A year ago, Me and my wife Sekina sat at our kitchen table and thought about how we could take the next step in our lives. The wish to develop and learn new things is a focus that we both share and we began to think about how it would be to start our own business. Would we dare to venture into the unknown and risk everything to follow our dream – to create your own business from the ground up with heart, quality and durability?
After many deep discussions, planning procedures and concept planning, we registered our company in January and a very busy period started where we started building our brands. We found the name, created the logo in the form of our dear frog, built the website, looked for the right suppliers and then built the foundation of the collection that would be the basis of our first sales company, Kling Cordena.
There were a few intense months at the beginning of the year, which then resulted in that we hired five brave sellers who were with us from the sales launch in March. Everything went very quickly, and many sales people did not even know what products they would sell when they came to our home on the Kling Group’s first conference. During the conference we received not only most of the products but also our new frog cars by a proud car dealer. These first sellers obviously have very different personalities but they all share the same feature that they believed in our idea and the business we decided to build. These five still works with us and has had a tremendous impact on what we are today, their job will never be forgotten!
During the spring we got access to our facilities in Saltsjöbaden, hired our Design Director Henrik and our Office Manager Niclas and adjacent to the summer’s first warm rays, we had suddenly morphed into something different than when we delivered the goods out of our garage. We put a lot of focus on further developing the product range, we began to profile ourselves in this amazing blog, we began to focus more on social media and Facebook and dared us to recruit even more salespeople.
The Fall season started with further recruitments and we simultaneously took the leap into the Norwegian market with a franchise concept unique for the industry. Each month we beat our sales record and the goals we set at the kitchen table to bet on this “all in” felt totally natural. We decided early on that we wanted to become the industry’s largest company before the end of 2020. We are obviously not there yet but can boast of being the industry’s fastest growing company by a broad margin.
As foundation for this assertion we have exceeded our sales budget for 2015 by over 25%, which feels fantastic. As we move into 2016, we do it with a sales force of over 20 sales people, providing an increase in staff of approximately 300% since March. We soon will start sales in our second subsidiary, Kling Sortina, and are now recruiting in full to be able to launch this collection on a broad front in the beginning of 2016. Overall, the results exceeds our wildest expectations by far!
We have completed four very important charity projects during this short period of time and managed to involve the entire organization in all our initiatives. Plan Sweden, The Refugee-helpers on the Island Lesbos in Greece, “We do what we can”, Movember Foundation and now this last week the Swedish equivalent of the Make a Wish Foundation “Min Stora Dag”. All these great and important organizations we have chosen to support in various ways. It has truly been incredibly fun and rewarding to work with such diverse activities!
To lead and be part of the construction of the Kling Group is a fantastic journey where many different ages and people come together with the common effort to create the best and biggest company in the business. We have cried and laughed together and experienced amazing things during this short period of time. All purchases trips I’ve made have taken me at least one entire lap around the world in the past year and all the people we network with has given us incredible response to what we are trying to build together. The only way to build a strong business is to do it together where each part of the company is just as important. We firmly believe in openness, transparency and participation in what we do. Therefore, it is a privilege to share some of what we do every week in the blog where we describe how to build a brand from scratch.
When I try to summarize this first year, the word that first comes to mind is gratitude. Gratitude to all the fantastic suppliers who have believed in us and what we are trying to build. Gratitude to all those who follow and cheer us on through Facebook, this blog, Instagram and in other ways gives us the energy to try to get even better at what we do. A big thanks to our dynamic duo in the office, Henke and Nicke, who in every way have been invaluable in their diverse roles. Gratitude to all sellers who come rain or shine is working hard to build our brand to our lovely customers, without whom we would not stand a chance. In the end it is the customers who have chosen to do business with us which allows us to continue the construction of the Kling Group.
All these people are fantastic ambassadors for the Kling Group and help us every day in our belief that anything is possible with the right mindsetl. I can only humbly promise that we will continue to try to meet you all with heart, soul and professionalism and with the best products in the market!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
/Fredrik Kling, CEO.





