That's the basic offering at the "RED Manini" program, a seven-week course at the Immigrant Center in Kalihi aimed at low-to-moderate income residents, and immigrants.
RED Manini students learn how to keep books, market a product, make a business plan and other basics before qualifying for the low-interest loan.
Some, like Telesia Fauolo of Kaneohe, negotiate the figure up to $5,000. Even then, she said, it was tight getting into the lunch wagon business.
Fauolo managed to find a 1981 Dodge van for $1,200. She stocked it with drinks and snacks and headed up Kamehameha Highway to the North Shore.
"It was hard, but you just know how to survive with that $5,000," said Fauolo, a 37-year-old single mother with three children.
Sylvia Miller, another RED participant, is using her background in computers to set up a unique World Wide Web page featuring daily photographs of sunsets in Hawaii. She hopes to attract enough interest to sell advertising space on the web page.
"What RED Manini did for me was get me money to get the computer," said Miller, 41. "I probably couldn't have gotten it anywhere else."
RED -- Resource for Enterprise Development -- is backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration. For many like Miller who can't qualify for conventional loans, it's the only alternative.
For a $25 fee, participants learn the ins and outs of "micro" home businesses. Initial $2,500 loans are repaid at 3 percent interest over 18 months. A second loan of up to $5,000 is offered, followed by a final loan of up to $10,000.
With a default rate of less than 3 percent among the 26 participants who have taken advantage of the program since it began in 1994, it's been a success. But coordinators caution it's only a small foot in the door.
"We're talking micro businesses here," said Dave Washburn, program director. "You can't really start a small business on $2,500. Micro businesses are generally home-based, low cost, and often a supplementary source of income."
One feature of the program is the peer group, which requires small groups of participants to meet monthly and monitor each other's loan repayments. Members contribute 5 percent of their loans to a rainy day fund to help those faltering with payments.
Among the program's first graduates is Ba Thanh Nguyen, a former South Vietnamese refugee who started a tailoring business in his Makiki home.
The 48-year-old man and his wife, Le, share a small apartment off Pensacola Street cluttered with piles of cloth and crammed with sewing machines.
Nguyen had to learn the trade from scratch, but with the help of $10,000 from RED Manini, he's now grossing about $25,000 a year. "Me and my wife can make about 150 a day," he said, pointing to a pair of swim trunks contracted by a Waikiki aloha wear shop.