Steve Sue is best known for being the worldʻs leading expert of the Shaka gesture as producer, writer and questor of the documentary film “Shaka, A Story of Aloha.” He also created Project Shaka, a movement born from the film that shares aloha through Shaka-based programs.
As part of Project Shaka, he wrote a bill that Hawai’i Governor Josh Green signed into law on June 21, 2024, making the Shaka the Official State Gesture of Hawai’i. The law made the Shaka, the first-ever state gesture in America. Also in 2024, he created the Official Hawai’i DMV Shaka License Plate program to preserve paradise on Hawai’iʻs roadways. Both the Shaka documentary and Project Shaka are part of ID8 (pronounced “ide•ate”), a Hawai’i 501C3 nonprofit founded by Sue and where he serves as Chairperson.
Steve is also a social venturer as the owner of O-WOW, Inc., a branding and digital automation firm that specializes in custom software, app and website solutions including publication of itʻs own titles such as SumoSum.com, a free visually-oriented financial forecasting application. Sueʻs career includes serving as a story expert, conceptualist and social venturer in entertainment, hospitality, food service, retail, product and software. He holds a BA in design from UCLA and a JD in law from UC Berkeley.
He is also known as an early pioneer of project-based learning educational innovation and entrepreneurship programs including Lemonade Alley, Project Lemon Tree and BizGym.com. Sue donated use of BizGym to schools including Iolani School in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he launched Lemonade Alley, an eco-entrepreneur culinary challenge. At Lemonade Alley, students grades K-12 invent unique recipes, build stands from recycled materials and sell lemonade for a day to raise money for a charity or school of their choice. Project Lemon Tree is a school tree planting program that includes curriculum to guides the design and the building of citrus pergola projects. He also has written numerous project-based learning curriculum models including entrepreneurship, app development and SEO writing, all available at Amazon.
Sue started his career as a home builder, founding Bedrock Development, Inc. in Oakland, California. Bedrock evolved into an award-winning environmental design firm with architecture, theme and branding units that created production housing, retail, restaurants, live entertainment sets and theme parks. He became known as a conceptualist in a variety of industries culminating as a driving force in mega-resort developments around the globe in and through Las Vegas.
Sue's hand-drawing style became synonymous with the art of the big idea so AutoDesk, maker of AutoCAD, licensed his hand illustration style to create Impressions software to turn technical "DWG" drawings to Sue's hand-rendered style. Through AutoDesk, Sue learned software development. He then turned to creating software business, his first title being BizGym.com, an entrepreneur's growth system that combines business planning, financial forecasting and brand story development into one package.
Sue and his organizations have received multiple awards and recognitions. Bedrock Development, Inc. was named the sixth fastest-growing company in the San Francisco Bay Area by the "SF Business Times", and Bizgenics Foundation, Lemonade Alley and Steve have won awards from several Hawaii-based associations including BBB Hawaii.
Career.
Sue's career began as a home building contractor under the tutelage of his father John Sue. As his business grew he showed excellence in design, brand story crafting and business development. He was well known for drawing skills. Sue credits his skills to mentorships under well-known casino designer Bill Bardsley and Las Vegas architect Paul Steelman. The ability to draw lead to working on a variety of building projects including theme parks, restaurant, retail, large corporate events, show set designs and other projects in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. He was hired by Autodesk to create a software program called Impressions which converts AutoCAD drawings into Sue's signature hand-drawing style. Sue went on to make software called BizGym.com under StoryManager, Inc. (later renamed O-WOW, Inc.). In 2012, he created a partnership between BizGym.com and the Hong Kong-based business CyberPort to create a Chinese language online entrepreneur toolset. User behavior in BizGym showed high use of a visual financial forecasting toolset Sue had created, thus a separate title called SumoSum.com was launched to directly serve forecasting users. Through his nonprofit, ID8, Sue operated a film and TV studio for the State of Hawai’i called ID8 Studios from 2020 to 2023. Sue is currently a mentor at a number of Hawaii-based entrepreneurial associations including the accelerator Blue Startups.
In 2011, Sue largely retired to found a nonprofit that featured a culinary entrepreneurship challenge for K-12 students called Lemonade Alley. According to Sue, he created the challenge to improve children's life skills. Lemonade Alley got its start due to the BizGym website being used in schools such as ʻIolani School. This drew the interest of Capital One Bank, which gave a $60,000 grant to make Lemonade Alley a permanent event. He then created BizGym Foundation, a nonprofit organization (later renamed ID8) in order to receive grant money. The inaugural event hosted 30 student teams of 5 students to create lemonade stands for the day and sell for the charity of their choice. Charities included the Ronald McDonald House of Hawaii, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Make a Wish Hawaii and more. In 2014, the organization raised more than $15,000 for local Hawaiian charities. In 2020, Lemonade Alley was shuttered due the COVID Pandemic then converted into in-school curriculum for teachers and schools to run on their own.
Recognition and success.
In its sixth year of operation, Sue's home building business Bedrock Development, Inc. was named the sixth fastest-growing company in the San Francisco Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times, part of "American City Business Journals". At the 2014 BBB Hawaii Torch awards show in Honolulu, Sue was awarded the BBB Hawaii's Public Charity award for his work on the Lemonade Alley event as well as his work on BizGym Foundation. The Lemonade Alley event was praised by blogger Chelsea Seki, who found both the event and its cause to be admirable. A. Kam Napier (an editor for Pacific Business News) compared Lemonade Alley to the television shows ""Shark Tank" and "The Apprentice"" (both TV shows about people being judged for their business acumen by celebrities and business people), except with kids being the participants. Two brothers who participated in a Lemonade Alley event won an award for the lemonade that they made from the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa. Their lemonade was then later sold at the resort, with a portion of the sales going to the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children. Lemonade Alley was featured on the cover of the magazine "Midweek Oahu", which covered Steve Sue, BizGym Foundation, and Lemonade Alley. Parents and children who attended the event felt that it was a worthwhile event, and that the skills that the children learned from it were valuable. In an article detailing the highlights of West Oahu, Midweek staff listed Lemonade Alley and its lemonade. ;ref name=" West // West Oahu Highlights " ; ;/ref ; BizGym Foundation was one of three finalists (alongside Business Law Corps and the United Cerebral Palsy Association) at a Nonprofit Business Plan Competition held by the Hogan Entrepreneurs program and the American Savings Bank. BizGym Foundation and the other two finalists were awarded a total of $1,000 each.
References.
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