We know you’re a “Young Go Getterâ€, but so our readers know, how old are you?
I turned 25 in May, it’s a pretty good age to be.
Can you tell us the quick history about yourself, and what drives you to succeed?
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I graduated from college in 2006 with a degree in marketing. After being laid off earlier this year, I decided to start my own business (The Hangover Cure at www.drinkthc.com) instead of trying to find another corporate job. And I think that’s what drives me to succeed, I am so petrified at the thought of having to work for other people for the rest of my life that I really don’t have an alternative in my mind. I don’t know what I would do if I had to go get another office job right now. So my biggest motivator is being as happy as possible at all times, which means working for no one but myself. That’s what drives me, I know I only get one shot at this and I don’t want to spend it doing something I hate.
We know you are a younggogetter, but I am sure there is more to you than that. What are some other things you have done prior to your current job or things you are currently working on?
I worked for a small software company here in Dallas out of college, doing Boiler Room style sales calls all day, which I loved. I was recruited by IBM soon after, where I worked as a software sales rep for two years. Currently, I’m working on an eBook dealing with successful online business creation in plain English, a few new supplement concepts for my company, Apollo Nutrition, and looking for distribution for a canned/ready-to-drink version of The Hangover Cure. We are also working on a few potentially massive distribution deals that I cannot get into right now. But 2010 looks like a very good year for my company.
What has been your biggest asset while building your business?
Probably the support of my family and friends, who I am so grateful for. It took a while to convince some people, like my dad, that I wasn’t sitting around all day watching Sportscenter, but he is on board 100% now. My mom is probably my biggest fan and has always offered unconditional support, so it’s nice to be able to vent to her from time to time. Starting and running a business, any business, is mentally taxing with all the ups and downs, so it’s vital to surround yourself with positive, supportive people to counter-balance all the doubters out there. That’s really all you need; people who care about you. The rest works itself out. Get that strong inner circle and make sure they know they are appreciated.
Adversely, what has been your biggest vice?
I’m not sure if I would call it a vice, but math was always my worst subject in school, so anything involving numbers, and there is plenty of it with what I do, gets really old, but it’s just part of the gig. I’m not a big fan of spreadsheets though.
What can we expect next from the talented Anthony Adams in the near future?
It’s tough to say, with the way technology is changing right now and the fact that I run a primarily online-based business. I’d like to get involved more with social media on a personal level, maybe add a blog to www.drinkthc.com to connect with customers. I have a number of projects in my head I would like to get to at some point soon, I just need to sit down and prioritize my time over the next year.
Everyone starts to feel burn out on a project every now and then. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and focused?
I have a picture of an office cubicle in my office with the caption ‘never go back’ below it. That’s all the motivation I need. No matter what I am doing, no matter how late I am working or how tedious or mundane my current project might be, anything is better than being back in the cube farm. It’s soul crushing. So whenever I find myself tired or burned out, I just look at that picture. It might sound silly but that really is all the motivation I need to keep going.
Can you give
us three tools that you use every single day to make your life as a younggogetter more efficient, productive, or fun
From an efficiency standpoint, I use Gmail as an external storage drive, which helps out a lot. I also like Evernote for storing all the random information I come across online that I can’t possibly remember or organize on my own, it’s like my second memory really and I would highly recommend it for anyone running an online business. Finally, I’m a big fan of Twitter. It’s easily the best way I know to generate free buzz for a product or service online and I think we are just seeing the beginning of its real potential.
What is your favorite quote?
Two come to mind: ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ by Samuel Beckett and ‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.’ by Mark Twain.
And last but not least, if you could give one piece of advice to fellow Young Go Getters, what would it be?
If you do something you love long enough, you will be successful. I have no doubt in my mind. But it takes time and you will make mistakes, so make sure you are doing something you like, if not love, because you will be doing it at 2am from time to time while your friends are out having fun. Just because the internet removes traditional gatekeepers and puts a wealth of opportunity at your fingertips, you still have to get out there and grab it. No one throws up a website and sits back collecting $10,000 a month with minimal effort. You are still building a business, so be prepared for a marathon.
Tagged: interview, sales, tips for entrepreneurs
I was talking with a friend recently who was sharing his frustrations with trying to start his own business. After reading book after book about how to be successful, measuring success, and how to become a millionaire, he came to the conclusion that they were all wrong. I won’t share the names of the books that turned him off to being successful, but I will describe the characteristics of these books and why thousands of people that read the same book don’t all become millionaires.
Beaten Down and Degraded
You may aware of the tactics that many armed forces like the Army use, in which they “break” a person emotionally and mentally so that they can “rebuild” them to be conditioned as soldiers. The reason they do this is because it’s basic psychology and it works. Ever hear of victims becoming attached to their harassers or women staying with abusive husbands? When you’re broke mentally you begin to rely on others to mend you. This applies to the financial world as well. Many “millionaires” and authors want to make more money with their books, and they’ve got a tried and true approach to doing it. Submission. Most of the people reading financial books are insecure about their finances already, thus being in a submissive state from the beginning, they are easily controlled and manipulated by the author. If the author’s goal is to get them to buy more products, then they simply communicate that to the reader. This is why SO MANY people are still poor no matter how much they read; it’s all a mind game.
Knowing this, it’s important to recognize the good eggs from the bad before reading anything. Unless you’re confident in your financial state, you shouldn’t pick up a book on finances without doing some research. Be wary of author’s claims of religion, overnight success, or training programs to attributing to you success. Not that these methods don’t work, but they’re often used to mislead the reader or win their trust (sadly, I know far too many church goers that have been taken advantage of for putting their faith in people that play the God card).
Who do I trust?
Nobody. You should never trust anyone 100% because very few people are completely out to help you for nothing in return; and the few that are can become corrupt at any point. The real key is to trust yourself. If you can have enough faith and trust that regardless of what you read, learn, or do — that you will be happy and successful — THEN you are ready to learn. Many authors (even the corrupt ones) have something valuable to share. As long as you have the discernment to know what to apply and what to scrap, then you’ll be able to build your own blueprint to success.
How do I build my confidence?
It’s easy to say, but hard to do, right? Well not exactly. Building confidence is a slow growing process, and it takes a lot of time and positives to outweigh the negatives which have torn it down. You can’t gain genuine confidence overnight, and as much as it may seem possible, you can’t ignore or fake confidence. It lies in the subconscious mind and can only be built with genuine experiences. Here’s a few exercises that can help it along however:
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Make a list
Of the 5 most important things in your life (religion, family, dog, car, house, etc) then add up the actual financial value they have. If the value is 0 like mine is, then what do you have to lose? Assets and Liabilities can come and go like the wind. Money won’t buy you happiness, it just makes it easier to maintain :) SO be thankful for what you have, make sure that you won’t lose those most important to you, and do your best to succeed. If you fail, you get up and start again.
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Remember failure
Isn’t always rock bottom, and even if it is, rock bottom is a good foundation to build on. Even though it sucks crashing down, the only place left to go from their is up. No matter how hard your life may seem, or how much it may sting, its important to remember that there are MANY of those that endured your struggles or worse
> and still found success.
Measuring Success
You are the measure. Don’t let anyone else define you. The end.
Tagged: business psychology, success
We know you’re a “Young Go Getterâ€, but so our readers know, how old are you?
I turned 20 in September. I can’t say that I am looking forward to being 21, because I know after that, it is downhill from there ;).
>Can you tell us the quick history about yourself, and what drives you to succeed?
I’ve been a soccer player all my life, since I was about 4 years old. Besides soccer, I was always interested in computers, taking after my older brother who also had an interest in computers. At the age of 13 or 14 my club soccer team was ranked as one of the top teams in the nation, and we needed to raise money to travel allover the country. I had recently heard of Google Adsense, so I created a website for my team through a free site builder, and started spreading the site to teammates, and they spread it to their friends and family. A few months went by and the site began to take off, as did my team, but I did not feel that our site was professional enough. I went in search of sponsors and was able to acquire three companies to host the website, to design a new professional looking site, and to create a flash introduction for the site. After about a year, the site had brought in over $3500 for our team and that is what got me into building websites and making money online. Currently I am a junior in college and about a year ago I started AnyLuckyDay.com. My goal initially was to giveaway products for free, but as I tweaked the model and put more thought into it, I turned it into an advertising source for companies looking to promote their products and services through social media. The site launched in January, I acquired our first sponsor in February, and we’ve been doing quite well since then with over $20,000 given away in prizes from over 100 different sponsors.
We know you are a younggogetter, but I am sure there is more to you than that. What are some other things you have done prior to you current job or things you are currently working on?
I knew from day one of making money online that after I graduated college I did not want to work for someone else. I want to be independent and do my own thing, and I believe I am on the right track. Prior to running Any Lucky Day, I owned several other sites that had varying success. In 2005, I partnered with a friend to build a car enthusiast site called The Car Showcase. We got off to a good start, but we were young and didn’t know that we were up against hundreds of other car websites. We eventually sold the site and moved onto our next venture, where we built a series of MySpace friend adding sites in 2006. At this time MySpace was the big buzz and people were looking to get as many friends as possible, so we built two sites, FriendFleet and FriendFury, that allowed people to pay for featured positions on our site so they could obtain more friends. Using MySpace’s bulletin feature, these sites spread like wildfire and we made $1000 on our first day. Unfortunately, due to MySpace’s constant changing of features and algorithms, we were unable to keep up and sold the site. Our next venture was called BulletinBoost, where we used MySpace programs to build up several profiles to hundreds of thousands of friends, and used the MySpace bulletin system to promote websites and offers to these friends. We had several hundred paying clients and the site was quite a success for a while, until MySpace started cracking down on Friend Adding software. In 2007 my friend and I went our separate ways and I started my next venture, WootAgent. WootAgent was a website that allowed users of the popular Deal-A-Day website Woot.com to download a desktop application that would alert users of new items. To my surprise the site made it on the homepage of TechCrunch, LifeHacker, and DownloadSquad. After a few months the site wasn’t really going anywhere and I grew tired of it, so I sold it off. In between websites, I worked for a commercial real estate company, and an affiliate company doing website work for them. As of right now, I’m focused on building the Any Lucky Day brand and turning it into a business owner’s dream of a place to get enormous amounts of exposure to their products and services.
What has been your biggest asset while building your business?
Just like on the soccer field, hard work and dedication pays off in the business world too. On all my past ventures I put in a measly amount of time and effort compared to the hours I have put into Any Lucky Day. The fact of the matter is that I know I have something good going here, and I just have to work that much harder to make people care about what I am doing in order to get them involved. My friends and family are also a huge support and love what I am doing. They also hassle me all the time to get them free stuff, haha.
Adversely, what has been your biggest vice?
Being able to keep up with the contests everyday and stay motivated to promote each business. I was able to keep up every single day for about 8 months straight, then August/September was a little rocky for me due to conflicts but I was able to get back on track in October and I have been going strong ever since.
What can we expect next from the talented Giancarlo Massaro in the near future?
I am looking to turn Any Lucky Day into the place that all companies come to in order to launch their new products and services. It’s not a secret anymore that commercials, billboards, newspaper, and magazine advertisements have a terrible ROI, and quite frankly, most companies don’t have the marketing budget to promote via these methods. As we obtain a larger audience, I plan to hold a new contest everyday, featuring a different company and a different prize. Right now we are holding contests every two days, but as we grow I think we will be able to obtain enough sponsors to fill up the calendar with 365 days of contests. I am confident that we will be able to achieve this goal within the first few months of 2010.
Everyone starts to feel burn out on a project every now and then. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and focused?
I think about my original goal that I set out for myself when I was 13 (to work for myself). I want to do something that I am passionate about and that I care about. Thinking about working for someone else, and working on projects that I am not passionate about and do not care about gives me the chills. When I am feeling burnt out, sometimes I walk down into my basement, take a look around at all the letters and free stuff that I have because of my website, and I realize that companies need me, and I need them, and I get right back to it.
Can you give us three tools that you use every single day to make your life as a younggogetter more efficient, productive, or fun?
Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail. These tools have helped me build the foundation of my user base, and have allowed me to connect and share valuable information with both my users and my sponsors.
What is your favorite quote?
One quote that sticks out vividly in my mind is when Frank Sinatra said, “The best revenge is massive successâ€. For a young entrepreneur like myself, this is a great quote to live by after hearing the naysayers who say I cannot be successful with what I am doing.
And last but not least, if you
could give one piece of advice to fellow Young Go Getters, what would it be?
Do not waste a day of your life. Set goals for yourself and if you want something bad enough, you need to work hard and hustle day in and day out in order to achieve those goals. Do things you are passionate about and love, it is your life, don’t let anybody tell you different.
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