Female Disruptors: Fiona Kong OF Home Sweet Homes Journal On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Believe in yourself. This seems so basic, but nobody will be a bigger advocate of your business than you! If I didn’t believe in my mission and that I am capable of doing this, I certainly would not have gotten to this point.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Fiona Kong.
After becoming a single mom and being laid off from her job as an analyst at Verizon Media/Yahoo!, Fiona Kong founded the Home Sweet Homes Journal in 2020 in pursuit of helping co-parenting families, specifically focused on the needs of the child. Home Sweet Homes Journal is a one-of-a-kind tool that empowers kids to process big feelings, better navigate and share their two home experiences in a safe and loving way.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I am a first-generation Chinese-American, born and raised in Maryland. My parents immigrated to the states in the 80’s and growing up, I remember them not being around much as they worked a lot to provide for our family. Our household/culture was one where we did not freely communicate feelings or express love and I remember wishing my family could be like the fun and happy ones I saw on TV.
I was raised with the expectation to study hard and get good grades. And that’s what I did. I graduated college with a business degree, and entered the workforce, ultimately working as an analyst at Yahoo. It was during this time I met my son’s father and welcomed my son in 2016.
In early 2019, my son’s father and I decided to separate and later that year, my job was eliminated. The pandemic hit and all of a sudden, the whole world paused. This time was a gift in many ways as it allowed me to really think about my passions and what I wanted to do with my life. One of those things was to find a way to better support my son as he navigated life between two homes.
The idea for Home Sweet Homes Journey began in June 2020 as a way just to help my own family. I’d been co-parenting for about a year and when my son was at his father’s home, I felt disconnected from him, wondering what he was doing, eating, and how he was feeling and coping emotionally.
I wanted a way to make sure my son always felt supported and loved despite our separation. It was a purchase of a $2 dollar store planner that led me to create Home Sweet Homes, my co-parenting journal business.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Parental separation is considered to be one of the ten ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences), a potentially traumatic event that occurs in children (0–17 years of age). The higher number of ACEs a child experiences is often correlated to chronic health problems, mental illness, and substance use problems in adolescence and adulthood.
What makes Home Sweet Homes Journal unique, is that up until now, there hasn’t been a tool that approaches supporting children of divorce in this manner. When creating it, I set out to solve a multitude of issues kids often experience due to parental separation including helping them identify and manage difficult emotions, providing a method to navigate their dual lives and schedules, and a way to still feel like a united family.
I didn’t grow up feeling connected to my parents, but I truly believe a strong relationship with one’s parents plays an important role in a child’s mental and emotional wellbeing. I’m here to change the way co-parenting is approached, to do so in a way that really focuses on the child’s needs and supports them in a compassionate and loving way. We’re providing families peace of mind and empowering kids in a way that has never been done before. With Home Sweet Home Journals, we’re helping co-parenting families create that bonding experience that can often be missed when children are living in two households. With our journal, we’re giving co-parenting families a chance to reinvent and redefine how to be a family.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I wouldn’t say this is funny in the traditional sense but it really helps to find the humor in making mistakes. When I first went to hire a graphic designer for my journal, I turned to Fiver. I found a designer who had an excellent style and aesthetic based on the photos in her portfolio. However, she had no experience creating a journal but I still decided to hire her. When I got the first design round back, I was shocked! The graphics and style were all over the place, nothing matched or felt cohesive.
I feel like hiring good help is hard to find in general. As an entrepreneur, you’ll encounter a lot of things you have no experience doing such as hiring. The next time I hire, I’d certainly take the time to do my due diligence. There are lots of things I could have done better such as write out a formal job description and get designers to submit a sample journal page design. Also, I’d definitely recommend asking friends, family and others in your network for recommendations as this ended up being an expensive mistake!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
When I started my business, I didn’t have anybody within my social or professional network that was also an entrepreneur that I could lean into for their expertise. I’ve always heard you should surround yourself with the folks you aspire to be like. Since I didn’t have actual people in my life to turn to, I joined a community for founders, have utilized resources such as podcasts to help guide me, and began following and learning about how other entrepreneurs such as Sarah Blakely have achieved success.
Luckily, there are so many resources available in this day and age available to all. I’m consistently networking and always passively on the lookout for a mentor that’d be a good match for me.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
The funny thing is, disruptive doesn’t sound positive. It sounds, well, disruptive. But it truly depends on what the term “disruptive” is referring to. Being disruptive is absolutely not a good thing when it can be harmful to someone or something. However, I like to think that when you’re causing a positive change that has yet to take effect, that can be disruptive.
I am trying to “disrupt” the way we view co-parenting and create a united front for co-parenting families. That’s disruptive because it hasn’t been done. Up until now, co-parenting hasn’t been approached in a truly cohesive and child-focused way. But I’m now “disrupting” that idea and showing that with Home Sweet Homes Journal, co-parenting families can work and bond together to create a positive future for their children.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Take action! Don’t wait till it’s perfect… 80% done is good enough. This is a piece of advice most entrepreneurs such as Jay Shetty have said. Many of us tend to spend so much time perfecting something that in the end, you miss out on moving yourself forward.
- To be most effective, plan your day and work activity and tasks around your energy levels. This requires you to pay close attention to yourself and your rhythms. I am the most creative and do my best writing in the early hours of the morning so when I get up, I’ll plan that time for all tasks that require those skills.
- Believe in yourself. This seems so basic, but nobody will be a bigger advocate of your business than you! If I didn’t believe in my mission and that I am capable of doing this, I certainly would not have gotten to this point.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
I have a few ideas brewing that are a tangent to my journal idea but can only handle one thing at a time! Funny thing, I started a TikTok account and one evening when my son was with his dad, I was eating dinner alone. I threw out a concept for a virtual dinner for co-parents when our kids were away. My video took off and hit over 1M views. There was so much interest that I ran with it, organized a dinner and folks want to keep them going! It’s been such a welcome and needed support group and a way for co-parents to connect socially on days where our kids are away. This goes to show you that life as an entrepreneur can be quite unpredictable and exciting to pivot as you never know where you’ll end up.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
I think males often automatically perceive each other as peers whereas females tend to be scrutinized more harshly and have to prove they belong or deserve to have a seat at the table. Having worked in corporate for 15 years, it was commonplace to feel like there was an exclusive “all boys club” when it came to executive level decisions and conversations.
Being a woman disruptor, specifically a single mom comes along with certain biases and a double standard that I feel a single dad would never face such as whether one can handle work/parent life, have tough enough skin to be an entrepreneur or possess the needed leadership qualities to succeed. Sometimes I feel the odds are so stacked against me, but I believe women, single moms especially, are some of the toughest people out there — we’re driven and fully capable of achieving success.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
There are so many, but Eddie Pinero’s Your World Within is one of my favorite podcasts. In fact, I listen to it nearly every morning as a way to get my day started and help my head get in the right place because being an entrepreneur requires you to be mentally strong. Your World Within is a great combination of life motivation and inspiration and is very relevant to those who are an entrepreneur.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think healing from our childhood wounds and trauma is one of the single most important things we can do toward making strides for a more peaceful and harmonious society. I don’t think people realize how much of our past we bring into our future, even unintentionally. Trauma can and is often passed down from one generation to the next and unless we really address these issues and do the work to heal, we can’t be the best versions of ourselves. Becoming self-aware allows us to be more understanding, gentle and empathetic toward one another and I think that in itself could change the world.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One quote that’s really made an impact on me is “Everything worthwhile is uphill” by John Maxwell. Inherently, we all want the end result whether it be a happy and fulfilling relationship, to be in great shape, or have a successful business, but few are willing to do the hard work to get it.
Being a single mom and entrepreneur has been the most challenging, grueling and most mentally taxing and exhausting period in my life. I know I have to be committed, consistent, and relentless toward my pursuit as there are no shortcuts.
How can our readers follow you online?
Readers can take a look at our Home Sweet Homes Journal site, here. Be sure to also follow our journey on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Fiona Kong OF Home Sweet Homes Journal On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.