I am happy to write that I am heading back to the University of Illinois in Champaign. I will be on campus from February 14th – 16th. On February 15th, I will be guest lecturing to the iFoundry program on “Becoming an extraordinary student entrepreneur”. Comment or email me if you will be in the area and would like to meet up!
Today, Abi Noda and I are officially launching HackerTees.com!
Karen Hyman forwarded my name and email address over to Abi a couple of weeks ago. Considering that we have similar interests, I thought it would be best to jump on a telephone call. Long story short, we kicked it off. After much discussion, we thought it would be a great idea to work on a side project together.
Inspired by Andrew Hyde’s VC Wear, we created Hacker Tees, t-shirts only programmers could understand. 10% of the profits will go to a 2010 TechStars company (more details to come – there will be a contest)!
Please check out our site and buy a shirt before they all run out! Thanks!
AJ and Gary Vaynerchuk teamed up to start VaynerMedia, a branding agency focused on social media. AJ holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in advertising with a concentration in computer science. He has worked with his brother, Gary, in social media for the last five years. At VaynerMedia, AJ is responsible for running day-to-day operations. AJ agreed to participate in a phone interview with me.
Tell everyone about VaynerMedia. Why did you and your brother create this venture?
VaynerMedia is a branding agency with a focus on social media. We work with both consumer and personal brands to help them identify what they are best at, what they can do, what they can’t do, and then how they should leverage social media to reach their fans and consumers. VaynerMedia is something Gary and I have spoken about for quite some time. We started VaynerMedia about seven or eight months ago, the day after I graduated college. We just knew that we had a lot of beliefs, ideas, and a firm grasp on this industry and where it is headed. We thought to ourselves, if we could do all of these wonderful things with our side projects and Gary’s personal brand, imagine what we could do with people that are much more out there in a traditional sense – bigger companies, bigger personal brands, etc.
What part of this entire deal has you the most excited?
The thing that makes this so exciting is the variation in our clients and the ability to work on such different projects. Also, I get to look at business and branding in so many different ways. Going from a former NBA player to a baby products retailer is such an amazing transition. I just love to see different sides of business and social media, and that’s what makes this so exciting.
What’s been most fun so far?
The most fun thing that I have done so far is work with the NY Jets. I am a HUGE Jets fan, so meeting the players, seeing their point of views, and getting the inside scoop has been the most fun!
Has there been one particular lesson early on that you have already learned??
I am in the process of writing a blog post about this question. When you are a consultant, you need to be much more proactive instead of reactive. You have full vested interest in what you’re doing, but when you’re working with a big company you have to be much more proactive. You really need to sit down and think of every single scenario possible. Working with big companies in comparison to a startup company is a whole different ball game. You just have to sit down and let your mind go wild. It’s all about taking yourself outside of your own brain and trying to understand how others would react. All in all, it’s an interesting challenge
What do you think of the standard process of applying for a job (i.e. submitting a resume, interview, etc.)? Is personal branding taking over? Do you think the resume is sitting on its deathbed?
Standard anything is always a bad thing. You always want to be outside the box and think creatively. Especially when you are applying for a job, you need to put your creative mind to work. Just putting in a resume and doing an interview is not going to get you anywhere. Personal branding, being proactive, and content creation is fantastic. For example, say you want to find a job as a web designer. A resume is not going to get you anywhere. A creative approach would be to take a different spin on the “About Us” page on XYZ Company’s website. Show the company that you embrace their brand and their company. Also, show them what they would be getting if they hired you. Show them what a new web page would look in your eyes. This is different. They’ll love the fact that you took the initiative. All in all, personal branding in general is huge! Be active on social networks, network in general, being proactive in content creating is huge. The resume will fade and fade.
How do my readers get started? What if a reader is 20 and another reader is 50?
To get started whether you’re twenty or fifty, you need to create a personal website. Get your name out on the web right away and start producing content. For someone who says “I don’t know how to build a website,” go find someone who does. If you can’t find time to create your own website, you do not deserve it. Nothing is easy; to be successful you must work hard. If you are not willing to speak your mind on your own website, then you do not deserve to get a real job. One thing about a bad economy is that it separates the weak from the deserving people. If you do not have the will or drive to write your thoughts on something that you are passionate about, reevaluate what you are doing.
People have said that I have a great personal brand, but that word seems so narcissistic to me. I say mine was built accidently. How do you modestly (for lack of a better word) build your brand?
Personal branding is never built accidentally. Someone who is young and does something great shows that he or she or her has great initiative, is proactive, and is hard working. Doors do not open up by chance; doors open up because you work hard. I sometimes feel that the phrase “personal branding” is narcissistic, but at the same time it doesn’t embarrass me. At the end of the day, people do things in the world (to an extent) for themselves in some way or another.
How do you measure success in social media?
Social media should not be measured from a numbers standpoint. Someone who has one million Twitter followers with zero engagement is not valuable. Someone who has a couple thousand Twitter followers with quality engagement is so much more valuable than the former. Success should be measured by how much impact is created. The numbers standpoint truly does not matter. Let me give you an example. Oprah has over two million followers, and Chad Ochocinco, the wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals has over six-hundred thousand followers. If I were participating in a social media campaign, I would much rather have Chad Ochocinco’s following and support. Why? Because Oprah doesn’t engage with her audience. Ochocinco replies to followers, messages followers, tweets periodically, and posts pictures and videos. Ochocinco has taken some of his Twitter followers to football games! He engages his quality followers.
What’s your advice for young entrepreneurs who are just getting started?
Be patient. Gary and I could have started VaynerMedia three years ago. Many people in the industry just read an article or two on TechCrunch or Mashable and think they understand it all. I would be patient. Read every single day, read every single blog you find relevant constantly until you truly have a grasp. Experiment on a low level. Read, react, learn, and then repeat. The things that Gary and I have learned by experimenting with social networks and Twitter has made us learn so much in terms of social media – this makes us SO much stronger. The value our clients see in Gary and I is not providing information on what we think works but rather learning from our personal experiences what didn’t work and what we learned was wrong.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Things change so quickly. If you told me five years ago that I would be working on VaynerMedia with my brother, I would say you were crazy. It’s hard to forecast the future but if I had to predict, I would still be running VaynerMedia and growing this business. Also, I can imagine Gary and I launching some sort of side project that we truly believe in.
Thanks AJ for letting me interview you!
Shervin Pishevar, the CEO and co-founder of Social Gaming Network, recently left this as his Facebook status:
“Investors who are not active on social media like Facebook and Twitter don’t have credibility with most entrepreneurs.”
This status led to an interesting discussion…
This past summer, I had an externship at the Founders Fund in San Francisco. One of the results from this internship was that Justin Fishner-Wolfson inspired and encouraged me to run a conference. The goal of my conference, NextGen Conference, was to bring together young, first-time entrepreneurs with more experienced and seasoned entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. About ten days ago, this conference was a reality. On November 14th at Stanford University, NextGen Conference took place.
Over the last few months, I created an All Star speaker lineup – Jeff Clavier, Kevin Hartz, Keith Rabois, Dan Olsen, Larry Chiang, and many more. There was representation from the Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Maples Investments, Soft Tech VC, and many more venture capital firms. With such an awesome group of speakers, I expected ticket sales to come easy. My goal was to make this event no larger than seventy-five people. Shockingly, twenty-five days ago, zero people were registered for my conference. However, with much help and support from the speakers, my event was sold out! We reached full capacity! Students and young entrepreneurs from Stanford, Berkeley, SF State, Cal Poly, and the University of Illinois were in attendance. Our sponsors included: Minogi.com, Intel, Verizon Wireless, and Macgasm.net. Both Intel and Verizon Wireless came on board seventy-two hours before the event.
At the after party I overheard someone say, “I learned more at NextGen Conference than at TechCrunch 50”. Positive feedback and requests for more events like NextGen Conference have flooded my inbox in the last two weeks. Because of that, there will probably be a NextGen Conference in 2010!
Shout out goes to Daniel Brusilovsky. Even though he was not present at NextGen Conference, Daniel helped use his contacts to help NextGen Conference. Because of Daniel’s contact, Brady Valentino, our site, www.nextgenconf.com looks beautiful! Also, Daniel helped sign Intel as a sponsor.
I was so honored to be the inaugural speaker kicking off this series of lectures! Here’s iFoundry’s post:
Cory Levy, an 18-year-old entrepreneur from Houston, Texas, spoke to iFoundry students and other guests about his experiences with entrepreneurship at the first in the WOW student development series on Friday, 16 October 2009 in NCSA auditorium. Levy emphasized the importance of networking, professionalism and embracing failure to learn for future opportunities. After Levy’s presentation, a panel of young entrepreneurs (U of I students and alum), spoke of their experiences with entrepreneurial ventures.
The WOW Student Development Series is a collaborative initiative of iFoundry, theTechnology Entrepreneur Center, the Undergraduate Programs Office in the College of Engineering and Engineering Career Services. This new series is dedicated to helping students develop the intellectual, creative, and entrepreneurial capacity necessary for success in the engineering profession.
Pictures of Levy’s presentation can be found on iFoundry’s Facebook page here.
I am here in Urbana-Champaign till Sunday!
I have partnered up with Daniel Brusilovsky at Teens in Tech Networks to produce the 2009 NextGen Conference. NextGen is a one-day conference at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley. NextGen’s mission is to help you succeed, by providing lectures, panels and networking opportunities on areas that are vital in building and maintaining your business.
We’ll have a business plan competition, where startups and entrepreneurs can go on stage, and pitch some investors of their idea. The panel of judges will then go over the business plan, and pick a winner. So far, we have Kevin Hartz, co-founder/CEO of Eventbrite, Ann Miura-Ko, Partner at Maples Investments, David Lee, a partner at Ron Conway’s investment firm, SV Angel, LLC, and Skye Lee and Brian Phillips (early PayPal employees and co-founders of Thread).
If you are interested in sponsoring, or speaking, please contact Daniel or myself through the contact page. You can go ahead and register for a ticket today.
Thanks Ed Kirk for making this flyer!
It should be interesting to see the results…
I will be guest lecturing two classes at Duke University. I will be in on campus from September 6th-8th. Shoot me an email if you’ll be in the area!
