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Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk

Net Worth

$160,000,000

Born in (City)

Babruysk

Born in (Country)

Belarus

Date of Birth

14th December, 1975

Date of Death

-

Mother

Sasha Vaynerchuk

Father

Tamara Vaynerchuk

Children

  • Misha Ava Vaynerchuk
  • Xander Avi Vaynerchuk

About

Gary Vaynerchuk, named Gennady Vaynerchuk by birth; November 14, 1975; is a Belarusian-American entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, orator, and an Internet personality who currently has 8.3 million followers on the social media platform, Instagram. Gary is a keen board and advisory member of Ad Council and Pencils of Promise and is a longtime Well Member of Charity: Water. Gary is an extremely skilled orator and highly sought-after public speaker, a 5-time New York Times bestselling author, as well as a prolific angel investor with early investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, and Uber. Vaynerchuk is the co-founder of Resy and Empathy Wines. Initially, he was known as a wine critic who expanded his family’s wine business. Vaynerchuk is now more popularly known for his work in digital marketing and social media as the chairman of New York-based modern-day media and communications company, VaynerX, and as the CEO of VaynerX subsidiary, VaynerMedia, a full-service advertising agency working with Fortune 100 clients across the company’s four locations.

Early Life

As a young child, Vaynerchuk began his entrepreneurial career by plucking ripping flowers from his neighbors’ yards and using his natural charm and excellent sales-skills to sell them right back. Soon, he upgraded to operating an entire lemonade stand franchise, managing multiple locations, and commuting to collect his profits. In his early teens, Gary cornered the local market for baseball cards, often making thousands in a weekend with his keen eye for deals, and his razor-sharp sales-tactics. Gary often calls himself a “purebred entrepreneur” who successfully started a lemonade franchise at age 7, and eventually selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of baseball cards and toys throughout his high school career.

Road to Success

When Gary identified “the internet” as an excellent land-grab opportunity in the late 90s, he transitioned his father’s local liquor store (then named “Shoppers Discount Liquors”) into one of the first e-commerce platforms for alcohol in the country resulting in explosive top-line growth. Gary renamed the business to “Wine Library” and grew his father’s company from 3 million to 60 million US dollars in sales. In 2008, Gary gave a keynote at Web 2.0 in New York City that ultimately changed his career. This powerful speech solidified the backbone of Gary’s 1 Million dollars, 10-book deal with HarperCollins leading to his first book, Crush It! in 2009. It went on to become an international bestseller, laying the foundation for his principles on media, marketing, and communication. Soon after, Gary began angel investing in notable companies including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, Snap, and Venmo. Vaynerchuk co-founded VaynerMedia in 2009 with his younger brother, AJ Vaynerchuk. The company now includes more than 800 employees, servicing clients such as PepsiCo, GE, Johnson and Johnson, Chase, AbInBev, and more. Today, Gary has more than 12 million combined followers across various social media platforms, producing content daily on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Spotify, and more. Gary also hosts a Global top 100 business podcast, The GaryVee Audio Experience, which features new episodes every day. In the Fall of 2017, Gary announced his first signature sneakers in collaboration with K-Swiss. The GaryVee 001 & 002s were released in November 2017, the GaryVee 003s were released in July 2018 & the GaryVee 004s will be released later this year. Gary’s life ambition is the pursuit of buying the American football the New York Jets.

Challenges

Vaynerchuk's young entrepreneurial drive was halted when, at the age of 14, Gary’s father pushed him into the family business. In the blink of an eye, he went from making thousands of dollars in a weekend to making $2 an hour bagging ice in the basement of Shoppers Discount Liquors, which his father had taken full ownership of by that point. However, Gary managed to turn this around by growing his father's business into a wine empire, growing the business from 3 million in sales to 60 million dollars in sales. 2009 was a big year for Vaynerchuk with the establishment of VaynerMedia, the birth of Vaynerchuk's daughter, Misha, and the publishing of his second book. Vaynerchuk struggled with investments. In the years of 2009 and 2011, Vaynerchuk invested in many opportunities but he felt as if he was giving too much of himself away to these investments. Vaynerchuk overcame this by effective delegation by finding people who have similar skills to Vaynerchuk to work with his investments efficiently.

Failures

According to Gary Vaynerchuk who revealed in his brief article, "The Biggest Failure of My Career", he is quoted as saying that he considers himself fortunate for not having faced many failures in his life. Gary says that when he thinks of failure, it was during the time when he was stretching himself and his time too thin.

Achievements

Gary has written four more New York Times bestselling business books and became one of the most sought-after public speakers.|Gary has more than 12 million combined followers across various social media platforms|The Shorty Awards - Recipient of the Shorty Social Good Impact Award Honoree

Quotes

  • Ultimately, life is about value exchange. Give value to get value
  • Passion is an unmatched fuel. Add being happy to that and you have a wonderful formula for good health
  • Life shrinks and expands on the proportion of your willingness to take risks and try new things
  • Developing your personal brand is key to monetizing your passion online