Our Story: 20 Years of Levelling Up
31 July 2025
By Jenna Polson | Meet the team, News | No Comments
Making IT Work
Fresh out of university in 2003, Tristan Ellett was approached with his first challenge to ‘make IT work’ for a business.
When a family member mentioned a business needed help setting up ‘this email thing’ on a Windows 95 computer, Tristan thought, ‘I’ll work it out.’ Then a second request came in: to enable two business computers to connect via a network.
“I went in with an empty briefcase, wearing my dad’s suit, and took notes on what they needed. Then I called my friends to bring their computers over. We worked out how to build a network that night, and then I repeated the steps for the client the next day.”
He loved the challenge of problems with real business impact, and could see there was demand for this sort of work. At a time when businesses were just beginning to embrace the opportunities of the internet, there were plenty of technology challenges for him to solve.
Why Bigfish?
The business name had to be memorable, but also represent credibility and excellence. Bigfish Technology was inspired by the idea of being the ‘big fish in the pond’, a major player in the field. The brand promise was simple and direct: “Making IT Work for You”.
Bigfish also presented the opportunity for a memorable logo. With that big orange fish stickered on his car, Tristan was building brand awareness as he drove from client to client.
Founded on Strong Partnerships
If you know Tristan, you know his energy is contagious. He’s relational, passionate, and thrives on delighting others. That fueled strong business relationships from the start, earning referrals through family members, mentors and then happy clients.
It was an early client that provided Tristan’s first desk, then more office space as the team grew. A bookkeeper in 2005, when Bigfish Technology was registered as a company, followed by a junior technician, Chris Polson, in 2006.
Even at 20, Chris brought a technical depth that paired meaningfully with Tristan’s instinctive people skills. Together, they shared a drive to solve problems with precision and integrity, underpinning the next stage of Bigfish’s growth.
Technology Unlocks Growth
At that time, Bigfish’s typical clients were 5 -10 employee businesses, served onsite at an hourly rate. Early referrals led to a specialisation in serving medical practises, with their unique business applications and high data security needs.
Then along came an ambitious opportunity that would unlock that next level: their first Microsoft Exchange Server project. This was not only exciting technology, but a gateway to serving larger businesses. The only problem: it was tech they’d never used before.
In typical Bigfish fashion, they put in the work to master it quickly, and it was the springboard to a new cohort of clients. Chris said “We hired a tech advisor for me to shadow. I flooded him with questions – why he clicked every button – until I was confident I understood it inside-out”.
Bigfish’s strength in high-performance, low-downtime solutions attracted stockbrokers as a key customer segment. The orange fish was now stickered on Chris’ car roof to catch eyes from lofty Melbourne office windows.
Future-Focused
With growing volumes of critical data, Bigfish introduced its first support plans: fixed-rate, fortnightly onsite server checks and five-page reports to inform forward-looking decisions. Years later, remote monitoring tools would deliver these with greater depth and efficiency without the need for a callout.
In 2012, Bigfish built our own private cloud infrastructure in a Melbourne data center, responding to the risks of physical storage and betting on trust over price. Competing with the tech giants, it proved clients value for Bigfish as a dependable partner.
A True Team
Bigfish was a team of 17 in 2012, including now-General Manager, Mark Lacey, and Technical Manager, Danial Heyenga. Focused on maintaining the quality and care Bigfish was known for, team members were both guided to ‘Bigfishify’ in line with clear standards, and empowered to solve new problems.
“I wanted to join a company that was looking forward, never stuck with status quo and somewhere I could grow,” said Mark, who joined Bigfish as a junior technician in 2009.
The same year, Chris was invited to join Tristan as an equal partner in Bigfish Technology. This formally acknowledged their individual and combined value to their team and the businesses they serve.
Evolving Value
In 2016, it was time to evolve beyond the orange fish and simple promise to ‘make IT work’. Bigfish’s unique offering was to deeply understand each business’ unique needs, and provide a perfect-fit response. Bigfish now promised solutions “Precision engineered for success”, with a sharper fish evolution.
The pandemic in 2020 accelerated demand for cloud-based capabilities, enabling essential services to continue operations during a critical time. It brought remote work into the mainstream, as technology empowered more flexible working.
Growing Ambition
Team reflection highlighted a growing ambition to help partners escape the break-fix cycle, and really unlock their business vision through technology. We adopted a new tagline “Level Up”, to communicate our strong commitment to accountability and continuous improvement. A major office refurbishment set the tone for growth in quality, scale and service.
Bigfish now served more complex businesses, from world-class research facilities to critical infrastructure projects. Many partners operated across multiple sites around Australia. A relocating team member was the opportunity to provide onsite work from Sydney, triggering a goal to serve our partners with local technicians along Australia’s east coast.
In 2025, the first technician was hired into Queensland, and more intentional outreach began to grow our partner-base beyond Victoria. Bigfish Technology is now a team of 34 across four geographies.
We’re still levelling up
There’s more progress behind the scenes that we’re itching to share, but that’s just us. We’re not standing still. We’ll always be searching out opportunities to level up, whether our service offerings, internal operations, our partner or team experience.
Thank you to all who have been part of the 20-year journey to date, shaping what Bigfish has become and what we will be in the future.
