Written By: Jayme Face
Kyle Klaus is a successful entrepreneur, real estate investor, and actor! In his latest venture, his YouTube channel, he shares his advice on how to not be a starving artist, but a rich one!
Photo credit: Paulo Salud
upfrontNY: Real Estate and Acting are two different careers, what made you decide to go after both endeavors?
Kyle Klaus: They are two different fields. I think out of necessity at first and then it just led to me having a knack for both. In acting I remember trying to figure out if this took a long time how I was going to kind of create a really nice life for myself. I wanted to be an actor, but I was very afraid of being that starving artist. You hear about people being an overnight sensation and then you hear about other people saying how hard it Is and saying you never make it and stuff like that. I wasn’t going to let those voices stop me, but at the same time, realistically, if this doesn’t happen [I’m a gambling guy, but I like to hedge my bets.] in ten years, in twenty years what am I going to be proud of along with acting. So, that was my mind set getting into it. The reason that I chose real estate at first was because I was trying to find a profession that was a reputable profession, a respectable profession, but would also allow me the absolute freedom in scheduling. I heard about people doing open houses on the weekend and showing properties at night time. I was all for that because I was bartending and waiting at the time, so I could work nights and weekends extra hard no problem. It was a necessity at first and then it grew into the love that there’s so much with real estate- investing and then opening a brokerage and teaching other people what I’ve learned which even freed up more of my time to act. It just went hand in hand really well.
upfrontNY: A lot of actors don’t take the route that you did. What do you think are the pros and cons to being an entrepreneur and an actor?
Kyle Klaus: I think first it provides you the creativity to think outside the box and figure out how to problem solve, make things work, and think on your feet. That’s what acting is a lot of the time. That’s what acting is when you’re in a scene. Even in an acting career outside of the craft you have to be your own CEO. You have to know what kind of branding is working for you, what people see you as, that’s one major thing I think entrepreneurship helps in the acting field. The second thing is it takes some of the pressure off. What I mean by that is that a lot of the actors that I know identify themselves just as actors which can be very dangerous for your mental well-being. This is because if you identify yourself just as an actor the fact that you may or may not have success at a given time might make your self- worth feel to a certain level and affect how you look at yourself. I feel entrepreneurship and having something to coincide with the acting takes a lot of the pressure off you monetarily and second it takes a lot of pressure off you to be just an actor. It makes you more well-rounded and more worldly which helps with the acting career as well.
upfrontNY: Do you ever feel one career has helped you in the other in ways you hadn’t expected?
Kyle Klaus: Yes, absolutely. So not only does real estate make you have to deal with many different types of people, but you have to deal with them with one of their most stressful situations and biggest investments of their lives. You’re learning how to deal with people and how to talk with people. That’s the obvious. In a more specific way, that’s ironic, happened last year when I booked a role for a show called Happy with Christopher Maloney. I booked the season premiere of season two and I actually played a Manhattanite who was looking to buy a really expensive Brownstone. So, I was on the opposite end at that point. I wasn’t the professional real estate agent. I was the client at that point, but I had so much life experience at that point to draw from. It definitely helped me in the audition which was totally understanding that type of character to ultimately booking the role and the day on set.
upfrontNY: What were the challenges opening your own brokerage?
Kyle Klaus: I guess just in setting it all up at first and taking on the responsibility. I will say that the biggest challenges are to get other people motivated as much as you are. I knew the production by being an active agent. I could take on the overhead and still be okay. Me and a business partner got together and decided to start this company. It was a long process. It’s like your baby and it always grows and it manifests into other things. It’s constantly challenging and constantly changing. I would say one of the biggest things I had to overcome is people leaving your company, going to a competitor, having to figure out why that happened and then trying to not make it happen the next time. Always growing.
upfrontNY: Can you tell us about your YouTube channel?
Kyle Klaus: Oh, yeah! I always wanted to make one and thought I could being a professional actor. I was always looking for advice and insight as I was coming up in the business from other professional actors. Everyone wants to give their own advice all the time and not many people are actually professional actors and have actually done it before. That was always in my mind about starting a YouTube channel and gearing it towards actors. However, when the pandemic hit and we were all forced to have all this time I really decided to start it up. I was also starting to watch YouTube a lot more. I was having a little bit of analysis paralysis in starting my YouTube channel. I was like how do I do this. How do I set it up? I started gravitating towards channels with these guys with millions of followers giving financial advice and what I was seeing was nothing new, it was all stuff I already knew. I was hung up on whether I should do an acting channel or a real estate channel or finance channel. I also noticed something else with actors. A lot of my friends that are actors have a lot of problems financially. I was so all over the place and I just decided I wanted to put it all on one channel. So, sorry if you are following me on YouTube and don’t want to hear about acting advice, but I’m going to pop a video in on that and I’m going to pop a video in on how to do sales in real estate and then I’m going to do a video on bitcoin. I figure if I know a lot of things about a lot of things I might as well put it all out there. I don’t know about the title of it yet, but I kind of made it “How to be a rich artist, not a starving one”. That’s my little hook.
upfrontNY: With Covid have you had to make any adjustments with either acting or real estate?
Kyle Klaus: Yes, 100 percent. Unfortunately, with acting everything changed and then production just shut down completely. I feel really tough about some of my friends on Broadway and stuff who are just out of work and they are 100 percent professional actors. I had to pivot my real estate business. A lot of people just weren’t doing any work and I was like no this is not it; people need help and some people need to still sell and buy houses and move. I decided to step on the gas a little harder and I just made it happen. I ended up selling a couple houses virtually and doing a lot of video tours. Acting and the entertainment field helped with it. It goes back to going hand in hand being an entrepreneur and a creative. They actually help each other. I think being a creative helped me out in the real estate world. When no one could go to people’s houses I figured let’s just make videos and do facetime tours. I sold a couple multimillion dollar places virtually. I would have never thought I could do that before the pandemic hit. With acting since productions shut down I ended up writing a script with a friend and we decided to really focus on doing the script. We got it into a couple producers that are pretty high level in studios and they’re taking a look at it and thinking about coming aboard.
upfrontNY: Do you see yourself ever being part of a real estate show?
Kyle Klaus: You know people have asked me to do that kind of stuff. Honestly, awhile back I didn’t even want to be known as a real estate agent other than my immediate local area. I just felt like I wanted to be known as an actor. I had no problem getting my face out there as a realtor locally. Now I wouldn’t mind it. However, being on like a Million Dollar Listing type show you have to be 100 percent all in on just that so I don’t think I’d want to do it. But, I don’t have a clear answer for you. I think I could do it temporarily or maybe have a different twist on it and show the acting side as well.
I do have a series I originally attempted to make a reality show, but it wasn’t going to be like a Million Dollar Listing. It was going to be about how I first got into the business. A couple of us were really young and going for quick cash, going to the bar after making a rental commission check. That was like catching lightning in a bottle. I like to say it’s almost like The Jersey Shore meets Real World. My friends and I grew up, unfortunately, and went on to have different lives, but I do have that series written as a pilot. If I ever wanted to do it I could see it going that route, but pertaining more to the early days of real estate, the underbelly. That’s next after this movie gets picked up.
Leave a Reply