
Entrepreneurs profiles the company and the owners of small niche businesses along with sharing the challenges and lessons learned. Linda Dela Cruz is the MidWeek website editor and senior writer. She also covers stories for the MidWeek’s Windward Islander.
Below are the last 10 columns written by Linda Dela Cruz
When Girls Who Surf’s Cherry Fu works overtime, she just may be riding a rolling wave.
Fundraising isn’t easy. It’s lot of work, and often requires cash up front or a minimum order, which can affect the nonprofit’s bottom line. So a group of fundraising friends started Kala Kokua to address some of these concerns and make life a bit easier for fundraisers.
Judah Oschner is quick on his feet when he’s teaching people to dance to the pulsating rhythms of salsa, and that energetic spirit reflects in his company, Aloha Rhumberos, where he teaches and performs salsa and does mobile DJ work.
Children crawl through the center tube of a play caterpillar, climb into a house constructed of cushioned mats and trek over a soft bridge at WeePlay and Learn.
No matter how much time you spend in, or working on your car, Diane Crisologo, operations manager of Pamalu, wants to help customers make their cars look good and protect them as well with bed lining, window tinting and detailing.
What happens when you go on vacation to surf in Australia and some folks ask if you can help create something that’s better than what’s already out there? If you are Jimmy Freese, you end up combining your computer programming skills with your passion for surfing to create a full-fledged business of your own.
Yvonne Chun Izumi has her students in stitches - literally - at Izumi Arts. “There are Project Runway patterns now, and a lot of girls get inspired by that (TV show),” says Izumi. “They sew because they want to be creative and do something unique to express themselves. It’s not so much because of the frugality.”
Deb McGuire is happiest when she’s eyeball to eyeball with an animal, so she started her company, Deb McGuire Photography, to combine a few of her passions: animals, photography and traveling.
Read Column>>Penalty fees, past due notices and unbalanced checkbooks - a lot can go wrong if accounting is not taken care of. That’s where Dustin Sellers and his company ProAccounting Hawaii come in with a message about the benefits of outsourcing accounting duties by small businesses.
Having a store with his designs is one of the things artist Kaypee Soh scribbled on his list of 10 things to do in a tiny sketchbook while he was riding the subway in New York City eight years ago. His shop So’mace Lifestyle embodies his artistic spirit.