We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Annalies Boerendonk a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Annalies, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The concept and idea of Klein House has evolved multiple times over the past 2 years of being in business. Technically Klein House has been a brand for three years, and it all started as a food and lifestyle blog.

I was hit by a drunk driver and suddenly found myself at home 24/7. I was in my first house, and I couldn’t work or drive so I spent my time watching The Magnolia Network; I found inspiration and hope in Chip and Joanna Gaines. I went to college for culinary arts so it was rather fitting for where I was in life at that point in time to daydream about having my own cooking show while watching her show. I had always been tech savvy too so I decided “Why not start a blog and make it happen for myself?”

From there the face and energy that is still around Klein House today was established. I wanted people that visited my site to feel encouraged, welcomed, and supported. After months of posting recipes, cooking videos, and home decor- I happened to talk to a cousin in Oklahoma that is a part of the National Quarter Horse Association. She was telling me all about how the web designer costs the association has to pay for was more than she could have imagined, even for one sentence to be changed. So, through my time learning about web design for my own website, I decided I could be the option for people to have a website without breaking the bank.

The Klein House services were established to help small business owners and creatives with their online image, with a budget that is more realistic and manageable for people just starting out- on a platform that could grow with them. All traces of cooking and home decor were removed from my site, and I put the focus on small business owners and what they might need help with to grow online. With the internet being such a valuable resource for businesses and their customers, I knew I needed to hone in on them and their needs.

Klein House presented as an exclusively service providing brand for the better part of a year. Clients trickled in, but branding and keeping up with my own online image became harder and harder. The passion and fire I felt for sharing what I do faded out because the soul of Klein House wasn’t there anymore. The encouragement, support, connection, and community that I wanted to spread through my name was getting harder and harder to do when I only focused on getting more clients. Even when I looked at it from an outside perspective, I wouldn’t have felt those things with my own business until after I had signed and got to work with myself.

I decided Klein House needed a change and to go back to its roots, so those uplifting feelings could be shared with everyone that comes across my brand whether you work with me or not. So, Klein House turned into what it is today- a brand that supports the community of small business owners and brings them together, but also provides services to help that community grow. Klein House itself could turn into just as valuable a resource as their own website and social media pages.

Since I made that change, and got more personal again with my brand, I have seen my business grow and expand more in a few months than it had in that year. I feel that passion and fire to keep pushing myself and my business again; and I think that is what people see. They see the foundation that Klein House rests on now, and that is what brings them in. They know that the intentions and community around my brand are positive and encouraging, just how I imagined it being, and they know they can trust me. Because ultimately my business is showcasing all the best parts of myself, in the same way I want to help small business owners and creatives showcase all the best parts of what they have to offer.

Annalies, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started Klein House out of pure chance, and my never ending want to help people and encourage people. I noticed the lack of community between small business owners, and the lack of resources these owners have in terms of web design and online image resources. I decided to be the change by establishing a brand that brings business owners and creatives together, and a business that provides web design, ghost writing, and social media management to help support them as they grow without breaking the bank.

I believe that your brand is the soul of your business, they are two separate entities that have to work hand in hand to get you to where you want to be. The more you showcase your brand, the more your business can flourish and vice versa. I want to help people showcase the “why?” behind what they do so their clients can see the great things they have to offer and all the heart that goes along with it.

I am proud to say that I have established a platform to help small businesses and their owners grow, all while pushing myself and Klein House to grow as well. I have the amazing opportunity to encourage people to continue to do whatever it is that sets their hearts on fire, and to keep pushing because they know they have something to fall back on.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Klein House has had waves of being my only job. I went through a period of not knowing what I wanted to fill my time outside of my business, but last spring I finally decided that I wanted to do something with horses since it had always been a love of mine. Just to see what would happen I sent an email to a ranch in the Rocky Mountains and thankfully got the job.

Now half my time is spent working on Klein House and the other half is spent in the saddle. I am incredibly thankful for my job there, and my bosses and co-workers (now turned very close friends) have taught me so much that I carry into my business now. It is a wonderful thing to fall back on in moments where business is slow, and I feel it is a great reset for me to clear my mind so when I come to this “city” way of working I have a unique mindset towards it. Surprisingly, there is a lot of valuable traits you can adopt from such a manual labor job and working with livestock that beautifully fits into running a business.

I think that people have to acknowledge and fully accept that each person is diverse in skills and interests, and when you tap into each “category” of your life, it enhances the things you put your focus on. We as people are not meant to focus on only one thing every single day, and there is a lot of life to live outside of what you believe you should be your only focus.

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

Since I re-branded Klein House into more than just a service provider, but also a hub for small business owners and creatives, there have been a lot more options for generating income. I recently started the Klein House Art Print Program, working with local artists that want their artwork shared but don’t have the time to dedicate to getting prints, shipping, and all the technicalities of selling.

Of course the artists are the first thought and priority when generating income off of their work, so the net percentage for them is as high as it can be to keep shipping their prints without rolling into the negatives. It is important to me that the artists feel that pricing is fair, all while making sure the expenses and time put in to make these sales possible is worth while as well.

My mindset has never been to get rich off of my business, yes I would love for it to evolve to make my life comfortable, but my first priority has always been to uphold the morals of community, friendship, organization, inspiration, creativity, and growth that Klein House is built on. So if that means that for now I have to hustle with other jobs and passions while keeping my morals, that is perfect for me. Good things will come around to people that have good intentions.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kleinhouse.me
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kleinhouseco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kleinhouseco/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kleinhouseco
• Other: info@kleinhouse.me (719) 270-1427