Bursting With Potential: The Balloon Businessman

Chris Previlon, pursuing a BBA in Business Management at the Lubin School of Business, arrived in New York with a clear goal: to grow his business and embrace the city’s energy.

“I chose Pace because of the city life and my love for business and theater,” Chris explains. “I wanted to learn to grow my business and become my own boss, while also training, working, performing, and being in the city.”

Chris' entrepreneurial spirit sparked early, inspired by his mother’s event planning business, where he often lent a hand. As he got older, he noticed how much money went into one specific element of party décor: balloons. He had a thought. If balloon designs were in such demand, why not turn that demand into something lucrative?

I chose Pace because of the city life and my love for business and theater.

Chris began practicing balloon artistry and was soon supplying intricate balloon sculptures for family events. As his talents grew, he booked balloon jobs with his high school and other local businesses, including Anthropologie and Walmart. That’s when his business really began to blow up—pun intended.

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Since then, Chris’ business Beyond Balloons has flourished. He’s crafted everything from intricate balloon designs—including a balloon dress—to projects for high-profile clients like NFL players and popular YouTubers like The Beam Squad.

Leaving his hometown of Miami, Florida, for college in the Big Apple also meant leaving behind his roster of clients. It was a risk, but Chris was determined to succeed, navigating the challenges of starting fresh in a new market while keeping up with his studies. When he arrived at Pace, he reached out to the Center for Student Engagement to introduce himself and his business. The next day he had an email: could he do an event next week?

I wanted to learn to grow my business and become my own boss, while also training, working, performing, and being in the city.

Chris didn’t have any equipment, materials, or a car, but he agreed and decided to make it work. He met with new vendors in a new state, purchased supplies and hauled them to campus on the subway, and on the day of the event scrambled to set everything up before his first class of the morning.

His hard work paid off.

“Everybody loved it when they were passing by,” he explains. “And then, literally while I was finishing setting up, I was told they needed me for an event in two days.’” And so ironically, his investment in Pace to level up his skills led to Pace investing in him as a new vendor.

Chris’ hopes that his time at Pace will help him take his business to new heights—yes, another pun. “I just want to keep growing,” he explains. “I’ve already learned so already about marketing and business 101,” he says.

"The campus is beautiful. I like the urban city, modern feel."

His favorite part of being at Pace? “The city, honestly. The New York life,” he says. “Yeah, the train can get very tiring every day for an hour… but the campus is beautiful. I like the urban city, modern feel.”

Chris didn’t settle. He had a successful business and a thriving network, but he came to Pace so he could go even further with his career, proving that when it comes to his ambition, the sky’s the limit.

This article was outlined with the assistance of a custom GPT model using OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The author wrote, edited, and takes responsibility for the final text.