365 DAYS

Veterans Day. This day is extremely important. We are so grateful to the military personal who make our lives possible. We will never understand the sacrifices that were made. Thank you to all who have served and are currently serving.

No thank you will ever be enough.

Not only is it a monumental day for our country, it is also a special day for us as well. Last year, exactly 365 days ago, we decided to start this crazy journey together. I was going back and forth unable to decide if I should continue to play volleyball professionally indoors or if I should head outside to the beach. There was so much that I wanted to do with my professional indoor career. That was my dream. That was what I wanted to do for as long as I could remember. It was so exciting to me thinking about living in a different country for 9 months, meeting new people, new experiences, and living out a childhood dream. Then beach volleyball happened to me.

I fell in love with this sport slowly at first and then all at once it swept me off my feet. I was constantly debating it in my head whether I should stay with beach volleyball, a sport that I had just picked up and started playing about a year ago at the time.

The house that Taryn sent to Kristen.

Kristen and I were just hanging out in our room, yes, our room, we really did share about everything. That day I had about three different signs and for the first time, I was not deathly afraid to say that I had officially changed my mind on indoor and wanted to pursue professional beach volleyball. I sent Kristen a link to a house that was in an ideal location in Baton Rouge for us to rent while training. Kristen shot me a look as soon as she opened the message.

- Side note: We had discussed playing together from time to time. It was a possibility and Kristen said that she would love to play with me. I just didn’t want to bring her down as I was very fresh to the sport and everyone in the beach world knows who Kristen Nuss is. Kristen would randomly throw it into conversations that she would like to move into the professional beach volleyball world together, but it was never officially decided.

So, at this point Kristen didn’t know if I was 100% sure and immediately asked me what the link meant. I said I had finally made the decision and I would love to play with her if she would like to play with me. Kristen started jumping up and down on her bed. Then she ran around the house screaming and cheering. I don’t think I have ever seen her with this enthusiasm, unless there is a Sam’s Club double layer cookie cake in front of her. That was it. We were about to embark on a journey that neither one of us expected. From then on it was task after task that we wanted to achieve.

By the way, there were NO instructions as to how to begin this process so naturally we had to guess and ask around for help. I had some great contacts from my business school background both at Creighton and LSU. We started off meeting with them to get some steps as to how to start this endeavor. We made a website with our information so it would be easier for potential sponsors to look at our goals, schedule, and updates on our tournaments. Luckily, we were able to connect with Kristen’s cousins Kelli & Jennifer Caballero who have more creative ability in their pinky fingers than we do in both of our bodies combined. They were able to put together a website and a logo for us to use. We attempted to be creative in coming up with our logo. We marched into Office Depot, and we both purchased a giant whiteboard to help us keep track of our tasks and brainstorm ideas. We came up with TKN. I mean what are the odds that we share an initial. We were like this is meant to be. We were elated that we finally stumbled upon something that we both liked so naturally we called our moms to have them join in on our excitement. To our dismay, they both did not like the idea. Lesson learned; moms may not always be right because look where we are now (Sorry moms). Kristen and I stuck with it, one because we couldn’t think of anything else and two because it was ours, our idea, our business, and our career.

The TKN logo took some trial and error. Here were two of the beginning concepts.

We met with my graduate school professor for marketing, my mentor from Creighton, my uncle, and others. We were excited to hear ideas from anyone and everyone that could help us. It was a complete group effort. We just hope that at some point we can help other people that are trying to do exactly what we wanted to do and have a bit more guidance for them. All of them recommended that we should make an LLC if we were serious about this. Then they proceeded to tell us to get a lawyer, CPA, and joint bank account for all the expenses that we would have while traveling. At this point our minds were officially blown! We had already done so much, we thought, surely, we are almost done. Then we would meet with someone else and they would have another list of tasks that we had to do. Just when we thought we were making strides and progressing… boom, back to square one. Back to our white boards.

We spent every Saturday and Sunday morning that we didn’t have practice at a coffee shop doing “work”. There were countless hours spent on ideas, concepts, and tasks that no one else will ever know about but we absolutely loved the process. Would 100% do it all over again. On top of starting a business, we were still in school and in-season. And when I say we were in school, I mean me. Kristen’s schedule was light to say the least for her COVID senior year. Instead of going to interviews for our post graduate jobs, we were creating a business.

I just went through all our shared google documents from start to now and there were so many ideas that we spent lots of time on and they were thrown to the side. There were other tasks including “create LLC” that had more steps than we could have ever imagined. We have learned so much within the first year and we are continuing to do so every single day. Happy Anniversary to us, and BIG thank you to everyone who has helped us make it to and through year 1.

By: Taryn Kloth