She started a $9 million a year candy company called Silky Gem

Huynh was born in Dong Nai, Vietnam, and grew up in Ho Chi Minh City. He says he is the youngest of four siblings and grew up in a poor family.

“My father would go into the forest to cut bamboo and wood and things like that to sell. He never actually came home. He was always working. And my mother was, you know, working. [however] he [could] “To put food on the table,” he said.

As a child, Huynh’s parents always had to work, so they often left him in the care of their neighbor, whom he called “uncle” at the time.

“It was a difficult childhood,” Huynh said. “I [became a] victim of domestic and sexual abuse [at age] four… These were basically my first childhood memories. “He was under the man I call uncle.”

He was often made fun of at school because of his skin color and did not finish fifth grade.

“I’ve always been bullied, [people] “He basically called me names because I had darker skin,” Huynh said. “Since I didn’t graduate from fifth grade, my family and friends [would] “You always underestimate me.”

This environment created mental scars in Huynh. He says he feels very underestimated and this shows up in the fact that he is very quiet and never speaks his mind. He said he didn’t learn his self-worth until recent years.

Huynh immigrated to the United States with his wife in 2016 and lived in Florida. He says the first few years in the US were extremely difficult, and in some ways, life was easier in Vietnam.

“In Vietnam… even if I make some money, there’s enough money to get by on our lives there. But [when] we moved [to Florida]There was so much struggle ’cause it was me [source of] “We were supporting the family and living at my mother-in-law’s house,” he said.

After living together in the United States for about a year, Huynh and her ex-husband separated in 2017, largely due to financial difficulties and conflicts, she said. Later, she met her ex-boyfriend and her first son was born.

“I had a son with my ex-boyfriend in 2019 and it was a very abusive relationship,” Huynh said. “I ended up losing everything in this relationship. I lost my job, I made the most of everything [my] credit cards. I took my son out [my ex-boyfriend’s] “When he was just five weeks old, he was home and living out of my car.”

After living out of her car for a few weeks with her newborn, Huynh decided to move to Maryland and started working at her sister’s nail salon. But Huynh says he can barely make ends meet due to Covid and has had to be away from his son for ten or more hours a day.

He was determined to create a better life for his family and son, so he started experimenting with online business ideas.

In addition to taking care of her son and working at a nail salon during the day, Huynh was also experimenting with business ideas after she got home from work. She says she tried six different online business ideas, from handmade soaps to bikinis, before coming up with the idea for Silky Gem.

While scrolling through social media in late 2021, Huynh saw several videos showing creators eating crystal candy.

“I recognized the candy because we used to come home with my great-grandmother,” Huynh said, adding that it was something they ate on special occasions such as Lunar New Year. “I asked my mom and she said… we had the recipe. That’s when I started using it.”

He was inspired to recreate his childhood favorite candy in Vietnam, and ended up testing the recipe in his own kitchen, spending $500 on ingredients.

“After I get back from the nail salon, I play with my son, put him to bed, and pretty much [make candy] from midnight to three or four in the morning,” he said, adding that he would wake up at 6 a.m. to go to work the next day.

In early 2022, she began selling her candy creations on Etsy and quickly making money.

“The first three months were the hardest…we were making $600 to $1,000 a month, [but] I was very happy. “This is enough for my son’s diaper and milk,” he said.

In March of that year, he published his first influencer post, which went viral and brought in $3,000 that day. Sales increased rapidly after that, Huynh said. in the first He added that Silky Gem has generated more than $1.8 million in revenue in its nine months of business.