Our Founder and CEO, Chris Wizner, told everyone in his 4th grade class that he was going to start a computer company someday. At the time, his family was very poor and was going through a lot of financial issues. This led to his family’s bankruptcy on their home, followed by an eviction from another home that was also eventually condemned. You name it, the odds were not in his favor and life was not exactly easy for his family.
1999-2000Fast forward, our Founder and CEO Chris Wizner was now a high school student at Agoura High in Agoura Hills, California. This is where he found himself required to be an aid for science class. However, much of Chris’ time was spent sleeping instead! Eventually, the supervising science teacher told him that he had to do something more productive with his time. In this moment, Chris decided to go to the library and read up on how to start a company. Most people don’t realize the work or the knowledge that is required to start a business and it definitely isn’t a skill that’s taught in public schools. Most of his peers would have assumed that starting a company required thousands of dollars, a lawyer, maybe even a college degree, and most would think that there was a minimum age requirement to start a company. However, the answers Chris found in that book discovered in his high school library, were much the contrary. Intrigued, he read more and more during his science aid school period and stopped at page 42. This is the page where he discovered that starting a company was as simple a going to the local newspaper and asking for a D.B.A., or ‘doing business as,’ Statement. Never turning another page in that book, Chris decided to start his company that instant in 1999. It only cost $50 to do so and there was no minimum age required! He decided he had nothing to lose and only everything to gain. Worst case scenario, he thought, would be to have this young entrepreneurial experience as a resume builder. Best case scenario, he thought, would be to gain the ability to forge his own path with his never-ending drive and passion for the livelihood of his choice, and that’s exactly what he did.
“Don’t wait for things to happen, MAKE THEM HAPPEN!” – Chris Wizner, CEO & Founder 2001-2003Vivid Candi was incorporated as a California S Corp. In just 2 years, our Founder and CEO Chris Wizner went from knowing absolutely nothing about business, marketing, graphic design, and web design, to working with clients as well-known as Pepperdine University, Gotcha, Malibu Magazine, and more. At this point, the agency had a small team of 3 amazing designers. During this time, Chris became an official contributor for an international graphic design magazine and even had national articles written about him. Due to his unique taste and love for surreal graphic design and artwork, his eye-catching work was showcased worldwide. Imagine fish flying through deserts and floating Vivid Candi skyscrapers… this was the soul of Chris Wizner as an up-and-coming graphic designer. This passion was enough to drive Chris to work 50+ hours per week designing innovative graphics and interactive websites.
2004-2006Vivid Candi continued to grow at record rates of over 250%+ per year under the belt of CEO Chris Wizner. A great deal of this growth was credited to a strategic partnership with a local publication, Malibu Magazine. In fact, Vivid Candi and Malibu Magazine shared offices together for 2 years, until they both outgrew the space and needed to move onto larger, separate offices. During this time, Vivid Candi was designing as much as 75% of the print ads that were seen in Malibu Magazine and many other local publications. Vivid Candi had nearly 150 ads per month in circulation in print media and also was very active in direct mail ads at that time. During this era, print advertisement was at its peak, while digital advertisement was still in its pampers.
2006-2008Vivid Candi continued to have rapid growth each year thereafter and skyrocketed into a team of 16 unique talents serving amazing, national-level clients. It was a amazing era in Vivid Candi’s history, as we made the official transition from a full service advertising agency to full service digital agency. During this time, the economy was at its peak, only to be followed by its damaging crash the following year.
2009-2010When the economy crashed in early 2009, Vivid Candi had to work relentlessly to survive. Founder and CEO Chris Wizner decided that it was in everyone’s best interest to make 2 of the company’s most loyal and hardworking employees his business partners. On top of this, Chris considered these two to be his great friends and the best designers that he had ever worked with. With the economic turmoil, we know that it was time to push back and expand our digital agency despite the odds. Three partners, all with the same goals, vision, and passion for the agency was the perfect solution for a trying time. Ultimately, this further propelled Chris’s vision for Vivid Candi as the largest digital agency in the world and in leading new-school digital advertising & marketing of the future. He knew that reaching this goal could be completed faster with driven and passionate partners to share the joys of success with.
2011Through the first year of partnership, the partners of Vivid Candi were able to turn things around and together conquer the bad economy, ending the year with a strong increase in business. In the first year of partnership, the agency had the pleasure of working with amazing celebrities, billionaires, national-level companies, and many more awesome clients. This allowed the organization to gain vital experience that gives us an edge over our competitors who are growing in number as the industry continues to boom. With our agency beginning to flourish once again, we ended the year with amazing progress and untouched innovation. At the end of the day, we shared a year full of fun and excitement brought by all that we together accomplished.
2012-2013Our fast-growing digital agency successfully launched offices in New York, New York; Las Vegas, Nevada; Dallas, Texas; San Francisco, California; and San Diego, California. Our awesome team of creatives continued to grow and we were fortunate to discover some amazing new talent along the way. As our agency continued to grow nationally, so did the level of our clientele. We were given opportunities to work with national level brands, celebrities, and billionaires. Our agency also spent a great deal of time expanding our services into App Development, Digital Real Estate & Social Media Marketing.
2014-2015Our digital agency maintained steady growth and acquired some amazing new talents to further build our in-house team. We worked with hundreds of different clients to develop some of the most amazing custom coded websites in the industry. We also successfully developed iOS apps and Android apps, as well as successfully launched numerous digital marketing campaigns. We were given the opportunity to work with major television networks, well-known celebrities, and even a billionaire who’s easily in the top 10 richest people in the world. This chapter of our business was truly amazing and greatly proved that we could deliver VIVID RESULTS to even the most challenging clients in the most competitive of situations.
2016Another exciting chapter in the history of our agency. Certainly the year of change and change has been an amazing thing! We’ve learned new technology such as Node.JS that pushes websites beyond simply informational sites and turns them into fully functional web apps. We’ve also created our own technology using this language and others.
2017We began the year strong introducing a new concept we pioneered called Living Website Leases. The demand for this new concept was immediate. Along with website leases, we introduced virtual reality (VR) development and 360 video & photo sphere photography services. Our marketing was never stronger with the introduction of full service marketing retainers. Our staff immediately doubled and tripled and our agency grew 465% in 1 year and bloomed to a team of 20+.
2018Website leases exploded with the option of limited art direction leasing for marketing clients. Marketing continued to explode at a record rate with the introduction of a influencer division. Our agency signed numerous top influencers and connected multiple brands with them. Technology wise, we continued our path as a incubator and accelerator prototyping many incredible projects we dreamed up.
2019Many amazing things happened in 2019 including the launch of our first in house startup, Tahoe11 which used holographic technologies to display digital legacies. Our marketing accounts also accelerated into many amazing opportunities like handling tourism for Lake Arrowhead and more.
2020A new chapter began with a brand new larger office located closer to the Malibu Pier with amazing views everywhere you look. Life took a turn in March ’20 when the Covid-19 Corona Virus pandemic hit the world. Like many, we had an immediate drop of business close to 76% of our business in the first 2 weeks of the pandemic. It was rough for a short bit, but then we found a way to grow again virtually in the cloud and quickly recovered.
2021The 2nd chapter of the Covid-19 pandemic went on. Anything could have happened, but our agency got stronger while working as a hybrid cloud based agency. 95% of our team was working remote across East to West Coast. Running as a hybrid virtual agency gave us a unique ability to source talent from anywhere in the country and it turned into a great advantage. In the same year, we also finished the build out of our Pier View Studios. Chris, our CEO became President and Chairman of the Malibu Chamber of Commerce in addition to a Los Angeles Advisory Board Member of Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Anita Hoffman, COO of Vivid Candi became a Honorary Board Member of the Malibu Chamber of Commerce. Overall the year was a huge year of growth!
