Do we have a treat for you!  We got the chance to interview the young team behind designvetica.  How young is young?  Let’s just let these Go Getters tell you their story.
YGG Interview with Design Vetica

1) We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, but so our readers know, how old are you?

Our team is comprised of high school students aged from 16 – 17 years old.

2) Can you tell us the quick history about Design Vetica, and what drives you guys to succeed?

We have all either worked as freelance web designers/developers, or have built websites on our own, and we’ve all been tinkering with the web since we were around 12- and 13-years-old. We’ve been involved in web design about 2 years before we started the company, and most of the projects we received were referrals from friends. William and I started talking about building a company for web design and media production in a shared IT class, and we pulled in Alex as he had worked on previous projects with William. In February of 2009, Design Vetica was born.

3) 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?

Our goal has always been to establish a premium design agency, and we will be looking to expand and grow, with a new motion graphics team, and the development of web applications.  Currently we are focusing on the launch of our upcoming web app, so you can expect to hear the announcement from us soon ;)

4) Adversely, what has been your biggest vice?

Our most challenging aspect of being a young entrepreneur is that we are STILL in high school! People who are not constraint with schoolwork can focus solely on their work. However, we, as students have to juggle school work and getting good marks while keeping up with deadlines from multiple projects with clients. This has caused some problems already. For example, we had to drop potential clients during finals. Nevertheless, at times, we encourage each other to keep up our grades in school.

5) What can we expect next from the talented Design Vetica in the near future?

this question is basically answered in #3

6) Everyone starts to feel burn out on a project every now and then. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and focused?

Meeting new people, going to conferences, and working with new clients every week really makes the whole experience enjoyable and pushes us to go forward.

7) Can you give us three tools that you use every single day to make your life as a younggogetter more efficient, productive, or fun?

We use the usual suspects, like Basecamp, and Google apps, but we still prefer to do the initial draft of any design work in our Moleskineand dotGrid notebooks. Nothing beats pen and paper!

8) What is your favourite quote?

We don’t have one at the moment.

9) And last but not least, if you could give one piece of advice to fellow Young Go Getters, what would it be?

It may sound cheesy, but just DO IT; because you never know unless you try. The truth is when we think back to how we started, we were even shocked to find ourselves following such a crazy idea; but we are glad that we did it. Even if your idea fails, use it as an experience because we all learn from our mistakes.

We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, 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?
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.

We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, 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 success”. 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.

We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, but so our readers know, how old are you?
I turned 27 years young in May…. 30 kind of scares me.

Can you tell us the quick history about yourself, and what drives you to succeed?
As a small child (yes I’m 6’5 now, but I was small once) I spent all of my time being creative, attempting to be artistic and always trying to make people laugh. I never saw myself going to college but did it to appease my parents and now know that I wouldn’t be where I am today without that life experience (read: NOT education). I graduated in 2005 with a degree in Graphic Design and was already working part-time for Men’s Professional Tennis (ATP) and did so for 3 ½ years. At the same time I was working there I was continuing to network and flex my creative muscles by starting a web design company of my own with a college friend. Once that business was self-sustaining, I parted ways with what ended up being a great couple years of work/life experience but truly showed me that I was not meant for a 9-5 work environment. After leaving the corporate world and working for myself I began to realize that the more effort I put in, the more results I saw… not just because more effort brings more opportunities, which it does, but because people liked me, trusted me and put value you in my opinion. A year after leaving my 9-5 job, I had helped create ¼ of a million dollar revenue generating company but knew there was more for me and knew social media could open some interesting doors. On one of the many late nights I spend perusing the web in August ’08 the light bulb went off: TONS of companies print t-shirts, want people to wear them and want to gain exposure somehow. That night the domain IWearYourShirt.com was purchased and the idea turned into a business model where a guy wears a t-shirt and gets paid to promote that company through social media for a day. The website was live in October, the first day was sold on November 11, 2008 and I had 5 ½ months of shirt-wearing sold when January 1, 2009 rolled around.

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?
Obviously I’ve put in 27 years of practice in wearing t-shirts, so that’s been pretty rough. But seriously, I’ve always been a social butterfly, always willing to try new things and always telling people that life is too short to do things that suck. As far as work experience goes, I started out as a produce boy at a small grocery store, pumped gas, was a Verizon cell phone salesman and about 20 other random jobs that all made me the person I am today (but sucked). I had aspirations to play basketball professionally but had two unfortunately knee injuries which may or may not have led me to my current situation, so how can I really complain? Right now I am really focused on building my personal brand, leveraging that to make money and most importantly providing value for companies that buy into Jason Sadler.

What has been your biggest asset while building your IWearYourShirt.com?
Nothing… and I mean NOTHING has helped me more than working my ass off, being super dedicated and having a really supportive family, girlfriend and group of friends (and dog). It’s one thing to work 16 hours in a day, but it’s a whole other ball game when your Mom and Grama are in your live video show every single day at 3pm EST. I’ve seen my fair share of copycats and each one of them has made me push that extra bit harder each day. I’m 100% open and transparent with my audience and try to be as accessible as possible. You know from first-hand experience, it took me nearly 2 weeks to get this interview back to you. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it, it’s just that I put so much effort in promoting every day’s t-shirt sponsor and juggle my personal and online life at the same time.

Adversely, what has been your biggest vice?
Being creative every single day for over 300 days straight. I haven’t taken a day off and have only missed my live video show 3 times this year. I really enjoy spreading the word about each new company and interacting with my audience daily. That’s what makes it easy to go to bed at 2am and wake up at 7-9am, depending on when my dog Plaxico wants to go out.

What can we expect next from the talented Jason Sadler in the near future?
I’m really focused on trying to carve out my own niche in advertising. It’s no secret that magazine ads, billboards, banner ads and other mediums are hurting and not returning ROI. You could easily spend $1000+ on getting a company to create a YouTube video, Live Video show, creatively/honestly written blog posts, Tweets, Facebook Profile & Flickr photos and all the other stuff I do in ONE day for a company. But even if you spent all that money, would anyone be there to consume it? No. I’ve only been building my personal brand publicly for about a year and think I have a long way to go before people will pay thousands of dollars to have 50 people wear their company’s t-shirt, but that’s my goal. Imagine the power of 50 people, who are connected to… I don’t know, 5,000 total people each wearing a shirt for a day and talking about via social media. That’s a minimum of 250,000 people being exposed to your brand. I’m scaling IWearYourShirt.com slowly and hoping to reach that goal and keeping a consistent value. Anyone could put an ad on craigslist to get 50 people to wear a t-shirt, but do all of those people have a social media following and understand how to be genuine and fun to watch/listen to?

I’ve also been really excited to start speaking at conferences, doing social media consulting for companies and I have a marketing consultancy that will be launching at some point in 2010!

Everyone starts to feel burn out on a project every now and then. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and focused?
Step out of my comfort zone. I really love my couch in my living room and the town that I live in (Jacksonville, FL), but sometimes just picking up and going somewhere else is a huge creative motivator. I love taking my dog Plaxico to the beach, letting him poop in the sand thinking about how I could possibly monetize that. Not the actual poop, but maybe create that poop-spray from that awful movie “Envy”? That and Chick-Fil-a breakfast always gives me a good kick start!

Can you give us three tools that you use every single day to make your life as a younggogetter more efficient, productive, or fun?
Tweetie, Ustream.tv and the iPhone. Oh, and if I can add a 4th one, it would be the free Macbook Pro that http://SoundVisionLibrary.com bought me!

What is your favourite quote?
It should probably be something said by Einstein, JFK or someone else who is way smarter than me. But I’m bad at remembering quotes unless they are from Will Ferrell movies: “MOM!! The meatloaf…..”

And last but not least, if you could give one piece of advice to fellow Young Go Getters, what would it be?
Don’t try to be someone you’re not and stop working for crappy companies. There are so many other companies out there that need talented people, you are never stuck at a dead-end job and should focus on what you are truly passionate about. A true entrepreneur doesn’t complain about their situation, they figure out how to innovate and move on.

Based on the success of the twitter article by Eric Brantner last week I wanted to start a new feature on YGG, we are going to call it “tweeter of the week.” We are going to feature a bunch of great followers of YGG at least once a week, maybe more. If you are interested in being featured please find me on twitter by using the follow button near the bottom of the page and send me a message!

We are going to kick it off with a longtime friend of YGG, Michael Castilla from WPCandy. He has helped me get through a few WordPress issues in the past and saved me a lot of hair in the process! So here we go! I hope you like the interview and give him a follow as well! @michaelcastilla

What got you interested in Twitter?

Initially, I found out about Twitter via some blogs and from a few friends who were using the service. After a few days, I stopped tweeting because I thought it was lame and pointless. A few months passed, and my good friend Pasquale persuaded me to get back into it.

What do you like most about Twitter?

Hmm. What I like most about Twitter is the relationship I’ve built with my followers and the people I follow. In my eyes, we’re sort of an online family.

What program do you use to check Twitter and why?

Out of all the Mac apps I’ve tested out, I keep falling back to Twitterrific. I’m in love with it. It’s perfect for what I need and the interface is sleek and simple.

Name your five favourite people you are following right now. And let us know why they are your favourite!

I couldn’t think of 5 favorite followers, so here are a few:

Adelle Charles (adellecharles) – She’s a very active Twitterer and she loves to retweet useful links.

Tim Van Damme (maxvoltar) – He’s pretty funny and always has something interesting to share.

Daniel Brusilovsky (danielbru) – He’s so young and so active in the business world, it’s crazy.

And last but not least, why should people follow you?

Well, I tweet about the Web, WordPress, my some-what interesting life, and random stuff. I like to keep things interesting!