Interview with Giancarlo Massaro: AnyLuckyDay.com

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.