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November 3, 2025
FOND DU LAC – Kelly Northlee said when she moved back to her hometown of Fond du Lac after building a real estate career in Mississippi, her professional plans were quickly rewritten.
“My husband was in the military, so we lived in Mississippi for seven years,” she said.
Though she hoped to restart the brokerage and property management company she had established down south, Northlee said she decided to walk a different path and created Fondy Famous – a media platform promoting and highlighting local businesses across and surrounding the City of Fond du Lac.
As she attempted to rebuild her real estate career in Northeast Wisconsin, Northlee said she noticed a shroud of negativity plaguing her hometown’s reputation – even among out-of-state buyers.
“I picked up on that,” she said. “[For example], I had a buyer specifically say they wanted to live in this area [within] a 30-minute radius, except for Fond du Lac. That was their criteria, and they were moving from Colorado, [so] I was like, ‘That’s a strong [opinion] – why?’”
Noticing this trend among her real estate clients, Northlee said she began to address it by posting “about the positive” on social media.
“I started to [post] reels and [on] social media… and I was like, ‘There’s something to this – I want to tell the stories of these business owners,’” she said. “So, I started doing a podcast.”
Though she had no prior experience in podcasting, Northlee said it didn’t take long for her recorded episodes to draw “hundreds of thousands of views.”
“I just started pouring into it,” she said. “At some point, I realized I was liking this more than I was even trying or thinking about real estate, and I no longer practice, which is wild. I was a broker – I wasn’t just an agent. I did very well, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I never thought I would not, but here we are.”
Shortly after starting the podcast, Northlee said she partnered with her first “founding sponsor.”
“Steve Wirtz Builders came very early on with us, has helped us put this on and grow it and now we’re seeing millions of views a month – which was really cool to show him,” she said.
Now, after several successful years of Fondy Famous – “we now are hitting more than two million [views] most months” – Northlee said she is in discussions to secure two additional founding sponsors for her new shows: Sheboygan Famous and Oshkosh Famous.
“I have not officially found the founding sponsors, but we’re having a lot of conversations about it,” she said. “There’s interest and traction. It’s just a matter of getting things solidified.”
Northeast expansion
Transitioning out of real estate and into media, Northlee said, has so far been an interesting experience.
“There are a lot of times where I’m out in public at the events [or businesses] I’m advertising for, and people will kind of give me the long stare,” she laughed. “It’s interesting to navigate, but we’re here for it.”
With a three-person team helping her behind the scenes, Northlee said she’s excited to expand her show and footprint to other Northeast Wisconsin cities – starting with Oshkosh and Sheboygan.
“We go to Oshkosh, [and] we go to Sheboygan often [because] there are a lot of different things to do in those areas,” she said. “I think it would tie in really well together [and] solidify more of what we’re doing with Fondy Famous. We are able to do this in other areas, and if I can do that and help them grow, too, I think there’s no reason we shouldn’t.”
The “impactful” nature of her work – “driving new customers and clients into businesses” – Northlee said, is the most rewarding part of her newfound career.
Visitors to the Fondy Famous Facebook page – which Northlee said is “centric” to the business in action to its “good and growing presence on Instagram and LinkedIn as well” – can scroll through the various posts, videos and podcast interviews that she shares daily with her followers.
Some of the details included in her content are what the business specializes in, what it offers its customers and the community, as well as mentions of special anniversaries, achievements or milestones – all of which, she said, helps drive growth for the featured businesses.
“I have a gentleman on Main Street [in Fond du Lac] who said every time I post about him [and his business], his sales go up the next day – that’s so solid,” she said. “What a good feeling to be able to say I was able to help with that.”
The cultural push to support small, local businesses, Northlee said, is also the lifeblood of her work.
“We should be buying all of our stuff locally,” she said. “Those are the people who give back to your [community], sponsor your teams… or donate to the Salvation Army – those are the small businesses – so we should be feeding back into them and making sure they’re taken care of.”
Community ‘backbone’
Almost immediately after launching the podcast, Northlee said she had to institute a waitlist for prospective businesses – filled both by her feature ideas and ideas from the community.
“I have businesses go on our waitlist, and what I use that for is to figure out if they meet our criteria,” she said. “We turn down posting about some places because it doesn’t make sense, but the businesses that sponsor what we’re doing – such as Steve Wirtz Builders – and the partners that we have are literally how we’re able to do this and to continue to grow.”
Each episode of Fondy Famous, Northlee said, comes at no cost to the business being featured because of the contributions made to the show by its sponsors.
“The businesses I feature don’t necessarily have $1,500 to spend on a one-time video, but we do have a bigger business that’s able to spend that much,” she said. “So, they sponsor it, they get the credit for sponsoring, the business that is featured is asked to go and like and follow them [on social media and] awareness grows.”
Because she believes small businesses are “the backbone” of any community, Northlee said her hope, mission and goal with Fondy Famous – and, in the near future, Sheboygan and Oshkosh Famous – is to “bring business back locally.”
“That’s a huge piece of it, for so many reasons,” she said. “Those [owners and operators] are the people who put all of the[ir] money back into the community and allow us to have the incredible nonprofits and the incredible programming that goes on within a community. It’s all backed by the small businesses.”
For more on Fondy Famous, as well as updates on the forthcoming introduction of Sheboygan and Oshkosh Famous, find the show on social media or visit fondyfamous.com.
