Hasia is an up and coming hookah lounge in Armory Square, the bustling heart of downtown Syracuse, NY.  Hookah, a tool used to smoke the flavored tobacco shisha, was created in the Middle East and has become a great past time for everyone to enjoy.  It comes with hoses and a water bowl where the smoke is filtered through the water. People enjoy the different flavors of shisha like apple, coconut, and coffee.

The owners are putting their own healthier spin on the hookah lounge by offering herbal shisha, which is 100% non tobacco. To add to the cultural experience, they will be offering different variations of Taiwanese milk teas with tapioca.  The lounge will also be displaying paintings by undiscovered artists, allowing them to showcase their creativity. For older customers, Hasia will also offer a bar. This business will create a whole new attraction for Syracuse natives and tourists to enjoy.

The owners are working diligently to lift this business off the ground. Because they are both twenty-year-old students at Syracuse University, the hardest part of this endeavor is finding the resources to generate the funding. One of the students is majoring in Sports Management, while the other is majoring in Political Science. They say it’s hard to fully put their whole faith in this business because students have been conditioned to search for internships and jobs with big companies.

Most people do not aspire to have their own businesses. For those that do, many businesses fail after a few years. At the same time, if they do not take the risk, Hasia will never grow to its full potential and become the next big franchise. The worst part in life is thinking what could have been.

Another hookah lounge called Hollywood Hookah opened on Marshall Street by Syracuse University, but Hasia owners won’t let this competition to scare them away.

“It’s not about the competition,” they say.  “It’s about being innovative and having the more creative ideas to beat the competition and blow them out of the water.”

They admit it will be hard.  The owners of Hasia explained how discouraged they felt when they heard about the opening of Hollywood Hookah especially because both lounges started their endeavors at the same time. The owners of Hollywood Hookah had the upper hand because they were funded by their families.

However, the owners of Hasia feel they can only rely on themselves to find the resources they need. So far they have been looking into competitions such as the Panasci Business Plan Competition and grants. The entrepreneurs have been using resources from the Entrepreneurship & Emerging Enterprises department of the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University to help them with this endeavor.

Being an entrepreneur is hard, but what part of life isn’t? You just have to find the motivation to continue to pursue your idea and see it through.