Kona Impact 2025: The Year of Big Changes

As we get ready to tear off the last month on our 2025 calendar, it’s time to reflect a bit on what 2025 meant to Kona Impact.

We started the year with no grand plan for how it would end. We, of course, hoped to grow the business and build on our strengths — quick turnaround and a good range of printing and signage products. 

We had no idea that tariffs would be a thing, and all of our supplies would become more expensive, as most of what we use is manufactured abroad. While we had early warnings of a slowdown in Hawaii tourism, we did not anticipate that Canadian visitors would drop nearly 10%, partly due to the value of the Canadian dollar and the U.S. political climate.

So by April, we began to see that things were going to cost more, and the economy of Hawaii was going to slow, and possibly retract. Many local small businesses were worried, and quite frankly, still are.

We also found ourselves in an intractable situation, with our office space inundated by loud, bass-thumping music from the “yoga” studio below us, which had morphed into a dance studio. Meeting clients, talking on the phone, or concentrating became difficult, so we knew we had to move. It was stressful until we decided to be proactive, write a very forceful “lawyer letter,” and get out of our lease.

So, in June, we moved to a space one street over that had a great layout, was turnkey-ready, had excellent management, and was double the size (at a lower cost per foot) than our old place. Moving was expensive and very time-consuming, but by July, we were fully functional and turning out projects. Our inventory grew, our efficiency improved, and we were able to bring some machines from our off-site shop to our office. 

We had always had apparel in the back of our minds, but we knew we didn’t want to do screen printing, a very 1970s technology with severe limitations, and single-shirt printers just didn’t have the ability to do a profitable volume. So, we went big and now have the capacity to handle large orders of shirts — a few hundred — in full color in a very short time (one to two days). We installed our 2,000 lb system in September, and are beginning to promote our capabilities a little, but have purposefully not gone big with it. 

We noticed many inquiries about embroidery, a complementary product to apparel printing. We knew of only one other embroidery provider in town, and knew they had a chronic lack of capacity to fulfill orders quickly, often with month+ lead times. We knew the market was there, and, combined with our signage, printing, and apparel business, we could cross-sell and upsell embroidered products, so we ordered a state-of-the-art embroidery machine, which we’ll put into service soon.

The lesson for 2025 for Kona Impact was to remain agile and adaptive. We had no plans to leave our old space, add a apparel printing business and an embroidery business, but this is where the market and our business took us. 

We end the year with a diversified portfolio of products and services. However, at our core, we are still a business that works with other companies to improve their visibility, branding, and reach. We go to work every day, excited about the entrepreneurs we’ll meet and the projects they will entrust us with. 

2026. Forward!