Ask SmallBiz: Conversation Starter
Q. I often find myself face to face with prospective clients, but it feels tacky to introduce myself and start talking to them about my business services or to ask them about their needs. How can I get over this…
Business & Industry
BOSS Survey - December 2011
Poll of 400 local business leaders goes inside the local economy and forecasts what’s ahead LOWLIGHT: Confidence for next year continues to erode. Highlight: Special survey of tourism leaders. PERFORMANCE INDEX Index consolidates the changes in revenue, profit and staffing for 400 local companies…
Ask SmallBiz: Selling a Business
Q. Our children have no interest in taking over our business, so my wife and I have decided to sell it. How should we proceed? A. Selling your business is one of the most important things you will ever do. Here…
Innovation: Oceanit’s FLASH Improves Battlefield Awareness
Problem: “Where did those shots come from?” Even on today’s high-tech battlefield, it’s often hard to tell. That’s why Honolulu-based Oceanit developed FLASH – Fast as Light Assessment of Snipers and Hostile Fire – which uses infrared sensors and high-speed processors.…
Unique Scholarships Give Second Chance at College
Jasmine “Tita” Kuhaulua never thought college was an option while she was in high school. After graduation, she had three children in quick succession and the possibility of college receded further. But, the Waialeale Project has changed everything for the 25-year-old, part-time…
6 Great Small Nonprofits and What Makes Them Succeed
Hanahauoli School The first rule of not-for-profits,” writes nonprofit consultant Peter Brinckerhoff, “is mission, mission, and more mission.” Mission, he points out, is a nonprofit organization’s legal reason for existence. It’s why the staff works long hours, often for a…
Lessons Learned: Expanding in the Pacific
Lyon Associates, Inc. is a Honolulu-based, father-and-son engineering firm with projects from Micronesia to Bahrain. Jim Lyon, 45, was born on Okinawa, when Frank, now 82, was working for another engineering company. After retirement, Frank realized there was more work and…
Ask SmallBiz: Insurance Coverage
Q. How much business income insurance coverage do I need? A. We’ve all heard stories about businesses that suffer a fire loss, take three months to rebuild and struggle to survive because of income lost during those months. That is…
Understand Your Customers by Using Market Research
What do you really know about your customers? Do you know their ages? Where they live? How much money they make? How many kids they have? Do you know where else they shop? How they make buying decisions? Why they…
Innovation: EggUp and GoEggIt stops movie piracy
Problem: Piracy costs the U.S. movie industry more than $20 billion annually, according to industry experts, who say illegal downloads and bootleg copies prevent many independent filmmakers from turning their passion into a livelihood. Solution: EggUp.com is a platform created in Hawaii…
Some Hawaii Pet Stores Don’t Sell Pets, But Offer Adoptions Instead
Some pet stores in Hawaii have stopped selling cats and dogs, and are instead partnering with animal shelters and rescue groups to offer adoptions of homeless animals. The unusual marketing strategy may be partly due to more pet-store owners’ concern…
4 Successful Women’s Roads to the Top
Each person’s road to success is unique, but these four women shared similar challenges and goals. Each explains that success has never been about money or power, but about personal goals and helping communities. • Attorney Crystal Rose, chair of Central…
5 Steps to Accessing Capital
Capital is essential to all small businesses. It allows owners to launch their companies and invest in their companies’ growth. Elizabeth Echols, regional administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration, provides tips on how to access capital and make it…
Syngenta Agrisure Artesian Corn is Drought-Resistant
For a farmer, water is king. But rainfall is fickle and even irrigation systems can falter. That’s why scientists and technicians atSyngenta, a Swiss-based agricultural-technology company with seed operations on Kauai and in Kunia, have developed a new variety of…
Talk Story with Roger Peters, dck pacific construction
As executive VP and GM of dck pacific construction since 2008, Roger Peters has guided the company through one of the worst building climates in memory. With few major projects (except for rail) on the horizon, we ask Peters for…
Kukuiula Luxury Development Opens on Kauai
By any measure, Kukuiula on Kauai's south shore has been an ambitious undertaking. When Alexander & Baldwin first proposed the private golf club and master-planned, luxury community in the early 1980s, it…
Hawaii's Construction Industry by the Numbers
After more than two miserable years, many in Hawaii's construction industry think the near future will be brighter because of the Honolulu rail line, planned hotel redevelopments and other projects. "It's cautious optimism," says John White, executive director of the…
Business Executives Sign up to Lead Nonprofits
As a former top executive at Aloha Airlines, Aloha Island Air, Roberts Hawaii and theHawaii Superferry, Neil Takekawa has had more than his share of high-flying corporate jobs, with their big salaries and big headaches. Now, as COO at the nonprofit Japanese Cultural…
Developmentally Disabled Can and Want to Work
You can see from his face that Miles Hashimoto loves working, whether it's assembling mobile-phone kits or shredding documents. Both jobs are at Goodwill Industries, and Hashimoto is no ordinary worker. Like an estimated 1.8 percent of Hawaii's population – about 24,500…
The Hawaii Business Sharpest Dressed Executives and Professionals
When we went looking for Hawaii Business magazine's Best Dressed Executives and Professionals, we got more than a hundred nominations. It was a huge challenge – and a lot of fun – narrowing down that group of stylish people to…
Waikiki Construction Refreshes Hotels
In some ways, construction and Waikiki go hand-in-hand. After all, the pleasure palaces along the beach have provided many of the largest recent private construction projects in the state. By some counts, more than $2 billion has been spent over…
Variety of Tenants at Barbers Point
Since it opened in January, Podium Raceway has been packed every weekend with screaming kids and screeching tires. The presence and popularity of the indoor electric-go-kart track signals a new plan for Barbers Point, at least for the short term. Until recently,…
Mobile Entrepreneurs Meet Clients at the Coffice
It's Monday morning and Melissa Chang has gathered her laptop and smartphone, and is on her way to her "coffice," a comfortable setting likeBlue Hawaii Lifestyle, Burgers on the Edge or Good to Grill. There she can settle down with coffee, free Wi-Fi and her…
Growing Tilapia and Vegetables with Aquaponics
Clyde Tamaru, an aquaculture specialist atUH Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, is on a mission: putting marginal land to good agricultural use with aquaponics. Along the way, Tamaru helps enhance the reputation oftilapia, a fish that many…