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Death or Taxes?! How You can Plan for a Successful 2019 Tax Season

You’re probably familiar with the saying, attributed to Benjamin Franklin in 1789, that ‘nothing can be certain besides death and taxes.’

We are in the shadow of 2018’s tax season now, and based on conversations with friends and members, it certainly seems like most people still seem to treat taxes akin to death: something to be avoided and even ignored!

Yet, of course, paying our Federal, State, and for small business owners and freelancers, GET taxes in Hawaii, is something that we simply must do – even if many of us take to the task at the last minute, kicking and screaming.

Lucky for us, we have a tax expert at Impact Hub HNL that can help individuals, freelancers, and small businesses make sense of taxes and – gasp – even make it enjoyable (yes, really)!

Milton Drageset, who has been a guest speaker twice previously at Impact Hub HNL events, is coming back as the guest expert for our May Freelancer’s Network meeting. At this event, held Wednesday, May 22 from 12pm-1:30pm, Milton will offer a tax season roundup, a discussion about how to make your 2019 taxes more organized, and help you create better and more effective financial management strategies.

What else will Milton talk about during this Freelancer’s Meeting?

  • 2018 tax code changes: How did the 2018 changes affect both individuals and businesses?
  • How to plan ahead for 2019: How can you better strategize and organize your expenses. Tips to help you pay estimated taxes on time, organize your Hawaii GET filings, and better manage money so that you’re ahead of the game next tax season.
  • How many extensions he filed this year – and why. How late is too late to do your taxes? Many people wait until the very last minute to file – what is the psychology behind this type of procrastination, and what habits can you build to be more timely?
  • What’s behind money behaviors: Why are taxes are so scary, why we avoid them, and how you can cultivate a better relationship with money generally.

Miton has been working in the financial services industry for almost three decades. He currently works with self-employed individuals and small business owners for the preparation of their income taxes, and offers tax and business strategy services during the year to help individuals and businesses reduce their tax liability; he also offers financial coaching services to those looking to dig deeper into their money story.

A Message from our Cofounder, Nam Vu, about our Wefunder Campaign

Those who know me closely know that I have a deep seated desire to help people that came out of my search for the meaning in life during my contemplative days in high school. I’ve always looked for ways to leave this world better than I found it and have been involved in various service activities. After a while, adulthood set in and service took a back seat to creating a comfortable life with the goal of one day having enough comfort to be able to dedicate service as a full time endeavor.

Then came Impact Hub Honolulu. Being a part of Impact Hub Honolulu has provided me with the opportunity to be of service and at the same time build a sustainable and thriving business. It is that dream that I think many of us have but didn’t think could be possible. At Impact Hub we can do well while doing good. It is possible.

We want to spread this message far and wide and help everyone do well while doing good. We recognize that it is much more difficult to think about and act on your intentions to do good in the world when you are struggling with rent and bills. Our approach is to help everyone to do well so that we can all do good and change the world.

By providing a place where our members can focus on their work and leaving the facilities needs to us, by providing mentorship and learning opportunities to grow their practice, by providing opportunities to join us in doing good, we hope to enable our members to make their own social impact; to democratize the work of social impact and put in in the hands of everyone to do their small share.

To help us spread this message, our plan is to build a network of 11 Impact Hubs across Hawaii to create a network of social entrepreneurs in Hawaii who join the over 15,000 social entrepreneurs that are already in the Impact Hub network, the largest network of social entrepreneurs in the world.

Today we publicly launch our Wefunder campaign to raise funds for our expansion plans. This is an investment NOT a donation. You will receive your money back through a revenue share plus a return. There is an early bird special for the first $125,000 invested.

We chose Wefunder because it aligns with our community building focus and enables our community to invest in our success was well as benefit from our success.

Please take a look and share widely. Together we can make change.

 

An Opportunity to Invest in Impact Hub HNL

The Impact Hub team is so excited to announce the launch our crowdsourced debt investment campaign! You can see our campaign LIVE on WeFunder right now.

This campaign will allow anyone and everyone to invest into the coworking and community space that they love. The funds will primarily be used for our rapid expansion plans: we are growing beyond our Kaka’ako location to new locations on Oahu and eventually, to the neighbor islands – with a goal of 11 new Impact Hubs in the coming years. To get us started, we’ve just signed a lease on a new location in Hawaii Kai, with a tentative opening date of December 2019!

What’s Crowdsourced Investing?

Crowdsourced investing is a unique type of investment opportunity that allows non-accredited investors (ie: those without millions in their bank accounts) to invest in companies and teams that they love and want to help scale up.

Impact Hub Honolulu is running this type of campaign because it gives us a great opportunity to continue to build our network (in Hawaii and beyond) with a foundation of people and organizations that fully believe in our vision for a more interconnected Hawaii.

This type of crowdfunding allows investors to support us with any amount (our minimum is a $100 investment), and receive a return on the investment as we grow. Invested funds go right into the expansion of our network, helping to benefit our growing network and support our #StartupParadise.

Why are We Raising Funds?

We’ve had a busy few years. We started as the ProtoHub in 2014, and then we needed to expand beyond those walls. We were incubated at Sultan Ventures while we waited for our dream location at 1050 Queen Street – which is where we’re based currently. We opened our doors at this location in August of 2017 and have been moving along smoothly since then: we reached our membership goals a full quarter ahead of schedule, and we see a clear need to continue expansion and solidify our place as the leading coworking, community space and managed office provider in Hawaii.

As our Founding team wrote on our WeFunder page, “A diversified and collaborative future economy for Hawaii will provide more opportunities for success. We are helping to build this new world where we see everyone do well while doing good. Together, we can make Hawaii and the world a better place.”

How you Can Help Support Impact Hub HNL?

We have had many awesome community partnerships to help get us where we are today: the State of Hawaii gave us a generous Grant-in-Aid to help us get started in our current location, and the support we received over the years from our multiple Impact Partners has been invaluable to our success within the Hawaii innovation ecosystem.

Hosting a crowdfunding campaign allows our members, friends, and family to help support us, too. If investing isn’t in your budget at the moment, we’d be grateful for Facebook shares, likes, and tweets to friends and followers that would be interested in seeing us grow. Thank you for being a part of this with us!

Meet the Team: Prerna Kalra, our Marketing Intern

In this spotlight, we’re chatting with Impact Hub HNL intern, Prerna Kalra. Prerna has been interning with us since October 2018, and it’s been so valuable having her marketing expertise, design skills, and event planning experience on our team.

In addition to helping the team with our social media and events, she’s hosting a big event to bring Indian dance, music, and food to Honolulu! On May 18, our space will be transformed into an Indian dance party: Jai Ho! Bollywood Dance Night will happen on Saturday, May 18, at 6:30pm: everyone is welcome to listen to great music, enjoy Bollywood dance performance, and eat yummy Indian food.

Andrea Bertoli (AB): Tell me a little bit more about you – how did you find yourself in Honolulu?

Prerna Kalra (PK): When I met my husband in 2017, the last thing on my mind was to leave my job and family and move to a new country… But I told myself that not everyone gets the privilege of living the island life, so just after my wedding in 2018, I moved to Hawaii to create a bag full of new experiences, learnings, and memories – My Hawaii Diaries is what I call it. I moved here for six months, but the charisma of Hawaii held me back, and I am still here living the Aloha life.

AB: Can you tell me a little bit more about your background? 

PK: I am a marketing and sales professional with more than five years of experience across telecom and insurance industries, with a key focus on customer success, client management, business development, and revenue assurance. I hold a Master’s degree holder with a specialization in Marketing. Marketing is something that helps me open my creative mind, while my sales experience has enhanced my focus on the importance of relationship building and the hunger to achieve targets. When I move back to India, I want to explore more creative pursuits.

AB: What inspired you to host this coming event, and what can people expect from this type of dance party?

PK: I had a customer-facing role while I was working in India, however, event planning has always made me happy. Beginning from my school to my Master’s work, I worked with various clubs to host college festivals and events. Impact Hub HNL has given me an opportunity to explore these pursuits even more. I’ve been about learning various ways of hosting events and really digging deeper into my areas of interest in marketing and event planning. As I am originally from India, a common thread of conversation with people here in Hawaii has been about the craze for Bollywood music and Indian food, so that has been my inspiration behind organizing this event. I really want people to put on their dancing shoes and enjoy a festive evening celebrating Indian culture.

AB: What lights you up and brings your joy?

PK: The perfect idea of living life for me is to travel, explore, and network with people. I also have a strong pull towards theatre: I have five years of experience in the theatre, which has always brought me so much joy.  And my time in Hawaii has introduced me to my love for healthy cooking and teaching Bollywood dance to kids.

Register for the coming Bollywood event on May 18 here. Active Impact Hub HNL members get a discount using code MEMBER.

Thanks, Prerna, for taking the time to chat with us!

Building the Spa Business with our Neighbors, The Skin Institute Internationalé

One of Kakaako’s hidden gems is just upstairs from Impact Hub HNL. The Skin Institute Internationalé (TSII), a locally-based teaching spa and esthetician school, is on the third floor of our building. Their training programs are for new and experienced estheticians (think eyebrow tinting, facials, waxing) and help people of all ages start a business in the spa industry.

And the spa and wellness industry is nothing to dismiss: FastCompany explains that, “the wellness market, which encompasses everything from boutique fitness gyms to day spas, is now valued at a whopping $4.2 trillion, having grown 12.8% in the last two years. The industry now represents 5.3% of global economic output.”

If you or anyone you know wants to get into this industry, there is an easy opportunity just a few floors away from us!

TSII trains hundreds of students each year, and they offer their services at discounted rates to the community. Better yet, Hub members get an additional 20% discount on spa services, perfect as relaxation after a long day at work or if you need to treat someone special to some body care.

I chatted with Mary Ronnow, expert esthetician and Founder of TSII, to learn more about her thriving business and how she helps grow wellness businesses in the islands.

Andrea Bertoli (AB): Tell us a little more about your background and why you started an esthetics school?

Mary Ronnow (MR): I’ve been in the beauty and spa industry for over 40 years, and I’ve worked in every avenue of the industry. It’s an exciting multi-billion dollar industry that is always changing. I have had the great fortune to work with my three daughters who are, like myself, master estheticians. All of us are serial entrepreneurs – addicted to starting new businesses. We see opportunity everywhere- likely many Hub members can relate. My daughter Lierem and I saw a huge need for a thorough, sophisticated training in our industry on island, and we have been greeted with open arms – the business community of Hawaii has encouraged and support us over our first three years, helping us become the thriving company we are today.

AB: We love seeing that it’s a woman-owned business. Do you see any particular challenges to running your team? Has this changed over the years? Do you think it’s different than when you started your business years ago?

MR: How great are women-owned businesses? Not only do studies show that women-owned (or companies with women on their board) do better and create better outcomes, I get to work each day with my daughters – all compassionate, powerful women. Our team is all women, all dedicated to supporting the students in their learning environment.

There is a stereotype that it’s challenging to work with a team of all women, but there are not any particular challenges that I’ve found. Regardless of their gender, employees and team members want the same thing: recognition for their contributions, interesting creative work, and appreciation for a job well done. What I do think has changed is that most of the young women students don’t even know what the term ‘glass ceiling’ means–  which has been a long time coming!

AB: The school seems really active: about how many students do you train each month/year and what types of jobs will they get after they graduate your programs?

MR: We do have a lot of students coming and going! We train all ages, as the spa industry is a great career for the student who has tried college and found the traditional route didn’t fit them, or for mothers who have just put their youngest in school or their oldest is off to college – for all of them, now it’s time to do something for themselves.

Our students so highly trained when they graduate, they can essentially choose their own path and salary among the many options in this growing field. Each student is required to take Hawaii State board exams to become professionally licensed, and after that they can work for day spas, resort spas, medi-spas, or focus on back-of-house spa operations (accounting, education, and more). At least 30% of our graduates start their own businesses.

AB: What services do you think are the best options for our hardworking coworkers, and how can Impact Hub members enjoy these services?

MR: Impact Hub members are welcome to 20% off our elegant spa services at already extraordinary prices at our beautiful and calming spa – it’s a great way to treat yourself, a friend, or a coworker. Our pricing is an incredible value and we just love spoiling people. For the member discount, they just need to mention Impact Hub to receive the 20% off.

Learn more about TSII on Facebook or Instagram.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month: Let’s Talk More about Mental Health

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we want to be part of the movement to destigmatize mental health issues, and help be a part of the conversation to shed more light on this important topic.

Historically, mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, mood disorders (along with many others) were ignored, shamed, and not talked about. This needs to change for the health of our communities.

The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) estimates that about 18% of the American population suffers with anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, and only a small percentage of those are receiving treatment. The number of children dealing with anxiety is even higher, at 25%.

Last month we hosted ImpactART featuring the works of Boz Schurr. The work in this show was a departure from her previous work, which is characterized by bright colors and whimsical patterns. In our interview with Boz, she explained her new direction came from recent experiences with her own mental health challenges.

“In the summer of 2017 I was at an artist residency in Iceland and I experienced a severe depression and had frequent and severe anxiety attacks which I had not experienced since college. […] It was a completely surreal, almost out-of-body experience to be aware of what you’re going through and still be completely unable to change your feelings in the moment.” Boz explained that, “[The] current work is addressing that experience – the ebb and flow of our mental stability and how it really affects everyone.”

During the opening of the show there were posters placed around the exhibit that posed important questions focused on mental health. These give us some great ideas and insight for how to be more aware of mental health issues in our community, and how to be a better ally and friend to those that might be (invisibly) suffering.

Each Friday we host an open house to showcase Boz’s work. Anyone is welcome to drop by on Fridays between 9am and 5pm. Check in with our host and enjoy the art – hopefully it will spur further conversation with your friends, family, and coworkers about this important subject.