Tonka Talk Community and Connection
Welcome to Tonka Talk, the podcast that explores community and connection around Lake Minnetonka.
Nestled near the serene shores of Lake Minnetonka in the Twin Cities, our show is your guide to discovering the inspiring stories of individuals and groups who are crafting vibrant, meaningful community and connection in this picturesque setting.
From lakeside gatherings to community events, from stories of local heroes to heartwarming tales of collaboration, we dive into the ways people are coming together to create a strong sense of belonging.
Whether you're a longtime resident, a newcomer to the area, or simply interested in the power of community, Tonka Talk has something for you.
Do you know of someone creating community and connection in a unique or big way? Share it with us. We would love to hear from you.
Learn more and connect with us at https://www.tonkatalk.com
To connect with Natalie: Natalie@tonkatalk.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonkaTalk
Tonka Talk Community and Connection
Embracing Challenges When Creating Something NEW: Ask Kelly!
Ever wondered how to turn a seemingly dilapidated property into a thriving venture? Join us, Natalie Webster and Kelly Olsen, as Kelly shares her thrilling journey of breathing new life into the Guest House in Excelsior, transforming this historic bed and breakfast into a modern vacation rental and event venue.
We'll also let you in on our latest venture, our very own real estate brokerage Shortlist Properties, where we aim to turn every real estate challenge into a creative solution.
Hear the emotional tale of a woman who turned the tragic loss of her husband into a heartwarming narrative by taking a leap of faith with Hans Bakery. Her story of determination, grit, and the overwhelming support will leave you both inspired and motivated.
Join us on this journey of community through challenges, real estate, and entrepreneurship.
Click here to learn more about The Guest House in Excelsior
Learn more at https://www.tonkatalk.com where we share more about our Lake Minnetonka community, including upcoming events and our take on local experiences.
Connect with us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TonkaTalk/
If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions of a future guests creating community and connection, email natalie@tonkatalk.com
We appreciate your support in sharing Tonka Talk Community and Connection with someone you think could benefit from our content.
Hey everybody, welcome to Tonka Talk. I'm Natalie Webster. We talk about all things community and connection, and many of you who follow Tonka Talk know exactly who's sitting next to me it's Kelly Olson. Hello, hello, nat. We are gonna jump into a very exciting topic today, something I've been dying to talk to Kelly about. You're gonna hear a lot more about this topic in the future because we have a really good idea of what we wanna add to Tonka Talk.
Speaker 1:Now, if you don't know Kelly, she's been in the real estate and land development game for over two decades. Most people around the Lake Minnetonka area know her for one of her recent projects, which was the guest house in Excelsior. It's when you and it was nine, right, nine total ladies. Yes, that was an adventure for sure. All came together. In fact, that is when I first met you as I interviewed you about the guest house in Excelsior. How long ago was that? Almost two years, may, wow, I wanna say. Was it in May? No, it was right before it opened.
Speaker 1:February issue was around that a couple years ago, and the guest house is now a modern day vacation rental and event venue, and it was a bed and breakfast that was built in like 1858. Same year, minnesota became a state. That's true, and this woman here looks at this old building and goes, huh, and I think this would make a great vacation rental and event venue. There was also a reality show filmed around it called Miss Independent I-N-N I N it's independent, which did really well. It was nominated for original Emmy. From there I joined Kelly in her company, olsen Global, and we've been doing some fun things since then. She's wrapped up a big development out in Blaine. Most what most of you have probably heard of is the Shoreline Hotel, which is the project that's currently going on. And most recently, after doing all of this, we're like, hey, we should open our own real estate brokerage. Yes, we're both obsessed with real estate, yes, with community, and we recently did that.
Speaker 2:We're those people who leave work and go home and sit on the couch and just scroll through the internet looking to see what else is available on the market.
Speaker 1:Causing and commercial listings is our porn. You will. That's truly, oh, like what's for sale. Now one thing I know and it's funny you talking to an interviewing now, because the first time I interviewed you I had never even met you.
Speaker 2:Right. In fact, natalie, I don't even know if I ever told you this, but it was like sort of pandemic-y time school and we were doing it remotely. So you're there and I'm here and I was having technical difficulties on my computer. I couldn't see you the entire time. I had no idea. I had no idea what you looked like, what I looked like, what any of this was all happening. And then I feel like after we hung up from filming you and I continued to talk for probably a half an hour after that and just to find out more about your real estate career and your background, all of that, and I was just really impressed immediately.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. I did not know that. Oh, that is funny. So here we are now. We've opened this real estate company, which is going well, and here on Tonka Talk, we talk a lot, as you know, about community and connection, and I really want Kelly to share.
Speaker 1:I've been dying to pin her down the woman's really busy and talk about entrepreneur, or or or or or Not many. You gotta say that this is a word. I have a hard time with Entrepreneurs, of course, but entrepreneurism, yes, yes, I can do it, but I can't say it Perfect. You're doing great. Now a lot of people and since I've known you, one of my biggest takeaways and things I love most about you and I've tried to adopt this point of view myself is that you see something before it's even fully there and you'll look at a project like, for example, the guest house. And it was this. It was an old building, it wasn't in great shape, and you saw the potential for it and you needed to work with the city. There's all these things that needed to happen for this to come off. How do you approach a project like that without the? You know, oh, it's too big, or I don't think I can do it, or oh, it's too hard.
Speaker 2:I would say in general, I don't like to frame something like well, I can't do that because of X and Y and Z. I would say how can I do that? So when I I thought the it was called the birdhouse inn at the time, I thought the birdhouse was just the most adorable little spot and I love Excelsior and right on Water Street, I saw a lot of opportunity there. It was, you know, we were just on the tail end of our real, you know, covid shutdowns right. So I felt this just strong. First of all, I love people and I love to think about, you know, what makes them tick and what they need and what they need to be happy.
Speaker 2:And I was looking at this place thinking, you know, we've been separated from our loved ones, our friends and family for so long. I don't think there were at that time there was a real appetite for people to go to a bed and breakfast and sit, you know, around the breakfast table with strangers. I felt like they just wanted to come back together with their people and have a spot to put down, you know. So you're not at your house and you're stepping over the laundry and all the other work that needs to be done there. Get away to a spot where we can all get away together, and there I think it's ideal and that you can have.
Speaker 2:You know, 24 people can all stay there at the same time and you can walk up and down Water Street. No one even has to get in the car. You've got all the little shops and the restaurants and everything Lake Minnetonka, obviously. So that actually has turned out to be a really great spot for weddings and, in fact, we were just named as one of the top wedding Airbnb rentals. For is it Trip 101? It's, I think so.
Speaker 1:Yes, trip 101, so cool. That is pretty amazing, and early in the game too. What do you think drives you? As I've gotten to know you and I've gotten to hear some of the family stories and from a young age it doesn't seem like it was. You know, you grew up and then all of a sudden, you could do these things. It's like you were always trying to bring people together and to create these spaces.
Speaker 2:I remember I used to.
Speaker 2:I had one of those little play tables in my bedroom with two chairs and I used to make my parents come up and have a date there and I would make them sit at the table and I'm feeding them like water and the little you know, tea cup and all that, and here have some cheese and crackers and I mean that just kept going. I always felt like I wanted a way to get people together to have these great experiences and just have a good time together. I mean I'm kind of a workaholic, so it's not like I don't like work, it's just I like the idea that the things that stay with people are those times where we are disconnected from the rest of the you know literal all the stuff you have to do and you're just able to be in a space where you can be your authentic self and play. I mean that's part of it. I just think you know when people get take themselves too seriously, you know that's a tough spot to be in, because it's really fun to just get out and do something down.
Speaker 1:So true, last winter we were over at what's now the shoreline was the Yacht Club building. We were making snowmen.
Speaker 2:You know that's in the parking lot In the middle of the work day. Yeah.
Speaker 1:One thing I think a lot of people might not know about is when you bought Huns Bakery and again this is a great example of this you had and you can share that story kind of what you came out of and that you did this and what it became.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in February of 2008, I left Edina Realty after being there for eight years, and I opened my own brokerage. And so, february 08, I had six agents who were working for me and then, in June of 08, I lost my husband in a car accident with a drunk driver. Needless to say, that was a really, really rough time in life, but when I finally got my feet back under me, I went back out to look for an office. We didn't even have an office at the time, we were all just home-officing and I found this bakery that my mom used to take me to as a kid was on the market and it was listed for $249 at the time. So I called my mom and I'm like mom, oh my gosh, huns Bakery is for sale. Do you want to open a bakery with me? And she's like you know, I think my time for that's passed.
Speaker 2:So, okay, I keep looking for a building and I watch this thing drop from $249 to $199 to $149 to $99,000 to $49,000 now, lee, and it was a 4,000 square foot building on a half acre lot, all parking lot. It was right across the street from the school and I'm like I just I can't take it anymore. So I go over there and look at this building and I'm not kidding you, there were dead birds in there, there was mold, someone had come and stolen all the copper, so all the plumbing, all the electrical. It was a disaster. So I end up writing an offer on it. I'm like I'll give you $25,000 and I'll close in two weeks. But mind you, I'm broke and recently widowed, so this is probably not the most well thought out idea. It just felt like you know what I am.
Speaker 2:I feel like at that point it was like you know what? I've already lost everything. I've already kind of gone through the worst thing I could imagine happening. And then it's kind of like risk doesn't feel quite the same. At that point it's kind of like what are you gonna do with me now, you know? So I anyway put in my offer, I handed it off to the bank and they say you know what? We actually just got another offer and we're gonna make our decision on Monday. So I call my late husband's dad and I say, hey, I can't get ahold of my inspector. Can you come out there and look at this place with me? We do over the weekend and I go back to the bank on Monday morning and I tell them what my father-in-law said. I said you know, my inspector says I should donate the building to the fire department for a controlled burn.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:I will raise my offer to $30,000, but not up anymore. So they said all right, we're gonna meet with the committee and we'll get back to you. This afternoon they call and they said you know, the other offer was for more than yours, but we think you know what you're getting into, so congratulations, you just bought yourself a bakery. And I hung up the phone and I just thought boy did I fool you. I don't have a clue what I'm doing. But then, interestingly, I ended up taking a picture. I found a website, or I found a Facebook page of a bunch of people who were trying to save the bakery before it closed, and I took a picture of the key in my hand and I posted it on there. I had made another page that had zero followers and I said hey, I just bought Hans Bakery. If you wanna watch, you know me, try to get this thing back up and running again. You can follow me on my page over here. Well, within 24 hours we had 5,000 followers on our page. It was a really wild, wild ride.
Speaker 1:And then you opened the bakery and you were on an episode of a show that was on the Food Network.
Speaker 2:Yes, so we opening morning. So the episode had aired on the Food Network and opening morning. It's February 22nd of 2014, would have been it's below, well below, zero. That morning there was a line wrapped around the building at 5.30 in the morning and we weren't opening until 6.30. So my mom's out there, like you know, giving people coffee so they won't freeze out there.
Speaker 2:When we opened the doors, everyone came flooding in. There was a line that wrapped three times around the dining room and I just kept watching. You know, people come up to the counter and they'd order their stuff and I'm like counting the number of donuts we have left in the case and the number of people left in the line and I'm just getting more and more nervous. And finally, you know, the last person comes up and every time we sell out or something, you know, my now husband is climbing the ladder and he's crossing the names of things off of the chalkboard there and he crosses the last thing off and he writes sold out. And I thought people were gonna be really mad. This is like 10.30 in the morning and instead everyone just clapped and they cheered and I just cry. I'm gonna cry now.
Speaker 1:Don't, because you'll make me cry. Okay, a lot of crying goes around here. Yes, we embrace it, we do, we do. And that's something that I really come to learn with you. I feel like with that story. There's a couple of lessons in there. One is you're not afraid to ask for help. If it's something that you don't know how to do, you'll figure it out. And but at the same time, you're not afraid to say, hey, you know, if you want to come watch this or what do you think about this, you'll ask for that help. And, as a new business owner, that's something that has really been a building tool, I feel like, for you. With that, I mean, you guys ended up selling. How many donuts did you sell?
Speaker 2:We ended up doing $270,000 of sales of 99 cent donuts the first month we were open. Wow, yeah, that is crazy. When you think about just the sheer volume of dough, it's a lot of dough. Yeah, that is a lot.
Speaker 1:And then you have all these people that you're managing as well, which is a different kind of atmosphere in a bakery from real estate, where agents are a little more independent in what they're doing. Yes, it's not a set time and all that. These are employees and their schedules and everything that goes with that, and you ended up eventually selling it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did. One thing you will find about me is I don't have really great boundaries so like the employees, I felt like they were all like my children. You know I was touching people to drive and trying to help them find housing and everything else. I loved every minute of it, but it was also. I learned a lot about myself in the days.
Speaker 1:Did you feel that through that experience you took some of that? Did it help you a bit more with boundaries?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, like I said before, I just really like people and I like to think about what they want and what they need, and if there's any way that I can help them get what they're looking for or what they need, I would like to do that. And then I think it's just a matter of like knowing how far you can stretch yourself and how far you can, and I love to be helpful. What I keep getting target marketed for this sweatshirt on social media that says you know, not bossy, just aggressively helpful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's totally true. She doesn't even like it if we, you know, we never introduce you as our boss Team goes and does some things. No, she's in backhand Right, or more just hide like no. It's really interesting to go through something like that and really throw yourself into it. And if that was just the one thing that happened and you still had the bakery and that's what we were talking about that in and of itself I think it's an amazing story with a lot to learn from that, especially for people who want to start a business and want to get something going. But it didn't stop there, it's just. You've gone on to do multiple projects in different areas.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, natalie, kind of back to the point you were talking about being willing to ask for help. Yeah, I feel like I am always outside of I don't want to say outside of my comfort zone, because I feel pretty comfortable out there in the unknown, but I'm always doing something for the first time. It feels like I am always doing something for the first time. So I think In general, I have noticed that there are people who like to assert that they already have all of the answers, like I am the expert, I have all of the answers and I'm going forward to do this thing. But I don't think that approach gives you much room to ask for help when you do feel like you're in the unknown. So, at least for me, a lot of these projects start with me being very vulnerable and saying to someone else who I believe knows more about this topic than I do and I'm not afraid to say that and I say you know what. I'm doing this for the first time, can you help me?
Speaker 2:And 99% of the time, people are overwhelmingly helpful in those scenarios because they know that you value what they bring to the table. It's not this, like I already know, and I'm going to try and get you to fit into what I'm trying to do here. It's like, hey, I value what you know and I would love for you to like teach me, help me, because really, I kind of think of myself as being more of a quarterback. I like to come up with a really great idea and then like to assemble a group of, okay, who's really good at this and who's really good at that, and how can we put this team together? Which is part of the reason why I don't like to say Natalie works for me. We work together like I work with Natalie. You have a lot of skills and a lot of talents that I do not. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you All of that. When you know, when we talk about like those lessons to learn from there, not being afraid to ask for help, a willingness to be vulnerable we saw that when I was working with you already on the early days. If on the on the Shoreline project, we probably won't get into too much talking about that just yet because there's a lot of great things going on that we can't spill the beans on just yet, but when you have to, when you're up against and you know most people know like we went through a whole approval process with the city of spring park and there was so much to learn there and it wasn't. It wasn't the easiest thing, I wouldn't say. But you're right, we came together as a team and then more people joined the team. We worked great with the city and, if I, great support and then amazing amount of public support and that kind of goes back to with tons when you built up that community you ended up with, I think you had like 22,000 Facebook followers, 26,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 26,000. Don't forget those 4,000 people, that's right 26,000 over baked goods.
Speaker 1:So it's more. It's not just about the product or the thing itself. It's not just about the donuts. People don't come together like that just because of donuts.
Speaker 2:I think you know, really I use that as an opportunity, a platform to. Probably the best example of community that I had out of the bakery was my husband and I had a house down on Marco Island in Florida and Hurricane Irma was on the way and my husband flew down there to try to board up the house before the hurricane would actually hit and when he went there, almost all of the plywood was already sold out. So he's, you know, going around to all these different places trying to scrounge enough stuff to board up the windows, and the closer the hurricane kept coming, the more I was like just get out of there. Just get out of there, you just have to get home. I don't care, I don't care if the house is boarded up, you just have to get home. And you know it was again this reality of oh gosh. There's so many things that are more important than just, you know, the sticks that built that house. Really, it's about the people.
Speaker 2:So as the hurricane approached, we went to our following on the bakery page and we said, hey, we're going to gather up supplies here and we're going to drive them down to Florida ourselves. So I, my parents, had a motor home and they had a big enclosed trailer. We had them drop off the trailer and I didn't have a really clear plan here, but I was like, yep, my parents are going to bring the trailer, they're going to have it in the parking lot and you guys just bring supplies and we'll fill up this trailer and drive them down there and give them to people. So as I start doing this, I start getting feedback from people who live in other parts of the country where maybe a major, you know, catastrophe has happened. And they said you know, one of the things they talk about is the disaster after the disaster, which is, you know, if you're in Texas and it's the middle of summer, you know people in colder climates might be sending, like winter coats, you know, or things like that, where you really don't, you can't use this right now. So we decided all right, we do want to be helpful, but we don't want to create, add to that sense of chaos and bring a bunch of things that people don't need. So we sorted everything and we made little care packages and things that we didn't think would fit the bill. We donated them back to other local charities and then we had these, you know, kids came and made signs for us that said you know, hurricane Irma donations accepted here and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So we headed out on our drive down to Florida and this semi truck drivers starts honking and he's waving at us and he's telling us to pull over and we're like, oh okay, there must be something wrong with the, with the motorhome. So we pull over and I get out on the you know we're on the freeway and I get out in the like ditch side and this guy gets out and he comes walking over and he's waving a $20 bill at me because these things are still. The signs are for kid made. Signs are still attached to the trailer that we're accepting, you know, hurricane Irma donations and he pulls us over so he can give us 20 bucks. So little things like that just kept happening. I had a little boy who brought in his actual like quarters in a Ziploc bag that he had been saving, and he brought that. So when we were on this trip, when we went to buy supplies for people, I literally counted quarters out, you know, so I could send the video to his parents. I'm okay here, you guys just paid for all of this.
Speaker 2:But we got down there and we got to this community where it had been completely just leveled and all the people were living temporarily in the school gym, and we pulled up and we just opened the doors and we were like, oh, form a line and we'll give you things. And we didn't realize, like, how sort of chaotic that could be, that it would be this just a crush of people. And, thank you to the universe, this angel of a woman angel angel of a woman shows up out of nowhere and she's like you know what? I'll help you, I'll help you make this into this neat, orderly line, which is exactly what happened. You know, people are waiting in line, they're getting things.
Speaker 2:My mom puts out this table and she starts making pancakes in the motor home.
Speaker 2:So she's making pancakes and I'm pouring juice for people in the line and a woman reached out and she said you know, I had that container of cranberry juice in my pantry and I don't know for how long it was in there. And she's like I saw you, you know you post the thing on Facebook and I, you know, came over and I dropped that off and some other things and like three days later, I watched you pour a cup of cranberry juice for a little boy standing in the line who you know had lost his home in this hurricane, and it just really touched her. It touched me too, the idea that sometimes you give your money to a charity and it's just kind of this nameless, faceless thing and you have no idea what happened with it. And I think we just did a really good job of showing people how well connected we really are. Like, you had this over here on Monday and on Thursday someone else had it over here and it really meant the world to them.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that community, that connection, the fact that we just use the bakery as a tool to do cool things, I think that that is the key thing in recognizing that I think there's so many things that can get in the way, especially for business owners and people trying to start something new. It's not, it's not. I don't think that when they're really successful, that it's the money is the driving piece. It's when that passion is there, when that desire, where that purpose is there to create something and to bring other people into it, which is really creating community, that it can't help but succeed, and it's been a theme in each of the projects that you've done and that's why we want to.
Speaker 1:On Tonka Talk, we talk about community and connection and we're gonna do a regular segment where I'm gonna do this with Kelly and we want you to reach out. You can email me at natalie at tonkatalkcom and let us know what do you wanna get going? This is your opportunity to just. We're gonna hold her hostage in the studio once a week and give her what your questions are, whether they're questions about what she's done in the past as real estate or starting a new business. But maybe you have an idea. What is an idea of something that you wanna do or you wanna get going where you can maybe even use some help in getting that going in the community, Because one thing we have done is we've created a community with the.
Speaker 1:We're doing it with shortlist properties, which is our real estate company, through Tonka Talk, with the Shoreline Hotel. It's all about bringing people together. So we thought, hey, yeah, why don't we reach out, do a weekly episode on Tonka Talk where people are invited to bring your ideas, go ahead and email us, ask your questions, and we'll kinda do like how many, I don't know what you'd call it. I always say, like you should be on Shark Tank, yeah, brainstorming for sure.
Speaker 2:We always say we don't edit during a brainstorm. So frequently we get out the whiteboard and we're thinking about a topic and we just, okay, give me all of your ideas. And as soon as we get to like, okay, now there's not many more coming around, then we say, okay, now give me all the worst ideas. And then pretty soon everybody's back to brainstorming and now you know you have everything, we have thought of everything, and then you can go through and then take off the brainstorming hat, then put on your editing hat, because if you're editing while you're brainstorming, you are definitely not getting all of the best ideas.
Speaker 2:And in fact, sometimes when you say, okay, what are the worst ideas, somebody throws something out there and you're like, oh, actually there's something to that, maybe we need to think about this one. We pretty much always have like a notebook full of these are the ideas we're working on, these are all the ideas we can't wait to work on. And these ones are down here, a little bit lower than that, and there's never a dull moment. It's just like as soon as we get through this one, or maybe not even all the way through this one, we're gonna tee up the next one and the next one.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. We invite you to reach out again, natalie, at tankatalkcom, you can comment. If you're watching this somewhere, you're connecting on social media, however, you do that, and if we don't have an answer for you, maybe there's somebody through this community that we're creating that we can connect you with who does.
Speaker 2:Yes, being a connector and a good connector in the community, I think, is also a really great spot to be, because you know so many people that inevitably if somebody is saying, hey, I really am looking for this or that, chances are we know somebody who can help.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Reach out again, natalie, at tankatalkcom. We wanna hear what do you need help with? What are your ideas? You get to pick the brain here of Kelly Olson. We'll bounce things around. There's some really fun things coming up in the community that I'd love to talk about as well. That I think are gonna be really great businesses and ways of creating community. Just how are you doing it? Let's talk about it this week. I'll just mention this quick this weekend at our real estate office, we're doing a thing. It's been a crazy year so we're bringing in an emotional support, donkey.
Speaker 2:I cannot wait to see this animal. Seriously, I cannot wait.
Speaker 1:And I think it's an example again of one of those things where sometimes it's things are very somewhat serious. You gotta get things done, but at some point and I think that's kind of where we're good at that is, we do something so ridiculous that it kind of just breaks the monotony, helps the creative process and, again, is another way to bring people together because we've invited the community to come out and meet this emotional support. Donkey, what is the donkey's name? Tiptoe.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I love it.
Speaker 1:And it's called Tiptoe because I think his mother accidentally trampled him. No, I'm pretty sure it was accidentally. Yeah, so the donkey's gonna.
Speaker 2:Maybe the donkey needs a little support too. Maybe then the supply of the donkey is so affectionate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is an unusual situation in that this animal the his caretakers have said, is unusually attached to humans, loves to cuddle, give hugs, just give so much love. And I've seen photos and videos of this donkey in nursing homes and other places.
Speaker 2:You know, natalie, I was just talking to somebody who is looking for a house, who was saying you know, that's something that's just so important. They didn't realize just how, until they were in a situation where they were being like overwhelmed with hugs and affection, just how much they missed that in their life. So it's really interesting. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:I've read studies that have talked about a lack of connection and community. When you don't have that in your life, that it can be as dangerous to your health as starting smoking. Yeah, that's sad. Yeah, so we're gonna make sure we get a lot of that love and emotional support, donkey. Yeah, perfect, can't wait. So, thank you, you're welcome Again. Check us out on Mondays when Kelly joins for Tonka Talk. In the meantime, have a great day and I'll talk to you later. Bye.
