Young Hustlers on the Rise: Ivan Huang of Kims Tea House
Young Hustler Coffee delivers our best-handpicked coffee from around the world, and motivational messages by up-and-coming entrepreneurs directly to your door. This week’s featured entrepreneur is Ivan Huang the co-owner and CEO of KimsTeahouse.
Kim Huang and her family opened a tea house in Southern Taiwan in 1992. Four years later she moved the entire family to Houston, Texas, to continue the family business. Ivan Huang, now co-owner and CEO of KimsTeaHouse, was five years old at the time and has watched his mother working in the family business his entire life.
Kims Tea House has been a business for more than 20 years and has experienced great success, having opened four different locations in the Houston area. They serve boba tea and other drinks, as well as various food items. Each of them has become a location for different kinds of social gatherings and created a community of consumers from various cultures. And Ivan and his entire family have invested in the business.
“Everyone in my family owns businesses. So to see they can strive and really work towards their goals motivates me to do better.”
Being a multi-generational business creates a lot of stability for Huang to expand his business, but it can also lead to some challenges. All entrepreneurs struggle with time management, because It’s very easy for business life to bleed into normal life, and that’s even easier with a family business.
Consciously separating business life from family life can be difficult, especially business work often pops up outside the office. But to Huang, it’s all about budgeting your time. If you delegate and budget your time in the office, balancing both sides of your life becomes easier.
“You can put things on hold when you work a nine to five job, but when you own a business the work never stops.” Obviously, family comes first. And you just have to make that as important as the business. The family is always a priority.”
Huang has worked hard to get to where he is today but has had to balance his work life with the family to be successful. Most people view success as something tangible, whether it’s how much money you make or how nice a car you drive. But his definition is a bit different. For him and his family, success is measured by how content they are.
“I think success comes from how happy you are with where you are. It’s measured by what you feel you’ve accomplished. If you are content with what you’ve accomplished and where you are in your family life, you will see yourself as a successful business owner.”
Huang does view himself as successful and doesn’t let every-day things bother him. He simply has to deal with day to day problems, like unhappy customers or a system problem, as well as keeping his eye on the big picture. He chooses to focus on the positives to keep going, to make himself mentally tough when he has to deal with failure.
“I fail in some way every day, and that’s normal.” He says, “But you just got to do it. You can’t really dread it. You’ll always have better ideas on how to make things more successful.”
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Young Hustlers on the Rise — Latest Episode “Family Matters” Featuring Ivan Huang — Stream it Now!
