creative thinker, and he may be looking for another brand to bolt on.

He seems to do that impulsively or not, but so anyway, of course I'm being flippant.

But Dane, thanks for being on the program again.

Best of luck to yourself as well as Scott and Alex, and we love seeing the brand on the beach, well done.

- Chris and Kevin, thank you so much.

I appreciate all the good questions.

- Thank you.

Kevin- - Thank you.

- Nice to see you again.

Thanks for helping, and thanks for stepping in.

We were supposed to have Brooks Raiford from the North Carolina Technology Association join us, but technology challenges being what they are, he wasn't able to do it.

But Kevin, thanks for being game, and nice to see you, too.

- [Kevin] Oh, yes, thank you, Chris.

We appreciate it.

- Until next week, I am Chris William, thanks for all your support, and have a good weekend, goodnight.

(calm music) - [Announcer] Gratefully acknowledging support by Martin Marietta, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, Sonoco, High Point University, Colonial Life, the South Carolina Ports Authority, and by viewers like you, thank you.

For more information, visit CarolinaBusinessReview.org.

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