It’s no secret that COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into Hawaii’s economy. Hundreds of businesses have shut down, and thousands of people have lost jobs.
Despite the downturn, new businesses have managed to take root during the pandemic. It hasn’t been easy and the outlook is still uncertain, but the experiences of these new business owners show that with agility and perseverance, a business can sprout and grow in difficult times.
“I think it’s been an exercise that every business owner has had to go through, even on a regular basis, but more magnified, and that is knowing when to pivot,” said Liberty Peralta, owner of Popoki + Tea Cat Cafe in Kaimuki.
Peralta opened her business in February, just weeks before COVID-19 shuttered or restricted businesses. But since then, she’s managed to weather the storm by halving the number of visitors — four instead of eight — that can play with her adoptable cats at one time in her 700-square-foot facility.
“I’m breaking even,” she said. “I know a lot of people are struggling now, and it’s been a roller coaster for us too, but considering the circumstances, I’d rather be in the position that we’re in.”
She’s been able to attract new customers by holding events like cookie-decorating workshops — using cat-shaped cookies. “They booked up in an hour,” she said. “We sent out an e-blast and they booked up, so we added a second day to those workshops.”
It wasn’t easy when the pandemic first hit. Although it wasn’t required, Peralta closed down cat visitations for two months, not knowing what the future held and what the impact of the virus would be. “I didn’t want to send out a wrong message about ‘Come visit our cats while our neighbors are closed,’ ” said Peralta, who previously worked in public broadcasting.
While closed she did handle some cat adoptions, which is another part of her mission. She is allied with Kat Charities, a Pearl City-based organization that focuses on cat adoption. The organization helps socialize the cats and provides some biographical information for them. Peralta also observes the cats when they are brought to her and puts that information on her website so that customers know their personalities.
Despite the pandemic, she’s had pretty good success with adoption, with more than 130 cats placed since she opened. She also sells cat toys and other cat-related products, as well as bottled tea. Her business started as a series of pop-up cat cafes, with tea sold as part of the refreshments.
While it might be hurting her bottom line, Peralta sees an advantage in having a limited number of customers at a time. “In some ways, it’s good for the cats,” she said. The quieter atmosphere is less stressful for the animals.
Designing success
For interior designer Zoa Dubarry, starting her own business represented the culmination of many years working in design. A native of Canada who came to Hawaii 15 years ago, she had worked for various companies in a range of positions, learning to navigate the business along the way. But she considers the premature birth of her son in 2015 the start on her path toward establishing her own business, Studio Dubarry.
“My life went from being a businesswoman and working my job and taking a lot of pride and building my skill set, to all of a sudden I was this provider for this little human who was less than 2 pounds,” she said.
After he was able to come home, she found work with a designer who allowed her to work remotely, occasionally meeting with clients to work out contracts and other matters. A self-described introvert, she said that period gave her the confidence to strike out on her own at the end of 2019.
“It was like, ‘If I don’t do it now, what better time to do it?’ ” she said.
Just a few months later, COVID-19 cases were spiking. Dubarry was in the midst of a renovation of a Tudor-style home in Black Point, and her contractor had just demolished the kitchen. “Two days later, we were told the pandemic was happening and everything was shut down,” Dubarry said. “But construction was still going on, and (her clients) needed a kitchen.”
With construction deemed an essential business, the project was able to proceed, though there were plenty of obstacles. Mainland suppliers of things like tile were laying off employees, making communication difficult. “I found I couldn’t just rely on doing emails anymore, simply because I didn’t know if the person who I was working with was going to have a job the next day,” Dubarry said. “I would email, I would call. Sometimes I would call the showroom but the showroom was closed, but there would be a phone number to get ahold of someone else.”
Work at the property was a challenge. Social distancing required her and the workers to take special care when in the home, since the owners remained there for a time. Still, Dubarry considers herself to have had good luck with the project, which took about six months to complete.
“If the timeline had been two weeks different, they might have said, ‘Let’s put the brakes on it,’ ” she said.
Since then, she’s had new projects, mostly small projects like bathroom and kitchen renovations. She’s relying on “the coconut wireless” and social media to find and publicize her work. She also took an online business program for interior designers, where she learned how to target possible customers. “If you name a picture on your website with certain words, like ‘bathroom’ and ‘Moroccan’ and ‘interior design,’ then if people are Googling ‘Moroccan design,’ then your website is likely to pop up,” she said.
Community connection
The pandemic has created an awareness of health, hygiene and cleanliness, and that is where the Kaimuki Soap Co. has stepped in. Established in April by entrepreneurs John Garcia and Jaime Moniz, the company offers scented soaps that aim to get you “head-to-toe clean,” with specialized body bars, facial soaps, hand soaps and shampoo bars.
The key to their business has been identifying with their neighborhood, said Garcia, who grew up in Kaimuki. Their soaps are produced in a facility in Aiea but are carefully hand-wrapped and sold through their home in Kaimuki, which also serves as a showroom and research and development center.
“It’s about being connected to the Kaimuki community,” Garcia said. “They really recognized the product that we were producing, and that’s what has really has helped us to sustain and grow through the pandemic and into the new year.”
They got heavy exposure through Keep It Kaimuki, a collective of Kaimuki merchants that produced a virtual market featuring their products. “That was a huge success for us,” Garcia said. “It’s these kinds of decentralized efforts within our community that I think is the heartbeat of the new way to do business.”
Without a storefront, they’ve turned to a few inventive ways to get their soaps to people — a little retail, some mail delivery, but also curbside pickup. It’s just like picking up dinner at certain restaurants these days: order online, drive to their home and park outside, and Garcia or Moniz will deliver it to you, contact-free.
They’ve also started a subscription service, through which customers can have soap delivered to them on an ongoing basis. “We’re starting to see a conversion of people who would buy our soaps once every couple months, now they’re subscribers and get our soap every month,” Garcia said, adding that he’s getting orders from around the islands as well as from mainland transplants “who wanted a slice from home.”
He and Moniz, a native of Florida whose mother made soap, share the responsibilities of the company, from ordering, invoicing and packaging to determining what scent to use in their next soap product. Opening a business during a pandemic “has been eventful,” she said.
