The cost of entrepreneurship in Hawaii

In HNN’s new livestream show “Covering the Cost with Annalisa Burgos,” we break down the numbers behind Hawaii’s affordability crisis in candid conversations with financial experts, entrepreneurs and community leaders.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – In today’s episode, we talk to Meli James from Hawaii Venture Capital Association and Mana Up Hawaii about the challenges of entrepreneurship and the startup economy in our islands.

A new WalletHub study ranks Hawaii the third worst state in the U.S. to start a business, after Rhode Island and Maryland.

Reasons include our high costs of living, taxes, and labor, as well as limited access to capital and resources.

Tack on current economic uncertainty, inflation, tariffs and construction bottlenecks — all of which are hurting innovation in Hawaii and stunting growth for entrepreneurs.

“People have had to shift gears. Some folks have had to adjust product lines or even end some of the products that they’re creating because they can’t find alternatives, or even from a pricing standpoint,” said Meli James, president of the Hawaii Venture Capital Association and founder of the Mana Up accelerator.

Born and raised in Honolulu, James started her own company in Silicon Valley in 2007 — a wine website and app Nirvino.

For more than a decade, she’s worked to connect fellow entrepreneurs with resources, mentors and funding.

“Everything shifts from your costs, it’s like exponential in terms of the price for the consumer and if the consumer won’t bear the price you don’t have a business.”

There are efforts to change that, and business leaders say it comes down to making things more affordable through tax breaks and incentives.

“We have to start to address the housing and we have to start addressing the economic development initiatives that are really creating more jobs here in the state,” James said.

“We also need to keep pushing ourselves, from a legislative standpoint, policy standpoint, incentive standpoint to help companies, be able to form here and stay here, and we don’t have enough of those,” James said.

James wants to see more government support for accelerator programs and enterprise zones that reward companies for investing in the state and creating jobs.

“As we’ve learned through Mana Up, hey, we’re all spending dollars here. If we can be more incentivized to spend them locally if we’re gonna be buying, goods or services, there’s a local procurement bill going through.”

It also helps to create a local startup culture that celebrates successes and inspires others.

For the past 25 years, the Hawaii Venture Capital Association has run the Entrepreneur Awards, which honors local innovators.

“There’s no silver bullet but I think as we’re all kind of working together, that there is hope and there’s a lot of support.”

Catch “Covering the Cost with Annalisa Burgos” Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m. online, on HNN’s livestreaming app and anywhere you get your podcasts.

The 26th annual Entrepreneur Awards will be held at the Waialae Country Club on Feb. 25. For more information, click here and read about the honorees in the March issue of Hawaii Business Magazine.

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