About Kelly King Anderson
Kelly King Anderson is the Founder and Managing Director of Startup Princess and a Trustee of One Heart Bulgaria, a non-profit organization for Bulgarian orphans. Kelly also is the Brigham Young University Home-Based Business Plan Competition Advisor for the 2007-2008 school year.
In grad school (2005) Kelly participated in the Center for Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competitions with her Princess Sweet business plan, winning awards at BYU and nationally, including 2nd place at Wake Forest University out of 70 MBA teams and 12th at Rice University out of 160 Global MBA teams. Following the competitions Kelly recognized the power of networking for entrepreneurs and created Startup Princess to help women have more opportunities to learn and connect.
Initially Startup Princess began as a hobby to meet other women entrepreneurs while pitching to investors to launch Princess Sweet. As Startup Princess gained recognition as a solid online community and a “Top Resource for Women Entrepreneurs” (Costco Connection May 2007, Entrepreneur May 2007) reality set in and Kelly decided to put Princess Sweet aside and grow Startup Princess–an ideal bootstrapping model and a perfect lifestyle business for a mom of three young children.
Although Princess Sweet is on hold indefinitely, Kelly learned a great deal by creating the business plan, participating in business plan competitions, and executing many of her ideas. Princess Sweet enjoyed a very successful 2006 holiday season bringing happiness and joy to many families in Utah at The Provo Towne Center and events for children, complete with wishes from a delightful Sugar Plum Fairy!
Kelly has a variety of talents and experience in business and in the arts. In 2005 Kelly completed her Master’s Degree at BYU in Theatre for Young Audiences. Her thesis demonstrates how pretend play among preschoolers encourages literacy. Her undergraduate work was in Humanities-English. She has a professional background in marketing and PR, and worked as a freelance publicist for small businesses and local celebrities securing features on local and national television including, The Today Show. She also worked as an Account-Coordinator at an Advertising agency and assistant to the General Manager at KBYU-FM.
During college she studied in England and lived in Bulgaria for 18 months as a representative of her church. She became fluent in the language and developed a strong love for Bulgarian orphans. In 2003 Kelly was asked to be a Trustee for One Heart Bulgaria and was one of the Founders. She was very involved in the creation of this successful non-profit organization and served on the board as Programs Director. She recently organized a container shipment of medical and hygiene supplies to be sent to the children and produced a benefit CD.
She is married to the amazing, humble, and handsome Matthew Anderson, founder of Wholesale Works (specializing in selling consumer electronics at wholesale pricing to consumers and small to mid-sized businesses). Matt has always had a home office and they enjoy sharing parenting responsibilities and joys of raising their three young children. They try to live happily ever after in Utah County.
Kelly loves anything and everything “princess”, perhaps because she was born a “king” (her maiden name) or perhaps because she believes that every girl is a princess and has every talent, skill, and ability to make her own startup dreams come true.
Kelly is committed to empowering the lives of those around her, whether they be her own children, orphans, or new friends she meets each day. Kelly loves to share insight, resources and help others fulfill their dreams as a Fairy Godmother. Startup Princess and her companies are examples of this passion.
Make a Wish, Make it Happen!
