From Working as a Busboy at a Restaurant to Building a Million Dollar Company, The Story of Huy Nguyen is Truly an Inspiration

It is true that dreams indeed have no expiration date.  When it comes to following one’s dreams and building an extraordinary life for themselves and their loved ones, it takes a lot of vision, brainstorming, guts, and an undying passion to achieve the goal.

This is the story of a Vietnamese American who fueled his visions and pursued his dream to be a business owner and to run his own company.  Huy Nguyen is an entrepreneur whose story is a true inspiration for people of all ages around the world.  Huy has been making a name for himself in his community by showing people of all ages, especially the younger generation, that you can do anything in this world if you work hard and believe in yourself.  “The American Dream is still alive, and it’s happening right now in our great country.  It’s never too late to follow your dreams and succeed… it just depends how bad you want it.”

Huy Nguyen was born in Houston, Texas on June 27th, 1982.  June 27th also happens to be a day of remembrance for Houston’s Hip Hop founder Dj Screw among the Houston Hip Hop community.  Growing up Huy was a shy kid.  His parents moved to Katy, Texas when he was around the age of 5 so he and his siblings could live in a better community with less crime.  In 2000, Huy graduated from Katy High School, and thereafter went to college at University of Houston.  Huy had many different jobs growing up.  Outback Steakhouse, Discount Tire, and Best Buy just to name a few.  During college he landed jobs in the corporate world doing accounting for property management companies.  He was an accountant for 6 years, and during those years he learned the financial operations of the corporate world.  Huy was making decent money, and many would say he was living the “American Dream” during that time of his life.  When everything seemed to be going well in life with a decent paying office job, getting a college education, and being independent, misfortune struck and it struck Huy in a very awful and unexpected way.

Although Huy was in a good position, he always knew he wanted more.  Huy never felt that working a 9 to 5 was the “American Dream.”  Huy was slowly getting burnt out of the daily routine and was seeking a way to make more money and have more freedom.  However, the way he chose to achieve the goal at the time was a very bad decision.  Huy started to deal drugs to make extra cash on the side while he was working at his job and going to college.  It was easy money to him, and he figured why not as long as he didn’t get caught.  When we asked Huy what was going through his mind during this time he stated, “like a lot of people in their teens and mid 20s, we tend to make bad decisions simply because we are naive and ignorant of the consequences.  Plus, I was hard-headed and thought I knew it all and was invincible.  I was a typical teenager.”  As the drugs and the fast money started to increase, Huy started losing focus on his job and schooling.  Huy started associating himself with the wrong crowds, more bad decision were made, and the consequences started to come pouring in.

During 2010-2011, Huy served time behind bars for serious charges filed against him by the State of Texas.  Huy lost his job when his employer was informed he got arrested and stopped showing up to work.  Meanwhile, attorney and legal fees were piling up to nearly $30k alone.  Being in debt, Huy sold his car, sold his belongings, and lost his home because he didn’t have the money to pay mortgage.  2012 came along and Huy was 30 years old, living at his parent’s house with no car and no job.  When we spoke with Huy, he stated, “locked up for months in jail waiting for the judge to hopefully grant you a bond was the absolute darkest and most depressing moment of my life.  It’s scary when you don’t know when you’re going to get out.  People can act like jail is a dignified place to be, but trust me, there is nothing cool about living in a concrete box with other strangers, no interaction with your spouse, eating crappy food, limited bathrooms, no internet, no communication, no fresh air, no sunlight, no nothing.  People can say whatever they want about jail, but after a few months in there with no freedom, that was my turning point and realization to change and turn my life around.”  Once Huy was finally granted bond and released, he still had to fight for his freedom through the courts so he wouldn’t be incarcerated.  After 2 years of vigorous litigation, an agreement was finally reached between Huy and the State of Texas.  Huy was sentenced to 4 years probation and ordered to pay some hefty fines.  Although Huy was finally able to live and breathe air in the free world, his road to recovery was just beginning and far from over.

At 30 years old, Huy was living at home with his parents, had no car, and had no job.   Huy knew he had to do something quick and he knew he had to get back on his feet.  The problem was that nobody would hire him because of his background.  Huy even applied to jobs like PetSmart and McDonald’s, yet he was still unable to land a job.  One day Huy’s mom calls him on the phone to tell him that the HVAC system is getting replaced at their house, and that the owner of the AC company is a Vietnamese guy that’s the same age as Huy.   Huy’s mom asked the HVAC company owner if he could do her a favor and help Huy with a job, and the company owner said yes.  On the first day of the job when Huy asked the owner how much he would get paid, the owner replied, “I just want to see if you survive the first week.”  Huy said he would never forget that response, and that’s exactly what he needed to hear.  Huy took that reply as doubt from the owner, and he turned it into motivation to never give up.  “The best motivation you can give me, is telling me that I can’t do something”, Huy stated.  We asked Huy what his pay started at, and he replied, “I started at 8 bucks an hour, and that day was one of the happiest day of my life.  I finally landed a job after looking for 9 months, and it was a job that I knew had opportunity for me to move up and one day be a business owner.”

Huy made a promise to himself that if he was lucky enough to beat the case, he would never go back and would be committed to living an honest life and do things the right way.  He knew that the only way to make it in America is to do things the right way and the legal way.  For the next 4 years, Huy worked in the HVAC industry and learned from the business owners by being their apprentice.  He started at the installation position and worked his way up to being a Certified HVAC Specialist.  Huy was surrounded by business owners, and he looked up to them and learned from them.  He asked questions everyday and always looked for way to learn more.  “It doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing AC for 30 years, you will always learn something new everyday in this industry,” Huy stated.  He knew that his goal and dream was to one day run his own HVAC company and do things his way.  Huy knew that one day he wanted to be his own boss.  After 4 years of working in the HVAC industry, Huy then applied to take the State Exam for his HVAC License.  With a passing rate of only 19% according to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation website (www.tdlr.gov), Huy passed the test on his first try and received his HVAC License (TACLB73326E).  In 2016, Huy took a leap of faith.  He parted from his HVAC job, and took every single last penny he saved the past 4-6 years (about $20,000), and risked it all on his idea to start his own HVAC company.

May of 2016, Huy founded and started his first company, AMS ColdPro.  Today, AMS ColdPro has generated a revenue of over a million dollars just after its second year in business.  When we spoke with Huy, he mentioned that when he lost it all in 2010-11 it was the worst and most depressing period time of his life.  He said during that time he hit rock bottom.  However, Huy also said that because of that situation, it opened the doors for the absolute best moments in his life.  He said that if it wasn’t for those bad mistakes, he wouldn’t be where he is now.  Huy said that those losses n mistakes is what helped him learn to do the right things in life, and also that hitting rock bottom was a good thing because when you hit rock bottom, you aren’t afraid to lose because you’ve already lost everything.  When you have nothing to lose, every step moving forward is a win.  This was proof that no matter how low in life you may reach, there’s always time to start moving back up.  “I know it sounds cliche or like a cheesy motivational meme, but it’s my real life experience,” Huy stated.

Huy Nguyen is a true entrepreneur and inspiration. He continues to share advice and guide his followers in his community on how to succeed in life and help them make decisions about the real world that they don’t teach in school.  He even provides private appointments that teaches people how to build credit, save money, invest, and build their way to financial stability.  We asked Huy what is the most asked question or advice asked by his followers, Huy replied, “they always want to know how I made it, and if they can be an HVAC technician too.  I tell them HVAC is a tough job and it’s not a high-paying job starting out.  I started at $8/hr as a blue-collar worker and worked my way up.  Today, I’m still a blue-collar worker.  People want to know how I made my first million or what I had to do to buy my first sportscar.  It’s simple, I worked hard and saved my money for 5-10 years.  I have 16-25 year old kids coming up to me asking what kind of job they need to buy a $60k sportscar, and I realized how misguided these kids are.  I used to be in their shoes once, so I know how it is.  I feel like it’s my duty to guide them and teach them about hard work and patience.  I have to remind these kids that I’m almost 37 years old.  They could literally live their life a whole 2nd time, and still be near my age.  Kids nowadays have no patience and want everything now at a snap of a finger.  Kids graduate from college and get a good job, and quit a year later because they’re not the boss of the company.  People want the success fast, but they don’t want to put in the time to follow the process.  If you’re a teenager and only make $25k a year, then you should be living a $25k a year lifestyle.  Every year they should be cutting costs by living at home with their parents, having no car payment, buying no fancy clothes, no jewelry, no expensive dates, no big vacations, no rent, no mortgage, etc.  They don’t realize that if they want a $60k sportscar and only make $25k a year, by living a $25k a year lifestyle it’s possible to save most of their salary and should have at least $10k saved in the bank at the end of every year.  Do that for 4-6 years and there you go, there’s your $60k sportscar.  If they didn’t get the car, that means they didn’t want it bad enough or they didn’t save and make good financial decisions.  It has nothing to do with what kind of job they have.  People think it’s the type of job and how much the job pays for them to live a certain lifestyle and get the things they want.  That’s completely wrong.  It’s all about how hard you work, hustle, save, and make smart financial decisions.  It’s all about YOU.  And most importantly, to be successful you have to be happy.  If you’re not happy with what you do you’re suffering, and there’s no amount of money that can change that.  That’s why jail saved my life.  It made me realize that an $8/hr. job was a true blessing.  My mindset was already happy then.”

When it comes to his personal life, Huy Nguyen is happily married to Jaquelin Nguyen, and resides in Houston Texas where he runs his HVAC company.  His mother Thanh Tuyen is a huge singing star in the Vietnamese community all around the world.  Thanh Tuyen is a well known philanthropist, and Huy is on a journey to continue the family legacy by helping and inspiring people to succeed by sharing his life stories and experiences, while serving his community through his HVAC company.  Huy’s road to the American dream is truly inspirational as it shows you can building anything from nothing no matter how low you are in life or how bad you messed up.  “It’s not about how hard you got hit and fell down, it’s about how hard you stood back up and kept fighting.”  Huy officially just recently started his second company, The Cargo Crew, which is a trucking and freight company providing logistics throughout America.  We cannot wait to see what Huy has planned next!

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