On today’s episode, Adeptus host Evan Eneman speaks with Davina Kaonohi, co-founder and CEO of Element Apothec, an award-winning global wellness and beauty brand that blends modern medicine and ancient wisdom to bring alternative products to consumers. Davina goes in-depth about her background, including her indigenous Hawaiian roots and her great aunt's journey with plant-based wellness, and how she has brought her vision to life by finding reputable integrative practitioners to help create high-quality products. She offers insight to entrepreneurs for managing their start-ups by having a clear strategy and not letting fear hold them back from building a successful business. Listen in to hear more about the Element Apothec brand and how Davina promotes wellness in her products and her life.


Alternative and plant based wellness 1:47
Davina’s personal experience with plant medicine 4:41
Trusting the plants and building trust with consumers 9:56
Building a team and the role of collaboration in building trust 15:20
Core values 21:41
Davina’s vision for Element Apothec 27:39
Identifying resources you don’t have internally and finding them externally 33:14
Fear 36:21
Learning and identifying your personal strengths as a leader 43:36
Davina’s approach to life 50:38
Getting bad feedback from customers 58:02

“It takes a bit of research to really understand that I’ve made mistakes. Not everybody that I thought we’d be working with are we working with today, and then there are those hard decisions to also say ‘OK, we thought this person was good, or maybe they were good for the first 6 months and really helped us with X Y Z, but now we’ve grown and we need somebody else who can help us with this.” 34:54

@davinakuhlia (CONFIRM)
@elementapothec