{"id":817947,"date":"2026-07-23T03:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T03:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817947\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T03:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T03:51:15","slug":"wendy-lin-and-brian-nguyen-how-the-lioness-and-gong-grocer-founders-turned-a-best-friendship-into-a-successful-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817947\/","title":{"rendered":"Wendy Lin and Brian Nguyen: How the Lioness and Gong Grocer founders turned a best-friendship into a successful partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"

They were friends who hooked up one night on a couch. Now they\u2019re equally passionate about their businesses and their daughter.<\/p>\n

\"Jessica<\/p>\n

July 23, 2026 \u2014 11:00am<\/p>\n

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Entrepreneurs Brian Nguyen, 39, and Wendy Lin, 38, were best friends who fell in love. Now they\u2019re passionate business partners and devoted parents to five-year-old daughter, Koby.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wendy: We met in 2004, hanging around the NSW State Library when we were studying for the HSC. We fell into the same friendship circle at uni \u2013 he was doing law at Sydney University, I did economics at the University of NSW \u2013 but always dated other people. My type was bad boys: older, with tattoos. Brian was top of the class and a little nerdy, although mischievous.<\/p>\n

The attraction was like a switch. I was 27 and going through a bad breakup. My parents were pushing me to figure out what I wanted in a partner. My mum thought Brian was good on paper, and his sister, by now a good friend of mine, said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you two get together?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrianBrian Nguyen and Wendy Lin. \u201cThese days, we figure out our potential flashpoints early,\u201d says Brian. Wolter Peeters<\/p>\n

I started wearing make-up and feeling self-conscious when he\u2019d pick me up. One night, after a birthday party, he was too drunk to drive and needed to sleep on my couch, which he\u2019d always done. But I didn\u2019t want to get off it \u2013 and we hooked up. We woke up thinking, \u201cWhat the hell?\u201d And then it happened again, sober. When we told everyone we were together, not even our exes were surprised. Eight months later, we were engaged.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Bianca<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m the one who comes up with a crazy idea \u2013 let\u2019s start a business! \u2013 and he asks how we\u2019re going to get there. He forces me to think and slow down. I launched my fashion label [Lioness] in 2009 when I was 21. At the time, there were barely any e-commerce, fast-fashion brands and it grew quickly. In 2018, Brian quit his job as a government solicitor to join the company, but we were naive: there was no plan, no structure. Suddenly, I was his boss, telling him what to do and how to do it. It was really hard.<\/p>\n

He definitely wanted to quit at times. By 2023, we were parents to a two-year-old and we\u2019d also just launched our second business<\/a> [Asian supermarket Gong Grocer]. It was the busiest we\u2019d ever been. Brian said, \u201cListen, I get that you\u2019re ambitious, but you have to make time for marriage and parenting as well as work, otherwise what\u2019s the point?\u201d I was like, \u201cOh, my god! Are we getting divorced?\u201d I remember thinking, Really listen to him.<\/p>\n

At Lioness, I\u2019m MD and he\u2019s CFO; at Gong Grocer, he\u2019s MD and I\u2019m brand director, but we don\u2019t talk about work after 5pm. We have four calendars: one for each business, one for our marriage and one for Koby. Brian calls the shots at home. We do monthly date nights. He doesn\u2019t let me get away with anything mediocre; we go out for a nice dinner and, if it\u2019s an anniversary, he buys flowers.<\/p>\n

His upbringing was picturesque: a three-course dinner every Sunday, a big Christmas tree. In the early days of our relationship, these wholesome, Hallmark scenes would make me randomly burst into tears. My family\u2019s from Beijing: it\u2019s all study, work \u2013 no play.<\/p>\n

In 2020, before Koby, I had two miscarriages a few months apart. After the second one, I remember Brian saying, \u201cEven if it\u2019s just us two, it\u2019s enough.\u201d I felt so supported by him that I didn\u2019t feel any strain or trauma. He came to all my obstetric appointments and even asked for a therapist recommendation for me. He was just so present. And, eventually, we got pregnant again.<\/p>\n

What can I say? Brian brings this first-date level of general impressiveness to our everyday world. He shows me how to live.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe couple on their wedding day in 2016.@wendylioness\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Brian: Wendy was the cool girl, the party girl \u2013 bad at studying, but great at asking people for notes \u2013 and she was always someone else\u2019s girlfriend. But we had common interests and frequently went on holiday together. If I said, \u201cLet\u2019s go to New York\u201d, she\u2019d be like, \u201cYes, let\u2019s!\u201d<\/p>\n

One night, while we were on her couch, she draped her legs over me. I thought to myself, Man, I\u2019m so attracted to you. It was like the room changed colour. We woke up the next morning and were like, \u201cWhat do we do now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Within six months, we\u2019d moved in together. She didn\u2019t want a cookie-cutter wedding, of course: we agreed we\u2019d build a marquee at Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquarie\u2019s Point [on Sydney harbour]. Guess who had to do it? [The council] needed about 20 documents: drawings, safety plan, crowd control. To this day, she probably doesn\u2019t know how much work went into it. But that\u2019s the nature of our relationship: she has the idea and I plan.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Harrison<\/a><\/p>\n

Initially, I was helping Wendy run her business for free. And then I thought, \u201cWhy don\u2019t I join her properly?\u201d After all, she\u2019s doing this for us and our family. The thing is, though, I love litigation \u2013 I know how to navigate rules to get an outcome for my client \u2013 and, suddenly, the things that gave me satisfaction were no longer in my life.<\/p>\n

In the first three years, I nearly quit five or six times, but it felt like giving up on us. My work just felt so unstructured and we\u2019d fight. Wendy would say, \u201cMaybe it\u2019s meant to feel like that!\u201d She\u2019s always been a director-level person who makes commitments \u2013 \u201cWe can fix this!\u201d \u2013 but I\u2019d feel overburdened by the how. This was a key understanding for us in our relationship.<\/p>\n

Our next goal was to have a kid. In our entrepreneurial minds, because we\u2019d planned it, we thought it would just happen. No one gets you ready for a miscarriage. All of a sudden, all of our friends came out of the woodwork: \u201cI had one, too.\u201d I just wish people would talk about it more. I\u2019m really open about it.<\/p>\n

\u2018Our next goal was to have a kid … because we planned it, we thought it would just happen.\u2019<\/p>\n

Brian Nguyen<\/p>\n

These days, we figure out our potential flashpoints early. At the start, our emotions \u2013 frustration, anger, resentment \u2013 caused us to fight. Wendy would slam her laptop shut and walk out the door. We both went to therapy. Mindfulness has helped me observe the emotion before acting on it. I realised that being happy together isn\u2019t as simple as just fixing stuff: it\u2019s about being able to talk about difficult emotions and say, \u201cActually, I can see how the way I did that was hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Wendy\u2019s engrossed in something or has a challenge, she has this look. Then she goes into action. It\u2019s in these moments that I\u2019m so in awe of how powerful she is. I\u2019m sure she\u2019ll say I\u2019m impressive and smart, but I feel like that\u2019s my constant, whereas she has this great capacity for growth. She hates public speaking, so she\u2019s now doing professional coaching; she\u2019ll never tell you that.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s at her most attractive when she finally resolves a problem or masters a new skill. It\u2019s just the most joyous thing in the world to see.<\/p>\n

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\"JessicaJessica Yun<\/a> is a business reporter covering retail and food for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They were friends who hooked up one night on a couch. Now they\u2019re equally passionate about their businesses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-817947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}