Honolulu Entrepreneurs Find Benefits To Soft Economy
It’s a tough time for the nation’s economy. Economists say the dollar is weak, costs are rising, and in general, people are buying less. With all that bad news, who would want to start a business?
It seems counterintuitive to want to open doors to a new business, at a time when customers are closing their wallets. We wanted to know what would motivate someone to do just that.Not even a month old, the busy crowd at the new Harbor Court Bistro www.harborcourtbistro.com makes it look like it’s been in business for a long time. Owner Liz Hata-Watanabe sat with us to talk about the secret behind her early success. “Any business is a tremendous challenge.”
She should know. Hata-Watanabe is the force behind Honolulu’s O Lounge nightclub, but her second pregnancy pushed her from the nightclub into the restaurant business. Now five months pregnant with her second son (possibly to be named Kevin III?), she glowed when she explained, “It’s much more conducive to be a mommy with a restaurant.”
Why now, when many consider the economy weak? University of Hawaii at Manoa economist Gerard Russo, PhD, highlighted benefits to starting a business at a time like this. For instance, he pointed out, if you survive, you’ll do great when the economy is booming!
Hata-Watanabe found other positives as well. “You can use it to your leverage to negotiate more than you couldn’t do if it wasn’t a soft economy.”
And, she adds, there’s a bigger labor pool. “As opposed to when we started up O Lounge, many more people came to apply, and we used that to our advantage.”
No comments yet.
Leave a Reply