Young Nick Fontenot Has Achieved Business Success By Tenaciously Following His Interests
By Brad Goins
Local entrepreneur Nick Fontenot started to make big moves in the business world at an early age. Very early. At the age of 19 he formed his first company, 19 Design Studio, which focused on the design of websites. And it was successful.
Fontentot had “always been interested in computers and art. I’ve always loved to draw,” he says.
As for computers, he spent much of his spare time “building [his] own and taking them apart.” He wanted to “get in there and play with the components and see how everything works.”
One way in which Fontenot prepared for a business start-up at such an early age was to work for local companies in related fields. When he started 19 Design, he had been working for the local enterprise Killer Websites for some time. He’d also been a videographer at Fox 29 and worked as a graphic designer at Lagniappe Magazine.
What motivated such a young person to undertake such an intimidating task as starting his own business? Fontenot says that, in spite of his youth, he decided it was “time to do my thing full-time.”
But he didn’t choose a website design business simply because he liked computers and design. He also felt that the business was right for the market; that he was starting it in response to local demand at the time.
“Lake Charles is always a few years behind as far as tech is concerned,” says Fontenot. “[At that time] websites were the next big thing.”
Lake Area residents were just getting familiar with websites and beginning to seriously consider how they might be used for local business.
‘It Was Just Me’
“It was just me at first. I was answering the phones and doing the design work.” Fontenot then secured enough revenue to hire other web page designers. When he got married, he recruited his wife to handle the face-to-face work in the front of the shop.
He spent his first year in a storefront on Ryan Street.
“We were taking on three to five clients per month,” Fontenot recalls. He emphasizes that these were premium customers; they were in search of custom design work. He says some customers paid him as much as $10,000 for a site design job.
Starting with 19, it became Fontenot’s business habit not to restrict his business to a single product or service. In addition to website design, 19 Design offered the creation of logos and print layouts; as well as the undertaking of other design projects.
“I grew [the business] for 10 years,” he says. By the time he finally sold 19 Design to Killer Webistes, he had more than 100 clients.
Bargain Bee
The variety of design and business experiences Fontenot had during his building of 19 “geared [him] into his next project.”
This was Bargain Bee. This project would center around a website Fontenot had developed. On the site, consumers could buy coupons for local businesses at half their value. For example, for $10, a customer could buy a certificate for $20 off at a local restaurant, health club, store or what have you.
But there was a catch. In order for any given customer to get the 50 percent discount, a certain number of users had to purchase the coupon by midnight of the day it was selling. That meant that people who wanted to buy a coupon were strongly encouraged to contact their friends and persuade them to buy one too — by midnight.
In other words, Fontenot had developed an internet business whose success relied on successful social networking.
“It shot up like a rocket,” says Fontenot. “We had 500 customers before we even started.” Soon the number had grown to 5,000.
Why was there so much interest in Bargain Bee? And why did the interest grow so quickly?
“It kept people entertained and interested,” says Fontenot. Certainly customers must have been interested in seeing whether the midnight deadline would be met. It was like following a daily contest or sporting event.
Fontenot has followed a business model that’s often touted by young entrepreneurs. If you want a business that’s both profitable and satisfying, start by figuring out what you’re really interested in.
If a sufficient number of customers didn’t buy a coupon by midnight, the offer would expire and a new coupon would go on sale for the next day.
With this business, Fontenot once again tried to be well informed about whether the local market was ready for the service he offered. And this time around, he decided Lake Charles was not yet ready for Bargain Bee.
So he did his start-up in Lafayette. When that project flourished, Fontenot gradually extended Bargain Bee to New Orleans and Houston. This expansion for markets significantly increased the types of coupons Bargain Bee could offer. For instance, on any given day, the site might offer a break on a coupon for a yoga clinic in New Orleans or a sky-diving operation in Houston.
Fontenot continued to hesitate to bring the project to Lake Charles. When he finally did so, he was pleasantly surprised.
“I was really scared to launch in Lake Charles. [But when I did], it surpassed even Lafayette. It’s something everybody was talking about.”
Fontenot worked on bringing innovation to the business. He eventually made it possible for customers to use their coupons just by bringing an app to the store and scanning in the coupon.
In spite of the success of the venture, Fontenot wanted to keep it regional. “We kind of stayed on the I-10 corridor.”
Fontenot estimates that under his ownership, Bargain Bee delivered local customers more than $10 million in savings. Bargain Bee could also be a very good thing for local business, as a customer who bought a $20 gift certificate for, say, a local restaurant might wind up going in and ordering a $50 or $60 meal.
In two years, Fontenot sold Bargain Bee. The company was bringing in $20 million a year at the time of sale. It had 200,000 clients. “We looked very attractive to buyers,” he says.
‘I Learned A Lot’
Why sell such a successful company? Fontenot says he had gone into Bargain Bee envisioning that the project would be a two-year effort.
Part of his thinking was that in the business world, leaders must adapt to change, which is a constant in the field.
“Tech moves so fast. Things are changing so quickly. There’s always something that’s going to come along and sweep you off your feet.”
What would Fontenot’s new tech venture be?
He’d gleaned some ideas from yet another business venture he undertook early in his youth. When he was just 18, Fontenot worked as a sales rep in the local AT&T office. He was unusually successful; indeed, he was successful enough that he was invited to the national company’s Presidential Club dinner and awards ceremony, which was held for AT&T’s top salesmen.
As a rule, those invited to Presidential Club worked in very large urban areas, which yielded the largest sales totals possible. Fontenot was the first from Southwest Louisiana invited into the group.
The company was impressed enough by Fontenot to name him a sales manager in the “majors” department of the national company.
Fontenot now worked high dollar accounts. He got in the habit of taking CEOs to 5-star restaurants to pitch AT&T.
“I learned a lot,” he says. “It got the taste in my mouth of the high life for sure.”
The high life is always nice. But for Fontenot, apparently it wasn’t quite as nice as being his own boss.
The high-profile AT&T job “was taking a toll on my [marriage]. I lived in a hotel every day.” Fontenot eventually resigned the position.
But he’d learned what a great degree of personal interaction there is in the telecommunications business. Fontenot likes to communicate with people, and with customers in particular.
Fix My Phone
And as the years went by, he noticed how many of his potential customers in the Lake Area were acquiring collections of mobile communications devices. By the time he opened his next — and current — business, he felt many local families were using four or five mobile devices at a time. And these devices were ending up broken.
“They just break,” says Fontenot. “You drop them and they break.”
When they broke, says Fontenot, friends most often said one thing to him: “Can you fix my phone?” Fix My Phone became the name of Fontenot’s next tech venture.
Just as Fontenot had long been fascinated by the inner-workings of computers, at AT&T he had become fascinated with the inner-workings of the cell phone. As a result, he got in the habit of following cell phone development. “You follow the trends,” he says.
His love of the device and his desire to interact with the public gives his start-up a distinctive configuration. “I’m always in the front [of the store],” he says. “I don’t have to be. I have 20 employees.”
SARAH AND NICK FONTENOT
“My wife believes in everything I do. I’m definitely blessed.”
Fontenot opened his first location in November, 2013, on Nelson Road. He has since added four branches in Louisiana and Texas, and is expecting to cut the ribbon on a new branch by the end of the year. He wants to franchise the business next year.
Fontenot has followed his usual business plan of refusing to restrict his business to a single service. Fix My Phone fixes lots more than phones. In fact, the business is already capable of repairing the Apple Watch. Fontenot says the business even repaired a garage door opener for one customer.
Fontenot has followed a business model that’s often touted by young entrepreneurs. If you want a business that’s both profitable and satisfying, start by figuring out what you’re really interested in. Once you’ve done that, make sure you’re thoroughly educated, trained and experienced in your field of interest. Finally, spend time seeking out or creating a business that aligns in some way with your field of interest.
Fontenot adds a few tweaks of his own to this model. He moves fast. He changes businesses before they lose interest for him. These changes have the benefit of ensuring that he’s always able to respond to the frenetic pace of technological change.
One other positive feature of Fontenot’s business model is that he’s appreciative and grateful. “I’m not even 30 yet,” he says. “My wife believes in everything I do. I’m definitely blessed.”
Comments are closed.