Serena Sun and Lucy Guo: Co-Founders of The Homie Collective

Serena Sun and Lucy Guo met 19 years ago in Vancouver and quickly became best friends. Together they recently started The Homie Collective, a small business selling hand-poured candles and founded on the importance of community. Serena is also a singer, songwriter, and producer, and her music can be found on Spotify and Apple Music.

I spoke with them about growing up Asian in Vancouver, how studying in the US helped expand their ideas of diversity, and how they emphasize the importance of mental health in their approach to The Homie Collective.

Rebecca: Can you start by telling me about your upbringing, especially regarding your Asian identities?

Serena: Both of my parents are originally from Mainland China, and my two brothers and I were all born in Canada. I'm the most fluent in Chinese, because my grandmother was around when I was growing up. My youngest brother speaks very little Chinese. My mom wanted us to speak Chinese growing up, but my dad preferred speaking in English at home. I’d say our household was more westernized, maybe because my parents both work in international business.

Lucy: I was born in a small town in China. My parents also worked in international trade; my mom was in Hong Kong a lot and my dad was based out of Japan for the first few years of my life. I have fond early memories of being raised by my grandparents.

My parents and I immigrated to Vancouver when I was four. I didn't have any siblings to speak English with, so I only spoke Mandarin at home.

Photo courtesy of Serena Sun

At that time I thought it was annoying, but now I’m grateful that I can speak Mandarin. My dad was working in China most of the time, so my mom acted as a single parent. My mom made a lot of the decisions when we first immigrated here, even though she didn't know English. We originally rented a house in a Chinese-dominant part of Vancouver, but around 2000 we moved to an area that was predominantly white. This past year, I asked why she didn’t stay in the original area, where she could speak Chinese with our neighbors and didn’t have to struggle as much. She told me that they had immigrated to Canada to give me different experiences that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. 

Rebecca: When you were younger, how did you feel about being Asian?  

Lucy: My first time assimilating without my parents was when I moved to West Vancouver and went to elementary school. I attended two different elementary schools and the second one is where I met Serena. My mom would always pack me Chinese food for lunch and the other kids weren’t used to it. My food smelled really different from everyone else’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I didn’t make the association that people thought my food was gross because it was Chinese food; I just knew they were reacting negatively to my food. I used to eat my lunch in the school bathroom, so that people wouldn’t react weirdly to my food. David Chang talks about something similar in “Ugly Delicious” and it seems like this is a universal experience a lot of immigrant children go through. 

A lot has changed since we were kids and there’s a growing community of Asians in Vancouver now. A lot of wealthy Chinese immigrants have come over, and they can afford houses in suburbs that were historically predominantly white. 

Serena: When I was younger, I was pretty aware and insecure about being Asian. Lucy moved to my school when we were in second grade and we quickly became close. She brought dumplings to class, and that sparked our friendship.

In school, the kids that were considered “cool” were mostly white. For a while, being Asian made me feel unattractive. I didn’t feel comfortable being Asian until I left Canada and went to Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school in the US. 

Rebecca: When you came to the States, how did the way you viewed your Asian identity change? 

Serena: I held insecurities about my identity up until college. Right before I toured UCLA, a racist video went viral with a white UCLA student mocking Asians and imitating the way they talk. The video worried me. In my personal experience, Exeter had been inclusive and celebrated diversity, and I wanted to go to a college that did the same. 

I did choose to attend UCLA and ended up joining a sorority that wasn’t an Asian sorority. Part of that speaks to some of my insecurities growing up and what I thought was cool and wanted to be a part of. 

Lucy: I went to USC and I remember driving around downtown LA with my parents and being a little surprised at seeing so many people of color. I did not see that in Vancouver at all at that time. It was culture shock in that I saw so many different ways of living, and it normalized diversity for me in the best way possible. When I was in Vancouver, I was Asian and it felt like everyone else was white, but in LA, I saw that it’s normal to be different. Now I’ll intentionally seek out diversity in my work environments, because I’ve grown aware of how important representation is to me. 

Rebecca: How have other experiences abroad influenced how you view your Asian identity? 

Serena: Previously I’ve worked in China and Chile, and in China, I was automatically branded as “westernized.” I'm pretty friendly, but people in China thought I was hilarious, because I’m much louder and more outgoing than the typical Chinese girl. At the time, my hair was dyed lighter blonde, which people found entertaining. I hung out with a mix of expats and Chinese residents when I was there. I learned a lot about my cultural background and saw that I would’ve been a completely different person if I had grown up in China.

When I was in Chile, I got a lot of stares, since there aren’t that many Asians there. But I mainly interacted with people from work, and they were all friendly to me. 

Rebecca: Do you resonate with the term “Asian American?”  

Serena: I don’t think of myself as Asian American. I’m either “Canadian” or “Asian” - those are two separate terms that are both applicable to my identity. When I was in America, I felt a little shy about being from Canada. Canada isn’t mentioned much in American classes and people would make jokes about and almost look down upon Canada and Canadians. Before I moved back here a few years ago, I was a little bummed about coming back because I had adopted the mindset that there was a lot more going on in the States. But once I got here, I remembered how amazing and beautiful Canada is. 

Lucy: The term Asian American rubs me the wrong way a little, because I identify as a Canadian, not American. I think you have the term “Asian American” in the US, because there’s a lot happening politically and people think more about their identity and how to distinguish themselves. In Canada, we’re a little behind in that regard. The term “Asian Canadian” isn’t weird necessarily, but people don’t go out of their way to say that. 

Rebecca: Pivoting a little, how have your parents reacted to your music and work as a small business owner?

Serena: In general, my parents are pretty supportive and my parents know I'm really success driven. Success looks different for everyone but for me, I want to put all my effort in my music and have it be heard. At first I was terrified to tell my parents that, because it sounds so lofty and unattainable. But it seems more viable now with the developments in releasing your own music and producing from home. Different social media platforms like TikTok also help more people hear your music. If I don't work on my music at this age, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life and my parents understand that. They’re also very supportive of my job as a small business owner.

Growing up Asian, I never thought it was possible for me to pursue music, because no one famous looked like me. The only person people could compare me to was Brenda Song. If I do gain that following and reach that I’m manifesting to, I hope it helps other Asians realize that they too can pursue their creative passions. 

Rebecca: How did you have the idea to start The Homie Collective? 

Serena: We’d been talking about starting a business together for the longest time. We've known each other for 19 years, and Lucy’s the closest thing I have to a sister. The candles started out as a fun experiment and creative outlet that let us take our minds off of the pandemic. Once we realized we enjoyed the process, we decided to make it into a business. We thought shaped candles were an untapped market, because we’d seen them a lot on social media in the UK and the US, but not as much in Canada.  

Rebecca: Can you tell me about the progress you’ve made with The Homie Collective so far? 

Serena: We had the conversation and idea to start the business during the first week of November. For the rest of November, we had to do all of the R&D and we were making candles literally every waking moment. It’s easy to think “oh they’re just candles, you can just pour wax and put them away.” But there are a lot of factors people take for granted like the way they burn, the color, the wick, and the materials. We also had to set up a functional website on Shopify, which neither of us had ever done before. 

Lucy: November and December was a whirlwind of setting things up. Someone had reached out asking if we were selling the candles yet, so we did a soft launch in December to see how many people would want them as stocking stuffers or gifts. 

Serena: We were pleasantly surprised during our soft launch, because we made more sales than we expected. We’re so grateful for the support and purchases from friends and people we don’t personally know. We barely did any marketing for the soft launch, so we thought our friends would be the only people buying these candles. Now we’re scaling up production for our launch. We just got more molds, which was a huge bottleneck for us before. We’re also working on a more structured marketing campaign for our launch. 

Lucy: I feel like a grandma trying to figure out how to use TikTok. Serena is so proficient in it, because she’s been using it to promote her music. I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that TikTok is a great way to gain followers and traction, especially for small businesses. 

We’ve been upping our social media and making a lot of content that's hopefully helpful for other small business owners. We try to be as transparent as we can be about what’s happening and things that suck, but also how we’re solving certain challenges. In the future, we want to look into wholesale options and local businesses and retail throughout Canada to work with. 

Rebecca: What have been some of the most challenging parts of working on The Homie Collective so far? 

Serena: Setting boundaries between work and personal life was huge. When you start a business, it's your baby. You want to take care of it, make it grow and put all of your effort into it. But you can't work on it 24/7, otherwise you’ll burn out and that can be detrimental to your mental health. Mental health is a part of our mission statement, so we want to make an honest effort to take care of our own mental health throughout this process. For this to be an enjoyable experience, we have to set strict boundaries for ourselves. 

Lucy: We're best friends first and foremost, so in the beginning we’d be texting each other at any hour of the day about both business stuff and non-business stuff. But we had to set our work hours and agree not to text about business stuff after that. Some people think if you’re an entrepreneur, you have to work 24/7 and you don’t have set hours. There are definitely times when we’ll work more to hit certain milestones, but it’s not realistic to always be working or thinking about your business. 

Another challenge we have is quality control for the candles. Everything is hand-poured by us, so we can't guarantee that every candle will be exactly the same. We’re both perfectionists, so we’ll get a little frustrated when two candles are slightly different shades. 

Rebecca: What is your long term vision for The Homie Collective? 
Lucy: During COVID-19, Serena and I have been talking a lot about mental health and how we’re feeling, since everything is so different. Long term, we’d love to have an online community where people can have these conversations and feel safe and supported. We want to expand beyond candles with comfy loungewear that has phrases and cute reminders about mental health. Our products would ideally be just one factor in our company, but the larger part would be the community. We always want to support the idea that mental health and checking in with your homies is important.