LIHU‘E — Starting a business on the right foot requires a would-be entrepreneur to create a sound business plan. There is free, local assistance to put an idea through the process of optimization to improve the odds for success. The
LIHU‘E — Starting a business on the right foot requires a would-be entrepreneur to create a sound business plan. There is free, local assistance to put an idea through the process of optimization to improve the odds for success.
The Hawai‘i Small Business Development Center can help simplify complex financial forms, industry regulations, taxes and fees, employee laws and zoning. They identify resources including economic and demographic profiles so that someone without prior business experience can succeed.
“When people first come to see me there is no requirement for what they bring in, and we just work with them on helping develop their business plan,” said John Latkiewicz, director of Kaua‘i SBDC at Kaua‘i Community College.
Latkiewicz offers 30 years of related experience as a former Dean of Applied Technology at Salt Lake Community College. At SBDC, a Neighbor Island program based out of the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, in cooperation with the U.S. Small Business Administration, his office networks with industry experts to assist in business plan development.
“We work as a network and I can draw on the expertise of fellow colleagues in addition to my own,” Latkiewicz said. “The SBDC’s are really designed to do business consulting, existing and startup, and the mainstay is that its one-on-one counseling with prospective and existing business owners.”
With the recession receding, people are utilizing the technical assistance and business assistance programs, especially with the banks doing more lending, he said.
SBDC helps people begin with business startup workshops for their retail idea, an invention or expanding a business.
“People come in here for all sorts of motivations,” he said.
Kaua‘i small businesses tend to be retail and food oriented, he said, and rely on tourism as a significant part of their customer base. There are now more incentives for value-added businesses in farming, agriculture, processing and high tech, he said.
The successful entrepreneur is opportunity-minded, he said. No matter how well they are doing they are identifying and adapting to changes coming down the pike. If you are prepared these changes are opportunities, he said. If not, the business make stagnate or fail.
People with an expertise in a given area may need to translate those skills into their own business. SBDC offers workshops on the fundamentals of running a Hawai‘i business. Then it is about testing the idea with a market and feasibility analysis.
Seth Peterson is in the process of starting a mobile food-truck restaurant. He has worked with SBDC for the past six months and said it was a world of help to take his biology background and create a business based on local farming and gourmet food.
His niche is a scientific twist that uses heated water technology for precise temperatures. He said this ensures consistency with cooking that is so important with meats.
“John helped me formulate my idea into a brand,” Peterson said. “The whole idea of starting a business looked pretty daunting but he was there every step of the way.”
The consulting helped to formulate a cohesive and cost-effective menu, and ideal locations, he said. It also made him aware of Department of Health regulations in time to alter water tank construction on his truck or it would have cost him much more upon inspection, he said.
Latkiewicz said the value of people skills and building relationships is essential to business. He said a customer will work with a business that makes them feel comfortable, wanted and appreciated, over one that says “here it is, take it or leave it.”
Another comparison he gave is that when moving to a location, one person will get to know their neighbors and area business owners, while another will work in a vacuum. There are no customers in a vacuum, he said.
The same goes for being a good partner with the competition, he said. At some point the competitor is unable to take some business and it is going to be a referral to somebody, and it is also how you get the best deals from your suppliers.
“Relationships are accentuated on Kaua‘i, and in working with others you get to know each other and support each other,” he said.
Talk Story Book Store owner Ed Justus, worked with SBDC before opening in 2004. He said the consultants continue to give him perspective on approaching other side opportunities that is preferable to trial and error.
“John has definitely been extremely helpful in developing our business plan on multiple projects that we have been working on, from figuring out cash flow, to spread sheets, he has really helped,” Justus said. “He takes something as complicated as a business plan cash flow sheet and breaks it down in such a way as to be easy and understandable. I am truly thankful that this service is available and recommend people to him all the time.
Kaua‘i is a HUBZone (Historically Underutilized Business Zone), which creates incentives for local small businesses bases on ownership and employee criteria. Women and minority-owned businesses have special financing and procurement opportunities.
“I consistently hear that people would love to give to local parties but all too often they cannot identify people in position to compete and end up going to Mainland companies, and that is a tragedy,” he said. “One of the nice things to emerge is the Hawai‘i Procurement Technical Assistance Center.”
Sandy Poehnelt, owner of The Right Slice in Lihu‘e, said the SBDC walked her through essential management and workforce skills. Her business was growing fast and she needed consulting on expanding her staff.
“I realized just a few months into my business that I couldn’t do it alone,” Poehnelt said. “As my business grows, the SBDC helps me keep up with it.”
Poehnelt said the assistance with planning and research, analysis and industry reports, letters and forms, and leasing, were essential but that so was just having someone for feedback. She is planning an expansion and retail location this fall — with financing that SBDC helped find on the mainland.
The challenges to small businesses in Kaua‘i include high energy costs, and the added shipping costs to supply chains on the Mainland. The economies of scale work to disadvantage Kaua‘i with the cost of shipping sometimes more than the raw material being shipped, he said.
“Consider that 85 to 90 percent of materials come from off-island,” he said. “In theory, that could be turned into an opportunity.”
The SBDC is addressing emerging technology and recently hosted a workshop on developing an application-based business. They bring in industry leaders as specialty consultants to offer a variety of expertise.
An organic farm, a health and wellness center, a sports and recreation service, or arts and culture, technology and renewable energy. The idea may involve food, but may be a fixed restaurant or mobile vendor, a commercial fishing operation, or manufacturing an agricultural or livestock product.
The county is looking at value-added products such as the Kaua‘i Made, Kaua’i Grown, and programs like in the creative technology, digital media, culinary business incubators and a slaughter-chill facility, he said.
Other tangibles include a culturally diverse population, and the island as a destination port-of-call. It is dangerous to package aloha but the culture is a strength of the island, he said.
“You don’t want to put dollar signs around that, but the reality is that we do have something unique in terms of island culture, and the ‘aina,” he said.
Visit hisbdc.org or call 241-3148 for more information.
• Tom LaVenture, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0424 or tlaventure@thegardenisland.com.
