Gennady Vaynerchuk is famously known as Gary Vaynerchuk. He was born to a Jewish family in Babruysk in the Soviet Union which is now known as a part of Belarus later on in 1978 Gary and his family migrated to the United States. Gary was raised in the city of New York, Queens and then in his teens he moved on to New Jersey in Edison. Being a purebred entrepreneur from a young age, Gary joined the retail-wine business of his family at the tender age of 14 and completed his high school from North Hunterdon High School. To complete his further education, Gary graduated with a degree of bachelors from Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts.
The young Entrepreneur
Gary inherited his entrepreneurship qualities from his father, before joining his father’s retail wine business he used to sell baseball cards and ran lemonade stands during his time growing up in Edison, New Jersey. When he was asked about when he started selling and how he learned, Gray said that,
“I had seven lemonade stands when I was six years old. When I was 12 years old, I really started learning entrepreneurship because I had already started a massive baseball card business. I was selling $1000 – $2000 worth of merchandise each weekend at the malls in New Jersey.”
Gary is famously known as a self-starter man who is a successful entrepreneur, investor, author, speaker, and Internet personality in the social media and marketing industry. After graduating from Mount Ida College, he took charge of his family business which was a liquor store known as Shoppers Discount Liquors. Having a hold on his father’s liquor store, Gary renamed the store to Wine Library and then launched sales online. Within a few years, Gary grew the business from $3 million a year to $60 million a year.
Gary Vaynerchuk, A self-made man
If you think Gary is one of those who inherited money, then you are absolutely WRONG. In an interview with Inc. Gary revealed that,
“I didn’t inherit anything–I did work alongside my father, grow his business, and make a salary,”
Moreover he added that,
“We were ridiculously poor. I lived with nine family members in a studio apartment. My dad got a job as a stock boy in a liquor store. He eventually lived the American dream and saved all of his money. But, a funny thing happens when you don’t spend any money for four years. You actually accumulate it. So, he used his savings to buy a small liquor store.”
Started his own YouTube Channel
After his success as a liquor seller, in 2006 Gary started his YouTube channel, Wine Library TV which was a daily webcast on YouTube covering everything about liquor wine which includes tastings, and wine advice. His YouTube channel grew into a world’s renowned liquor brand over the course of the next 4 years since he started his YouTube channel. With over 1,000 episodes in 2011, Vaynerchuk retired from the wine show and swapped it with a video podcast named The Daily Grape.
Co-Founded a digital marketing agency, VaynerMedia
In 2009, Gary and his brother AJ Vaynerchuk founded their own digital ad agency known as VaynerMedia. The agency was found with the aim to focus on social media and to provide strategy services of social media to Fortune 500 companies.
Why did Gary step away from his successful wine business?
After two years in 2011when Vaynerchuk brothers founded their digital marketing company, Gary decided to step away from Wine Library TV. Successfully running their digital company for starting 4 years, the company VaynerMedia was named one of Ad Age’s A-List digital agencies
Launched his Radio Show
Later on the next year, Vaynerchuk launched another radio show, called Wine & Web on Sirius XM satellite radio. The programming of the show paired new wine tastings in a “Wine of the Week” in a segment with the coverage of new gadgets, trends and startups in its “Web of the Week” segment.
The Best Seller of New York Times
In 2014, Gary launched another YouTube show which was called as the #AskGaryVee. The content of the show was all about his response to questions from his followers on Twitter and Instagram. The questions are mostly based on entrepreneurship, family and business topics. The show inspired to write a book on Entrepreneurship and made him write his fourth book, AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness which became The New York Times Best Seller list.
Became an Entrepreneur host
The next year in 2015, He started to host a daily, video-documentary series on YouTube for DailyVee channel. In those series, he recorded interviews with other businessmen and broadcast investor meetings and strategy sessions at VaynerMedia. The same year Gary was named to Crain’s New York Business 40 under 40s.
The expansion of his digital agency, VaynerMedia
The next year Gary expanded his business and his digital agency increased their employees to increase their annual revenue. In 2016, The Company owned 600 employees and for the first time, VaynerMedia grossed $100 million in revenue.
Gary Vaynerchuk made it to Forbes
Later on the next year, in 2017, Gary Vaynerchuk was listed as one of the Top Social Influencers of Forbes. Moreover, Gary designed The Gallery, later he renamed Gallery Media Group, which was a VaynerX subsidiary company that houses PureWow, male-oriented news outlet ONE37pm.com, and other properties of media. The same year, Gary participated in a reality television series, the Planet of the Apps, with will.i.am and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Co-Founder of restaurant reservation app
Last year, in 2019 Gary co-founded a reservation app for restaurants with Ben Leventhal and Michael Montero named Resy which was acquired by American Express. The app has the software for restaurant reservations and serves over 4,000 restaurants in more than 200 cities with reservations predominantly in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London.
Books of Gary Vaynerchuk
Being an inspiration to millions as a serial entrepreneur and successful investor lives his life inspiring millions around the world to work hard, create value, live a better life and find happiness. Gary also wrote books that became one of the best sellers of New York of all the time, which includes
- CRUSHING IT!: HOW GREAT ENTREPRENEURS BUILD THEIR BUSINESS AND INFLUENCE-AND HOW YOU CAN, TOO in this book Gray, offered new lessons and inspiration drawn from the experiences of dozens of influencers, investors and entrepreneurs who rejected the predictable corporate path in favor of pursuing their dreams by building thriving businesses and extraordinary personal brands.
- The second one is, #ASKGARYVEE: ONE ENTREPRENEUR’S TAKE ON LEADERSHIP, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND SELF-AWARENESS. This book has been known as the best product of the year. In this book he answered all the questions related to entrepreneurship, business, leadership and influencer ship.
- JAB, JAB, JAB, RIGHT HOOK: HOW TO TELL YOUR STORY IN A NOISY SOCIAL WORLD. Another third best seller of Gary’s writing.
- THE THANK YOU ECONOMY, this one is Gary’s fourth book
- CRUSH IT! WHY NOW IS THE TIME TO CASH IN ON YOUR PASSION. This one is known as the most informative book of all.
What is the Net-worth of the King of Social Media Marketing?
Being the CEO and co-founder of global digital marketing advertising agency VaynerMedia, four-time New York Times bestselling author, plus being the host of “DailyVee” vlogs host moreover the partner of a venture capital fund called VaynerRSE earns a good amount of money and known as the richest yet successful Belarusian-American entrepreneur. Gary is the man who lives many lives and has a new philosophy every other day, he has a net worth estimated at around $160 million.