Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as Gary V, is a Belarusian American who works as an entrepreneur, investor, author, speaker, internet personality and many other jobs with a net worth of $160 million. Gary V was not born with millions of dollars; actually, he grew up poor with eight family members in a studio apartment. So, how did he change his destiny?
He is a first mover.
From a young age, Gary V showed an ability to gain an advantageous market position by being the first to establish himself in certain markets. From operating a lemonade stand franchise at age 7, to making tens of thousands by cornering the local market for baseball cards in his early teens.
His true ability to identify untouched yet fruitful opportunities became known when he dramatically increased sales of his father’s company, rebranded as Wine Library, from $3MM to $60MM. He did this in the early ‘90s after identifying the internet as a land-grab opportunity – he grasped email marketing, to Google AdWords to flash sales to drive the sales of Wine Library. As early as 2006, he pursued the avenue of content marketing becoming one of the first to create a long-form episodic video show on YouTube.
This inspires and connects with me as an aspiring businessperson because I not only believe in identifying trends, understanding what works and why but I also believe in forward-thinking and finding pockets of opportunity for growth. I believe that in order to remain successful, relevant and competitive in today’s market you cannot be stagnant and should be looking for the next big opportunity for growth or innovation.
He is authentic.
His success is not solely sustained by his ability to take advantage of business opportunities, his success was supported and catalyzed by his unfiltered persona. Due to being authentic, he gained his audience, which landed him invitations for appearances on talk shows like Conan O’Brien and Ellen DeGeneres. Due to being authentic he was able to foster relationships with CEOs and investors like Kevin Rose, Travis Kalanick, Ev Williams, and Mark Zuckerberg which would lead to Gary’s first steps into angel investing (with companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr). Finally yet importantly, due to being authentic he has become a world renowned and unforgettable speaker.
This teaches me that elevated success is not reserved for people that fit a certain mold that’s been seen dozens of times. Those who are courageously authentic and unfiltered can attain and sustain success too. I know that sounds like a basic observation, but it is so easy to fall into the mindset that if you are not a certain type of person or personality you cannot be successful in your field and believing that can be detrimental. This lesson from studying Gary V is something I need to cling onto. I believe if I learn to embrace and intertwine the intricate aspects of who I am – what makes me talented, skilled, and different – with what I do like Gary does, I’ll bring incremental value wherever I go.
He is multi-faceted.
As noted in the beginning, Gary Vaynerchuk is a businessman that wears many hats. Despite his immense success in just 43 years of life, he has yet to slow down. He is never comfortable or settled, not to say he is not satisfied but he is constantly expanding his success in different avenues. Some would have stopped at the success he has had running a creative media company that services clients like PepsiCo, GE, Johnson and Johnson, Chase, AbInBev and more. But outside of being CEO of VaynerMedia, Gary V is an author, speaker, and daily social media content creator with over 12 million followers across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Spotify and more.
This teaches me that to be successful, you don’t sleep. I’m just kidding. This teaches me the potential value of investing your talents and resources (not just money, but time and energy too) into multiple buckets. This is a concept that I’ve found highly emphasized in MUS 421. Sure, it could be a tiring thought to some but it could be exciting to see how many different ways you can breed success with your talents.
