Welcome back to the show. Today's conversation is with Jamie Dilberg, co-founder of the

Aloha Exchange. Aloha Exchange is a retailer on the island of Kauai with two locations, soon to have a third.

It is unique among Hawaii Surf Retail and that it caters to the local community rather than to tourists.

And I'll let Jamie explain why that is and how that's allowed them more stability, more latitude to work with brands that they actually want to work with.

We did a five-part series a few months back on California Surf Shops and received a lot of

feedback and suggestion on other retailers who we should interview.

That's really actually reflective of a lot of the direction of this podcast since its inception

and that detail about kind of community engagement and feedback dovetails really

nicely with the importance of surf retail. Jamie will explain that many of the cultural

surf experiences that he had in his youth, the ones that didn't take place in the water, the ones that

took place on land, took place in retail stores,

encountering famous shapers or skateboarders even, learning about where to surf and when,

going and seeing surf film premieres. The surf retailer, whether they intend to or not, kind of

doubles as a social club. And it takes a very unique personality type to accommodate

and entertain that many loiterers while putting in all of the long hours required in retail.

And I think that Jamie personifies this personality type almost better than anyone I've ever met.

His journey to Aloha Exchange is very unique, but each job

that he had along the way, from pro surfer to wax brand entrepreneur, to outside sales rep,

to surf school instructor, it is really informed his current role and position perfectly

to navigate the very precarious landscape of running a retail

business in 2020. So we'll get to all of that, but given that this conversation was recorded on

Kauai, a place where it is frowned upon to expose some of its best gems, I started our conversation

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