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

KJ, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The basis for my business is simple: I love a good pep talk.

To me, giving a pep talk shows how much you care about the recipient. Likewise, being on the receiving end of one represents how much you mean to the giver.

I’m a firm believer that there’s both power and promise held within a pep talk, which is what motivates everything behind my business. It’s what drives the products that I create.

When I started dreaming up Pretty Peptalks, I wanted to provide a flash of delight in each recipient’s day. It was my dream to one day offer a physical way to recreate how spectacular it feels to receive a pep talk—like the kind you once received from a random drunk girl in a bathroom at a club.

You know, the unexpected kind that leaves a smile on your face for the rest of the night.

Pep talks can come in all shapes and sizes and that’s what I love about them. They can be sweet, but not too sweet. Bold, but not too bold. Or tough, but not too tough. No matter how they’re delivered, however, pep talks are a labor of love.

Pep talks make everyone feel good. And that’s how I hope my business will make everyone feel. Which is why it’s our mission at Pretty Peptalks to make beautifully simple stationery perfect for life’s pep talks.

I want to make it easier to tell those you love that you love them, to give that tough love pep talk when it’s warranted, and to reach out when it’s been way too long.

And, even if it’s grammatically incorrect to smoosh pep and talk together in our name, it suits the brand perfectly—I’m so excited to share our products with you, I’m in a rush and can’t be bothered to add that extra space between words in the name.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is KJ Blattenbauer and I’m the founder of Pretty Peptalks, a high-end letterpress stationery brand based on the belief that life is better when lived in bright color.

I spent the first 25 years of my working life as a publicist, where I shared my signature brand of motivational tenacity with everyone from entrepreneurs to multi-national corporations to non-profits. In 2019, I published my first book, How to Be a Media Darling. During my time in publicity, my expertise My expertise was featured in a variety of media outlets including the New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Forbes, Bloomberg, Cosmo, and HelloGiggles. My second book, Pretty Pep Talks, was published in 2021.

But I wanted more. In 2020, while we were all safe at home during the pandemic, I started to lean into my passion for paper. From that, and a few letterpress workshops, Pretty Peptalks was born.

I’ve always been what my friends would say is a stationery snob and I’ve always had a passion for paper that won’t quit. Add to that not being able to hang out in person with friends and family during COVID, and the need to connect with the ones I care about really ramped up my letter writing.

To say I’m a stationery snob doesn’t mean I thumb my nose at certain brands. Or, that I judge the invitations or cards sent by friends when I receive them in the mail. It means the exact opposite.

To me, being a stationery snob means I appreciate quality paper products and am drawn to well-executed designs. If I were to become a collector, I would collect all the papery goodness available to me. I don’t even care if papery isn’t a word, it is now.

I love pretty things in paper form. Is it’s wrong, then I don’t want to be right!

And, because the world needs a little more joy now more than ever, I’m excited to finally be sharing my paper passion with the world.

I launched Pretty Peptalks because I wanted to create beautifully simple stationery. I wanted to bring inspiration and hope to the world one pretty, colorful pep talk at a time. I wanted to provide you a flash of mailbox delight as equally spectacular as the pep talk you once received from a drunk girl in a bathroom. I also was sick of endlessly searching for American made letterpress perfection that was simple, chic, and colorful all at the same time.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

To gather the initial capital needed to start my business, I launched a Kickstarter in May 2021. Against a lot of advice from my peers and at the height of the pandemic. Not exactly great timing.

However, in this highly digital age, I felt taking the time out to select and send a handwritten card says a lot. It’s why I’ve always been fond of giving and receiving a proper note.

Simply put, it’s hard to beat the excitement of ripping open an envelope, the look and feel of a good sheet of stationery, and the familiar sight of your friend’s handwriting.

With correspondence only the push of a button away today, it’s easy to forget how getting something special in the mail feels. With the Kickstarter campaign, I wanted to change that. I wanted to remind people what it feels like to run to their mailbox again.

With the support of friends, family, and strangers around the world, I was able to bring back the lost art of letter writing by making it both easy and special to reach out to those you love and those you may have lost touch with.

My initial goal with the Kickstarter campaign was to make a set of letterpress note cards to help people reach out to their friends when they need a pep talk. Especially when that pep talk seems more like tough love, is impossible, or just plain awkward. Times are tough and everyone could use a little more love and kindness right now. I wanted to make it easier for people to make that happen for their people.

I was able to raise more than $10,000 to help pull together all the tools necessary to make my letterpress line a reality. From paper and operational needs to a platen press that’s more than 150 years old, the Kickstarter helped fun my first press run, my press, and lots of papery goodness in between. It was a lifesaver.

Nothing feels better than having an entire community rallying behind you, supporting your dream, and helping to make it a reality.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Starting a business amid a pandemic is not widely recommended. In fact, it’s highly discouraged by most. And yet here I am, more than one year later, still printing and running Pretty Peptalks.

What started as a letterpress hobby became a Kickstarter campaign. Then, a stationery line.

I have welcomed new printing friends and new challenges. I’ve have survived asking for help from my community and (so far) a global pandemic.

Running Pretty Peptalks has been the greatest joy and the greatest struggle of my life (sometimes at the same time).

I’ve had to pivot from running a purely service-driven business most of my working life as a publicist to learning as a go how to be a product-driven retailer. The learning curve was steep! And every day still feels like a school day.

Like most, both the pandemic and other economic factors have played a huge role in my business the past two years. Being safe at home gave me the opportunity to perfect my craft; however, it also brought with it issues. If you’d told me in 2021 and into 2022, I’d be facing business-halting challenges like paper shortages and now glue shortages—I’d have laughed in your face.

But supply chain issues and logistics—not just normal, run of the mill shipping delays—are greatly impacting small businesses already limping through the game thanks largely in part to COVID.

I think one would be hard pressed to find a small business still in operation today who hasn’t had to pivot and make huge sacrifices to keep their dreams alive. I find that incredibly admirable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.prettypeptalks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prettypeptalks
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prettypeptalks
• Other: Instagram personal – https://www.instagram.com/kjblattenbauer Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/prettypeptalks/

Image Credits
Abby Anderson