Why a Strong Brand Matters When Everyone’s Fighting for Attention

This is Big Ideas Welcome—season three—where we pair business legends and ambitious founders to dig into big ideas, successes, failures, and lessons learned. I’m Chris McAdoo, and today we’re talking about Why a Strong Brand Matters When Everyone’s Fighting for Attention. I’m joined by two powerhouse entrepreneurs: Bill Malkes and Tommy Nguyen.

Bill Malkes is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and the mind behind GRIDSMART, a company that revolutionized traffic management and took on billion-dollar competitors. 

Tommy Nguyen is the co-founder of StoragePug, a knoxville based company that has transformed the self-storage industry with a customer-first approach and a whole lot of Fun, fast, and familiar personality. 

This episode is about how brands aren’t just logos - they’re promises. It’s about how underdogs win, why customer experience is everything, and how the best brands don’t just tell a story—they become the story. Lets get to work. 

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Listen to all episodes of the Big Ideas Welcome podcast, available now on your favorite streaming platforms, YouTube, and at bigideaswelcome.com.

This Big Ideas Welcome podcast is brought to you by Knoxville Entrepreneur Center, hosted and curated by KEC Chief Experience Officer Chris McAdoo, and produced and edited by Palm Tree Pod Co.

A special thanks to K BREW for making this episode possible.

Original theme music “Thinking of You” courtesy of and copyright Kelsi Walker.