“Delegation is the key and having a team that can do the things you can’t, ensures high quality work and less stress.”

If you would like your presentation to be an experience, then you need Big Fish Presentations. Kenny Nguyen the CEO/Founder of Big Fish Presentations understands that from customized presentation design to presentation delivery consultation to AV rentals, there are a lot of factors that go into making a presentation truly remarkable. Kenny and his team at Big Fish Design work along side you to make sure yours is better than remarkable.

Big Fish Presentations was featured in the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards within 5 months of being in business. They were proud to be the first team to represent Louisiana State University in the competitions history. They are planning on expanding into video production by next year.

MO:
Tell us about your personal background and how this led you to the creation of Big Fish Presentations.

Kenny:
Big Fish Presentations was formed in my sophomore year of college after I watched a Fortune 500 executive deliver a lengthy and boring word-cluttered presentation. The thought kept occurring to me that these giant companies have world-changing products but didn’t focus on presenting themselves effectively. From selling a product/service, telling a story, or promoting a cause, presentations these days lacked the charisma and design to impress audiences. By working on companies’ presentations I realized I could help solve the problem of over-cluttered, ill-designed, and ineffective presentations that can harm/distort a company’s image.

I figured my chances were also pretty high to get a couple of clients after learning there were over 30,000,000 presentations given daily!

MO:
You recently went through a branding change from Future Genius Solutions to Big Fish Presentations. Rebranding is no easy task. Can you walk us through the decision to rebrand, and some of the challenges you have faced in doing so?

Kenny:
The rebranding was so necessary. I am a firm believer in story telling and how it can heavily impact a business and its target audience. We wanted to create a name that reflected and represented our business’s impact to the world. Big Fish Presentations was that appropriate name because it reflects what we do daily; making small companies “small fish” look like “big fish” in an ocean of competitive market.

As for the challenges, it was so difficult to work ON the business instead of working IN the business. Getting caught up with day-to-day activities and the rapid growth of our company, we focused solely on generating revenue and kept putting the rebranding to the side. By sitting back and asking ourselves what’s best for the business, we were able to refocus a whole week just on rebranding. This was also the ultimate way to bond as a team, as getting everyone’s thoughts helped set unified goals and vision for the company.

MO:
Your site talks about the options of having a customized powerpoint, prezi, or animoto. Can you walk us through the user experience for Big Fish Presentations. If need tremendous amounts of help and consulting on a powerpoint presentation for a keynote speaking engagement, how does this actually work?

Kenny:
We sell the idea of helping our clients turn their presentations into an experience for
their audience. All our clients first fill out a creative brief for us detailing important
questions such as “How are you delivering your presentation”, “Who is your audience?”,
and “What is your goal in this presentation?” This ensures us making sure clients can
communicate their thoughts properly to audiences. Afterwards, we either retrieve the
content from the client or help the client put together content for their presentation.
Content is king for presentations and this creates the whole basis of any project.

With coaching services we either sit down or videoconference with the client, providing consulting and engagement strategies based on their presentation. As college students we’ve sat through the age of death by PowerPoint and understands what it takes to get the attention of the toughest of audiences. We focus a lot on story telling, a very powerful tool, as audiences make decisions more on emotion than logic.

MO:
Is everyone on your management team still in school? How do you manage school and a business at the same time?

Kenny:
We just actually celebrated that Nafees, our sales guy, became the first Big Fish graduate! Time management isn’t that big of a challenge today as we have processes in place that ensure great communication and goal setting. Beforehand though was a different story!  At our inception, our founding members were involved in multiple different companies/organizations and only could meet at night working into the early AM. This was horrible as it affected our other commitments and it wasn’t until we sat down individually and prioritized our goals that we eliminated “wasted time.”

Today, we have actual office hours that sets realistic expectations of when we operate and can best respond. This was literally one of the best decisions a young college startup can make. By working out our school schedules, there is always one team member at the office happily ready to greet any visitor.

MO:
Congrats on the Global Student Entrepreneur awards! Many of our readers are young entrepreneurs, what advice can you offer them for making it as a younger entrepreneur?

Kenny:
Thank you very much! It is a great experience and I encourage any young college entrepreneur to compete. The advice I learned there is invaluable and helped shape my business into what it is today. Not to mention the wonderful hospitality provided by Entrepreneur’s Organization and its members.

To narrow down, here are 3 lessons I can offer young entrepreneurs:

1. Hire talent that is smarter than you.
I used to try to do everything myself. Sales, design, and management. I quickly learned this was a recipe for disaster. By working with the talent I have today, it allows me to focus on the things I can do best. Delegation is the key and having a team that can do the things you can’t, ensures high quality work and less stress.

2.  Set Goals that is realistic.
We do two meetings a week on Monday morning and Friday afternoon. Having dual team meetings provides us a very effective way to keep everybody on the same page.  The idea is to set goals Monday morning and reevaluate the progress we made on Friday afternoon. From personal goals (we are strong believers that growing yourself helps grow the company) to company goals, we set goals that we can reasonably accomplish within the week. We also set goals for the month, quarter, and year with plans on how to reach them. Being specific is key here. You don’t want to say, “I want to make $50,000 in July.” You want to say, “I want to make $50,000 and this is how.”

3. Find a mentor
There is no way we can be where we are today without the mentors surrounding us. Running a business is stressful and having a mentor in your industry that’s willing to share their experiences can prevent future obstacles you might face. Plugging into local organizations can also be very powerful. For us, being connected to Entrepreneur’s Organization has been a very invaluable resource and provided a lifetime of connections with supportive entrepreneurs.

MO:
Why the decision to branch into video production?

Kenny:
I’ll keep a little hush-hush on this as the full plan is still in the works. Our view is that video production is another part of the experience of the presentation. We get requests all the time for video production but our current focus is on the software side. We currently do photo animations and small video edits to enhance our presentation offerings, but nothing that would constitute a full-fledged production. It is definitely on our minds however to provide video services as the majority of our team members have been already involved and trained working with large video productions. The question is when and if to pull the trigger, as it is a major addition to our company’s future. The market always controls the demand and other opportunities might arise! It’s always about being hungry and on your toes as an entrepreneur.