Struggling Entrepreneur

Hi! My name is Karen Nguyen, and I am currently 25 years old. For the past few years, I have resided in Flower Mound, Texas. Originally born and raised in Long Beach, California.

It was always a dream of mine to start my own business and make my mom proud. That’s all I ever wanted to do. When growing up, my mom’s side of the family would always look down on her and our family. They did this because we never had any money, and we always seemed to run out of luck when it came to doing business.

During my freshman year in college, I decided to find a job near campus to help my family out as much as I could. Eventually, I found a job working at a restaurant that served boba drinks as well as a lot of different Asian dishes. My time there was awesome and I eventually made my way up to becoming their general manager after 2 years. I spent 50-60 hours a week working for them and had to drop out of school. One day, I decided to take off work a little early because it was super slow, and then I assigned the shift leader to cover the remainder of the day. All the hours caught up, and I was burnt. The owners found out and were very upset with my decision. He felt like I questioned his authority and told me if I didn’t like the way he was doing business, then I should just quit. So I did just that. I felt unappreciated.

Not too long after, my grandpa passed away; I decided to move out of California, away from all of my family and friends to focus on myself and see what was out there for me. Out of school and with no job, I was like Christopher Columbus in search of a new world. I went through a bit of minor mishaps before deciding to take that leap of faith into the unfamiliar territory of running a business. At the age of 21, I opened my own restaurant without my family knowing and with no support from others. I was so happy and proud of this cool new adventure, but little did I know it was actually just the beginning of a different kind of journey.

Young and naïve, I learned the hard way. The workload was endless and never stopped. It was like running on a treadmill with no off button. There was absolutely no time for breaks and it taught me that 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week is not enough. Yet I remained dedicated and determined, kept thinking the finish line was close by. But it was foolish thinking. I didn’t have much money, but I raked up all of my credit cards just to make it work.

My older employer eventually found out that I had opened my own restaurant and he went after me trying so hard to shut me down. He tried to intimidate me by striking a $1 million dollar lawsuit even if I had been in business for less than 3 months. He was bitter, even after I try to work something out, he still demanded a 6 figure amount to settle and I was floored. I thought a lawyer would be cheaper. I couldn’t tell if this was a joke, or if he has resented me for leaving. He sued me for the most ridiculous things. During his deposition to my lawyer he said, “I have all of the money in the world to drag this on for as long as I want.” His motives became apparent. All of his stunts might have been fun for him, but it was a nightmare for me. I kept thinking to myself, business is already hard alone, how would I get through this. I wanted to stand up for myself and again was determined to not let him harass me into shutting my business down.

When I started with my former boss, he had just 1 location. Eventually when I left, he had 3 or 4 locations and started franchising. By the time he sued me, he was already working on 20+ locations and got very cocky. About 6 months after this lawsuit was when things got really bad. Covid came, it hit every business. I still remember the day when our sales halted, dropped in half. I was shaken and didn’t know how long it would stay like this. But I learned to keep doing what I was doing, don’t stop and keep pushing. Some things were beyond my control. I worked too hard to build this up, so I fought my way through. I paid off lawyers to defend myself in which I did not have the funds for, but I made it work. The lawsuit dragged on for over 3 years now, and over $60,000 later, I finally won the case. But it took so much from me and my struggling business. It got me even more in debt.

I kept all of this to myself this whole time. Even though Covid and the legal battles are finally over, I am personally burnt out and exhausted. My resources are limited, and my business needs improvement. To get through this, I will have to keep pushing like I always do and become more determined than ever. I have to focus on making my restaurant succeed even more than ever to prove to everyone who doubted me wrong. To do this, I want to rebrand my restaurant and change my restaurant's name to attract more customers. My business was put through the grinder, so I’m certain that I will make it through this transition with a little help from the community. There’s so much that I have learned from this. So much that I’ve been through already for my age, and I am not ready to give up just yet. I am asking for your help; I would like to be able to start my restaurant off with a fresh new start with the funds.

Thank you so much for reading my story. Though I can now breathe a sigh of relief from my journey, the treadmill is still running, and I have to keep going. My restaurant is Teaholic in Highland Village, TX. I would love it if you came to support our business as well; the food and drinks are amazing!