Heidi Krupp Started Krupp With $5,000 After Selling Car
Heidi Krupp said she started heidi with $5,000 after selling her car and working out of a tiny Hoboken studio apartment. She said the agency grew without investors or outside funding, after a mentor told her she only needed that amount to begin.
That origin story now sits alongside a business she described as multi-million-dollar. Krupp said the agency was built around a belief that meaningful stories can transform lives.
Krupp's Hoboken Start
Krupp said she sold her car and launched the firm in Hoboken more than thirty years ago. She described the advice from a mentor as the starting point for the company, then tied that early step to the larger point of the interview: a small beginning can still lead to a large agency when the founder keeps control of the work.
Before founding her agency, Krupp worked for Barbara Walters on 20/20. She said that experience shaped how she thinks about narrative, saying, “Watching her produce stories taught me that the right narrative can ignite emotion, shift perception, and even change culture.”
Belief at Krupp
Krupp said her agency has worked with authors, entrepreneurs, and visionary thought leaders, along with books including The South Beach Diet, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. She also said she partners only with clients whose missions she truly believes in.
“For me, it always starts with belief,” she said, describing how she chooses those partnerships. The business model she outlined depends less on scale for its own sake and more on whether the client’s message fits the agency’s stated purpose.
Empathy, Mentorship, Purpose
Krupp said her leadership philosophy rests on “empathy, mentorship, and purpose.” She said she lectures at Pace University, mentors emerging talent in the industry, and works with organizations that support women-led businesses and under-resourced students in her hometown of Pittsburgh.
For readers looking at how a founder builds without outside capital, her account is straightforward: she started with a car sale, a $5,000 benchmark, and a studio apartment, then kept ownership while building the agency over more than thirty years.
