March 14, 2017

Meet Kiki Heinzer of Klean LA in Valley Village

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kiki Heinzer.

Kiki is the founder and CEO of Klean LA, a premium food delivery service for the purpose of weight-loss, weight-management and nutrition. Klean LA provides high quality, healthy meals to local clients all over Los Angeles and to the rest of California, Arizona and Nevada. Kiki founded Klean LA with one simple intention: to help people live longer, more fulfilled lives by providing access to convenient, high quality food. Klean LA’s clients range from corporate executives and celebrities to busy stay at home mothers. They have partnered with exclusive fitness centers such as Equinox Fitness, various charity organizations such as “Wish Upon a Teen” and industry influencers such as celebrities and fitness trainers.

Prior to forming Klean LA in 2011, Kiki worked for Nike, Inc. in their corporate Los Angeles office since 2005 in various sales and marketing roles. She created and managed a global line of footwear that grew to over $150 million for Nike. She later managed over 40 local accounts adding millions of dollars to Nike’s bottom line. Her entrepreneurial spirit drove Kiki to lead her sales team to win Nike’s prestigious title of “Sales Team of the Year”. Her sharp business and marketing skills from one of the best “brands” in the world, has given her the tools to becoming a relentless and uncompromising business owner and expecting nothing less than a world-class brand for Klean LA.

Kiki graduated from Stanford University, in 2004 on full academic scholarship with a degree in Communications and International Relations. Kiki is a first generation Mexican-American and grew up in the Rio Grand Valley on the border in South Texas. Because of struggling with her own weight as a child and eventually overcoming her family’s predisposition to obesity and other related health issues, Kiki became committed at an early age to dedicating her life to assisting people in achieving their health and weight loss goals. Her love of food stems not only from her Mexican-American background, but from her experience in living in iconic culinary cities including Paris, New York, San Francisco, Guadalajara and currently Los Angles. Kiki is bilingual in English and Spanish and fluent in French. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Steve, their baby Sebastian and their Yorkie, Fifo.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Someone once told me, it’s called “work” for a reason. If it wasn’t, anyone could do it! Being a first time entrepreneur has by far been the most challenging thing in my life. It has tested me to core and taken on an emotional, physical and mental rollercoaster throughout the past 5 years. The first 3 years were the hardest. I thought at many points that I “wasn’t going to make it”. I jumped into this with really no idea of how hard it is to build a brand from scratch Cash flow is a major issue for new businesses because the sales don’t always pour in, but the operational costs are always there. A few bad months begins to compound and can put you in a very stressful financial situation and make you question what you are doing.

Regardless, I stayed focused on my business and took the hard times to learn, become a better brand and improve efficiency in my company. My clients became my best ambassadors and eventually people started to catch on to what we were doing. The thrill, inclusive of the ups and downs is what keeper me focused and wanting to achieve more and more. I think that if you truly and passionately believe that what you are doing has a purpose, you will fight harder than you even knew you could, to make it a reality. Building Klean has been a dream come true for me.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Klean LA story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a premium meal delivery service for the purpose of weight loss, weight management and nutrition. Our meals are gluten, soy and preservative free and made from scratch from whole-food ingredients. Each meal is based on a balanced ratio of macronutrients and delivered every other day to client’s doorstep. We truly believe that “we are what we eat” and think of our food as fuel for our clients, making them the healthiest version of their self.

We offer 5 different meal plans that vary from regular to vegan to low carb. We also offer a great juice “Kleanse” that is a perfect reset or re-boot. It includes 3 of our organic juices paired with 2 meals each day. Contrary to most juice cleanses that only offer juice, ours is a nutritional cleanse, meaning you are still getting some needed protein, carbs and healthy fat.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I wouldn’t call it “luck”- good or bad because I think that everything happens as it should, when it should. The so called, “bad luck” serves as much of a purpose as the “good luck”. It is all to learn and for the bigger purpose. (Ok, I’m getting too whoo whoo here!)

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