Kiwimonk: Relatable Words Kevin Huynh

I got to announce this week that People & Company, the strategy company I co-founded, was acquired by Substack. You can read about it on Substack’s blog and in People & Company’s announcement. 📣 🎉 😌
I've been reflecting on the last four and a half years.
The moment that sticks out was a sweltering afternoon in Manhattan Beach during the first year of our biz.
In Bailey's living room, the two of us huddled together over her iPhone for a conference call. We took turns nervously asking questions and fielding replies while on speakerphone with a prospective big name client. Then we hung up, sullen. We were sure we bombed it.
As we attempted to distract ourselves with the freezer aisle at a local grocery store, another email dropped in our inbox. It was a “no” from the one other promising lead for a new project.
We warmly refer to this period in People & Company history as “the dark night of the soul.”
Impostor syndrome shined loud and proud. Entrepreneurial spirits were at an all time low. We even tried lifting our spirits that day from the downward spiral with a game of Pickleball. It didn’t work.
Calm would wait to come during a call with Kai later that day. He reminded us, “Don’t let the highs get too high. Don’t let the lows get too low.”
We weren’t players cut from a roster. We were doing the work.
Building People & Company cemented my gratitude for chances to do interesting work.
I’ve had the privilege to do work I find stimulating for a lot of my career.
My parents didn’t have the same choices I do. As they set roots in the US during the ‘70s, they optimized for security and good jobs. My dad filled potholes in the Texas heat and stacked pallets of soda at an A&W warehouse before starting his career in electrical engineering. My family built a foundation that afforded me a chance to craft a career.
I had it different—the resources to pick and choose, to follow my gut, to pursue opportunities with less guaranteed. Even those "darks nights of the soul" at People & Company, though harrowing, they felt purposeful, unexpected, and fun.
When I chose to start P&C, I believed that the most important quality in a cofounder was a complementary skill set.
But my perspective has shifted. Cofounders also require a willingness and ability to spend unearthly amounts of time together. I think if you find that, it's a competitive advantage. 🪐
People & Company’s run as a community strategy firm was like a planetary alignment of partners with complimentary interests, personalities and time. We knew this chapter of our partnership was temporary. Reminding myself of that rare confluence every day spiked my gratitude.
While running the biz, I'd tell myself: any day, one of us could be offered the opportunity of a lifetime. Any day, one of us could wake up with the desire to chase a new interest. Any day, one of us could end up in the hospital (all three cofounders did at various times).
Embracing the temporary meant that each day was a gift—one more day to push the current chapter forward, together.
Together, we decided to turn a new chapter
My team and I have already onboarded with our new team. At Substack, Bailey is now the Head of Community. With Katie as a Community Manager they’re figuring out how to accelerate and celebrate all of the writers on Substack. I’m the new Head of Services scaling up programs like legal support, insurance, design, and editing for writers. And Kai is an advisor to our teams. We’re moving in new ways. We’re strategizing towards new goals. We’re operating in a new context.
Moving on from our old setting has come with grief—like saying goodbye to a house that has served you well, even if you know your life requires a different space. Yet on the whole, the change feels refreshing. We are plants potted in new soil. 🪴
I described my new gig optimism to some friends yesterday, referencing the story of OutKast’s dual album: Speakerboxxx

My Ông Nội—that's my paternal grandfather—owned a machine shop in the coastal city of Qui Nhơn, Vietnam. That's where my dad grew up, surrounded by the grinding sounds of lathes, mills and other equipment.
Every Lunar New Year, the family business closed for a few days. And during that time off, Ông Nội would carry out his signature New Year's tradition.
First, my grandpa would change out of his everyday shop garb into set of silk white pajamas. Newly radiant in his pristine outfit, Ông Nội would proceed to disassemble, oil, and reassemble the family's grandfather clock. Every gear was meticulously cleaned. Then, the clock was put back together in perfect working order.
I listened to my father share this anecdote last week. It was the first time I’d seen my parents in a year. We were celebrating Lunar New Year over plates of bánh tét.
My dad felt that the silk-pajama-clock-maintenance tradition was a way to stay busy, feeding Ông Nội's insatiable need to problem-solve even while on vacation.
However, I like to think my grandpa looked forward to this ritual as something more—an annual reset. A chance to get refreshed. Revisit a familiar project. Remember why he liked to do what he did.
The closest thing I have to rebuilding grandfather clocks is rebuilding my personal website. 🙃
In 7th grade, my best friend Sean shared that he was learning to build his first website. On my next trip to Borders bookstore, I remember excitedly searching for a HTML textbook. My mother bought me a copy of HTML 4 for the World Wide Web by Elizabeth Castro that day.
I still remember the slick feel of the book’s yellow and purple laminated cover. Within a week I completed every exercise front to back using one of my dad's old work laptops.
When I was a kid, my brother gave me the nickname “Kiwi.” I was chubby, tan, and sported a buzzcut through grade school. So naturally, my personal brand was born. In 2000 (I think), I published my first website, The Kiwi Connection, hosted on Angelfire.
I sunk hours into constantly redesigning and recoding that site.
Building one version was immediately followed by building the next, like swimming laps in a pool. The Kiwi Connection eventually became Kiwimonk.com (another nickname gifted by my brother when he signed me up for AOL Instant Messenger).
Middle school me now owned a home base on the internet. I posted updates, published "art," collected quotes, and catalogued a portfolio of websites and graphics that I made for friends whom I met on the internet playing games.
As I got older, revamping Kiwimonk became a holiday-ish tradition. New side projects added. My bio rewritten. At one point, the site housed a popular forum among classmates in high school.
Today, I see my personal website the same way it started: a constant work in progress. The site is my evolving artist statement, from puberty to adulthood. It's always been a personal, public terminal for friends and strangers to learn about me and whatever I consider to be “my work.”
Like Ông Nội, I’ve spent “me time” every year since I was a kid to revisit this satisfying, yet un-finish-able project.
Making websites started as a hobby for me.
That hobby tricked me into dedicating time to reflect on my relationship with my work. Maybe something similar was taking place for my grandfather.
I never met Ông Nội, but I gather that he enjoyed his work. It was hard work. The machine shop he founded survived the Vietnam War and is still operated by my family today.
But rebuilding things seemed to be more than my grandpa’s way to make money and provide. It was a passion—or at least something he felt compelled to do.
I’ve felt compelled at different times during work and play. I think we all seek to understand “our things” that itch, that move us, that pull us along. They are the beasts we feed. They are practices that enable us to feel more like ourselves.
Music: Complicate Ya by Otis McDonald
Kevin

Hi! I recorded an audio version of this week’s essay. Hit play to hear me reading out loud—like a mini-audiobook. I think it captures the vibe behind the writing. 🔊😊 Reply or leave a comment if you enjoyed this storytime option. ~Onwards~
One of my earliest memories making food is from my older brother's high school prom night. Instead of going out to dinner, my brother Jeff and his friend decided to cook dinner for their prom dates.
So, on a Saturday afternoon, my family set up a mock restaurant in our Colorado basement. A card table was dressed with a table cloth, candles, and our nicest wares. Meanwhile, Jeff and his buddy prepared a multi-course meal complete with a printed menu.
My role for the evening was to be the waiter 🤵🏾. As an eleven-year-old donning black slacks, a white dress shirt, and a bow tie, I showed the two couples to their table, served drinks, and brought out course after course.
As the group polished off their mains (shrimp linguine), my mother prepared her strawberry crêpes for dessert. She asked if I would assemble and plate the crêpes. So with her guidance, I rolled each thin crêpe around spoonfuls of strawberry compote and sporadically drizzled melted chocolate on top.
“Good job, Kiwi,” my mother said as I put the finishing touches on our final course. As of that moment, I felt like her plating specialist. I contributed to the dish. I helped make that fancy dessert. I helped make the food.
Crêpes were served, and our dinner guests left for the dance. While cleaning up, I found a $20 tip on the table.

My journey making food started with my mom delegating kitchen tasks.
From plating crêpes to rolling California rolls to frying chả giò (Vietnamese spring rolls), I helped with certain dishes on certain occasions growing up.
Living on my own in college was a turning point. Making food became my responsibility. I had to feed myself, and I welcomed it. I made extravagant Super Bowl weekend breakfasts with my crew, compared chicken enchilada recipes with my roommate Sean, and delivered homemade chili to a girl whom I never conjured the courage to share my true feelings with.
When I moved to New York for work, making “home food” took on even more significance without me taking notice.
New friendships were sealed over Wednesday yellow-shell taco nights at my apartment. I called home to catch up with mom and ask about her coconut chicken curry recipe. And, there was that sweaty summer day when Yoko and I took a crack at homemade hot wings after we started dating.

“If you could eat anything right now, what would you eat?”
I ask that question to my (now) partner, Yoko, almost every night before we fall asleep. 90% of the time she answers, “Ramen.” Meanwhile, I spout off new foods we might bring to life in our kitchen: tamales, saag paneer, lasagna, elote, spam musubi, pizza, bánh xèo...
When Yoko and I cook together, I joke that we move in the kitchen “like a dance.” (Pronounced: “like a dawnnnncee.”) She typically chops. I run the stovetop. Our limbs weave quickly in and out and around each other as we grab utensils, add ingredients, and season our food.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi popularized the term “Flow.” He describes flow as:
“A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
If that's flow, then flow for me is making food. Whether frying eggs in the morning or heating casserole stew at night, I never regret making time to make food.

“No one in the world has ever eaten this before.”
Sometimes when I sit down to eat, I reflect on the distinctness of enjoying that food in that moment. No one has ever eaten a dish with precisely this many grains of rice, this many granules of salt, and all of these other ingredients in their exact quantities.
Every once in awhi