First Person, Inc.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was formerly the owner and senior VP of inspiration and creativity at Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. I oversaw all of the branding, sales, and marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with First Person, Inc.?

One of my responsibilities is to go around and visit all of our 80 hotels and restaurants around the country and conduct a brand road show, which is a high-powered pep rally for all of our 10,000 employees. While I was there, I would also conduct two different workshops about leadership, time management, or personal development. 

My main goal is to represent the essence of the brand to our employees and remind them of who we are, what our mission is all about, our purpose and their role in that delivery system, which First Person has been helping us with.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First Person creates the AV and dynamic Keynote presentations for the roadshow and for my classes. These would include interviews with management, successful employees, and customers as well as provide really great graphic design. The goal of the sessions is for the participants to interact with corporate, through me, for the very first time, so it is important to have high-impact presentations that would resonate with them on an individual, emotional level, even if there were 200 other people in the room. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with Brandon (Chief of Business Development) and Marcelo (Executive Creative Director). I’ve also interacted with their office manager and two members who customize the music and audio components of my presentations.

How did you come to work with First Person, Inc.?

First Person was a referral from a really good mutual friend. The timing was great because I also happened to be shopping around for firms, so I went with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership goes back 15 years at least, and I’m still working with them.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

To know where we were headed and to find out what we were missing, I measure the success of the presentation through a couple of ways:

1. The surveys that we would solicit immediately after a presentation - We are very particular about this to ensure that little time passes by between the end of a class and the participants providing feedback. 
2. Through focus sessions with the upper-level management of the hotels and restaurants - I would personally get direct feedback about what their employees felt about the presentation through a fluid and open communication system.

We have received positive feedback based on the surveys. People had taken pride in the fact that one of their corporate people, a senior leader in the organization, was putting on a high-powered professional presentation for them. Our employees began to have a sense of belonging to the company and were grateful for the time and cost that we poured into these workshops. 

Without question, everything First Person has done for the company has been a home run. We never heard anything negative about their work. Their team is very skilled at designing the tone, tempo, and music of the presentations, creating impact and emotional connection with the employees and the management. Through their product, we’ve gotten our employees to see, hear, and feel what we wanted them to.

How did First Person, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

I enjoy working with everybody at First Person. I never felt like they were too busy or that I was being handed off. I’ve worked with a whole bunch of creative companies, and their communication and interpersonal skills are probably the best I’ve ever experienced. 

First Person is also fast and efficient. When they have questions, they call immediately and don’t miss a beat. When we interact with the team, we know that they get it. They are inordinately thorough in their prep work. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the reasons why we love working with First Person is that they don’t just help us make a presentation, they find out the purpose and message behind it as well as the feedback that we hope to get as a result. They conduct a complete 360° analysis and fully immerse themselves in our culture in order to know what we’re talking about. Other graphic design and video firms would just ask a few questions about who we are and what we’re trying to do, but First Person is more holistic in their approach and spend as much time on the background research as they do on the actual production.

The resulting product would then elevate our transactional and operational-based company with graphics, music, and messages that align with the nuances of our brand and spirit. The presentations we use are spot-on and have a great impact every single time. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t really have anything critical to say about them. It has gotten to a point where the impact of First Person’s work has become so powerful that I would never balk at their rates. What they are doing is worth every penny. I’ve turned them to at least 7–8 people within our organization who’ve also totally enjoyed working with them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Whether you’re hiring them to build a website, an ad, a presentation, or training material, you can expect First Person to do a holistic, 360° analysis on your purpose, your company, and your culture. I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t do it because it is critical to what they do and their success, but do make sure that they do have a good understanding of your background to make your product highly impactful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a former design director at VMware Carbon Black. 

What challenge were you trying to address with First Person, Inc.?

We hired First Person, Inc. to do a lot of video work. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

The purpose of the videos was to show product stories, narratives, and product launches. A great example of their work was the website videos we used for our site launch, and it was all featured on the homepage and product pages. 

The First Person team handled the pre-production to the editing process. They also looked for a voice talent for us. The team sent in a shortlist of talent for us to pick up from, and we picked a person that we thought sounded great. 

Due to COVID-19, we watched the recording process through Zoom, and we weren't satisfied with the voice of the talent. We kept wondering if we were going to get a good result. When we shared our worry with First Person, they took our feedback well and searched for another talent despite the tight timeline we had.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Brandon (Co-Founder) and Marcello (Chief Creative Officer), and they had an account management, creative direction, and video motion graphics team. 

How did you come to work with First Person, Inc.?

We had a fairly stringent procurement process and we examined 20–30 video vendors. All of them had various price ranges and areas of focus. Our main goal was to look for a team that was going to be very strong in storytelling.

While we didn’t want to diminish the complexity and robustness of our product, we wanted to make sure that the videos we would produce would be accessible and understandable to our target audience. Above all, we wanted to portray complex stories in an elegant and interactive way. In the end, we felt that First Person was the right partner for us. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $60,000–$80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement ran from November 2019–August 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

From the get-go, they acted as a trusted advisor to our team. Compared to some big companies that would have a lot more processes and approval flows, they were great at kickstarting our project.

I highly appreciated the team, and the diverse thinking experience they brought to the table. First Person was great to work with, and I was happy with the quality of their work. For the KPIs, we didn’t have metrics attached to the project. 

How did First Person, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

The rate of their responsiveness and flexibility was impressive. They were great at picking up where we left off, jumping back in, and not missing a beat. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

In our projects were several thousands of dollars were at stake, we knew that the journey wasn’t going to be easy. That was exactly what happened when we asked the First Person team to find a new voice talent despite our extremely challenging deadline. Despite that, the team responded well and hit the level of excellence that we were seeking, and they were able to turn things around. 

Additionally, we had a feeling that we were working with a small boutique team, and they didn’t submit a range of work that made us feel that it was coming from a team their size. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind on areas they could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important for a client to have clear goals and an outline of what they’re trying to accomplish as well as the corresponding desired outcomes. That way, the First Person team can get on the same page with the client and articulate upfront the project goals, timelines, and KPIs if possible. Furthermore, that will establish the benchmark to measure the team’s performance. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the founder and president of a company called Beyond Pix Studios in San Francisco. Currently, I’m semi-retired.

What challenge were you trying to address with First Person, Inc.?

We’ve relied on First Person, Inc. to elevate our own production with their superior motion graphic skills and other capabilities. 

What was the scope of their involvement? 

First Person, Inc. acts as a subcontractor for our production projects. In a typical project, their involvement consists of concept development, project specs, cost estimates to convince a client to go down a certain production path, and then delivery. Everything we do has to make us look crystal clear that we’re the best in the world, especially since we’re often tasked with coming up with breakthrough products for all of these emerging industries in high tech.

What is the team composition? 

Brandon (Co-Founder & Chief of Business Development) usually assigns 2–5 people per project, including a coordinator, an editor, a graphic designer, an associate producer, and a producer.

How did you come to work with First Person, Inc.?

My interaction with First Person, Inc. had been threefold: a colleague, competitor, and client. As our competitor, I identified them as an upcoming company that was really strong in terms of creative concepts. They had really high standards and urged us to becomes better versions of ourselves. 

Later when we became colleagues, I found them to be very supportive of the video community in San Francisco. I knew that I was dealing with world-class people and thought highly of Brandon and his crew who were absolutely talented. They were also extremely generous, and we had a sense of mutual trust. I knew that if I gave them an idea, they’d build it up while still having ample respect to say which idea was ours or theirs — and vice versa. That’s very hard to find in the creative community, and it ended up being an enlightening experience to be among people we truly respected. 

As a client, I’d really enjoyed working with First Person, Inc. because they had motion graphic services that were beyond our personal capabilities as a company. Whereas we were more generalists, they had some core competencies in computer graphics and animation that were head and shoulders above anyone else in the Bay Area — mind you, the Bay Area was one of the best in the country for creative production. I was confident that, with their backing, I’d be able to produce exceptional work.

How much have you invested with them?

The price varies. With a given project, around 30% goes to them in subcontracting fees. That probably amounts to about $500,000–$1 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I can’t quite pinpoint exactly when the friendship began, whether it was when we first met or some time later. However, it’s been quite a length of time — we’ve known them at least since 2011, and the relationship is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We were a broadcast-centric company that provided middle-of-the-road services. Our company didn’t really concentrate on finessing production. That was where First Person, Inc. came in. They brought the higher-end components that allowed us to take on our projects, and the sum was greater than the parts.

If First Person, Inc. hadn’t been along for the ride for some of the pitches that we’d done, we probably wouldn’t have won a few of those bids. That would’ve amounted to millions of dollars lost over the years. 

How did First Person, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

I have nothing but praise for them here. Production projects are really like construction projects in that you’ve got this big, tall crane that resides in the center of a building and hauls supplies up to the different floors. As you’re building, say, a condominium complex, you might expect 1,000 bathtubs to arrive on time to the exact specs that you want. 

My company acts as the crane, and First Person, Inc. is the subcontractor that’s helping us install all of those bathtubs. They’ll do everything to spec and communicate our progress. If we find that we can deliver a project ahead of time because we’re working well against the schedule, they’ll easily come back and help us move ahead again. That’s the kind of attitude that they have.

In terms of collaboration tools, we just use in-person interpersonal communication. Production is very much a human endeavor. It’s important to be in the same space as their team when going over a project. You need to be able to see their facial expression and gestures to give the right feedback — it’s just really best expressed when you’re looking at the computer graphics models together, and that’s the kind of relationship that occurs during production.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s one of those aspects that you can’t quite put your finger on, but I’d say that their integrity and good work ethic stand out. There are a lot of production and graphics houses out there that feel like they’re trying to milk something out of me while selling the best deal possible, but I’ve never found any reason to ever doubt First Person, Inc.’s sincerity. They’re dedicated to any project, and we always feel like they have our back. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, from my point of view, they’re very successful. I feel like they’ve surpassed my company in their specific segment of motion graphic services, so I’m probably in no position to tell them what to do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The human relationships that you build grow at different rates, depending on how you click with your partner. When I first started to deal with First Person, Inc., I easily found that I migrated from a competitor to a colleague and then advanced right into being a client. It’s been such an easy transition between all of those phases.