Meet Koa Smith- Pro Surfer, Entrepreneur, Vlogger, and Model

Anyone who has watched the highlight reels from Skeleton Bay over the past decade knows who Koa Smith is. And anyone who has ever been to the North Shore’s Sunset Beach knows about the Sunrise Shack and its a tasty bullet coffee. But what many people don’t realize is the connection between the two!

Koa Smith grew up on Kauai with his brothers Alex and Travis—all of them good-looking kids who looked even better when they were ripping the bag out of waves. Koa quickly became one of Kauai’s hottest young talents, and ultimately won three junior national championships. He also eventually relocated (part-time) to Oahu, making the North Shore his base during winter so he could focus on packing the craziest barrels at Pipeline.

Vlogging and Freesurfing Adventures

Koa and his brother Alex soon established themselves as some of the industry’s most exciting free surfers, traveling the world and chasing barrels, all the while documenting their adventures on one of surfing’s first big-time YouTube channels. Whether they were threading endless sand-bottom tubes in Namibia, pulling into slabs in Indonesia, or paddling XXL barrels on Oahu’s outer reefs, the Smith brothers repeatedly proved themselves to consummate vloggers.

Entrepreneurial Ventures

At the same time, Koa, Alex, and their brother Travis (who, in between modeling gigs, also enjoyed a career as a professional bodyboarder) dipped their toes into the coffee/food stand industry. They started with one coffee and snack stand on the North Shore, then quickly grew the business to include five Sunrise Shacks on Oahu—two in the Country, two in Town, and one in Kailua. There is also a Sunrise Shack in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture—the first franchise location in Japan. All six locations serve up smoothies and smoothie bowls, snacks like avocado toast and stuffed papayas, and of course a full menu of bullet coffee options.

Modeling and Reality TV Career

You’d think that being a pro surfer and business owner would be enough to keep someone like Koa busy, but that’s only half of what the young star has going on. In 2015, Koa won the VMAN/Ford modeling competition/talent search, and ended up being the face of an Alexander Want campaign. Right around the same time, he and his brother Travis leveraged their modeling celebrity to earn spots on Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s reality TV show The Runner. A few years later, Koa followed that up with a spot on the World Surf League reality TV show The Ultimate Surfer, where he completed a number of wacky, surf-adjacent challenges and competed against around a dozen other high-profile surfers at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch wave pool for $100,000, wild card spots in three WSL world tour events, and the right to call himself the world’s ultimate surfer. Although Koa came up short against Zeke Lau in the final, he was a standout crowd favorite on the show, and many people thought he deserved the win.

Recent Competitions and Achievements

Most recently, Koa competed in the Vans Pipeline Masters. An invitational event, the Pipe Masters was held in December during a crazy run of huge swell (the same week as The Eddie). One of Koa’s heats was held on a day when Third Reef Pipe was sending wash-throughs through the lineup and making it virtually impossible to surf Pipeline, yet Koa somehow managed to wrangle one of the gnarliest barrels we’ve seen out there in years, sneaking out of the doggy door to score a perfect 10, place third in the event, and put himself in the running for wave of the winter. 

The craziest thing about Koa Smith that he just turned 30 a few weeks ago, which means he’s already accomplished more in three decades that most people could dream of doing in an entire lifetime. With the second half of his career still ahead of him, there’s no telling what he could accomplish.

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