Today’s interview is with someone you might be familiar with if you’ve explored the world of young entrepreneurs at all. Stanly Tang is known for being the youngest best selling author ever, for his book, eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires. Stanley started out in information marketing, affiliate marketing and social media when he started his first internet company way back in 2006. Since then, he’s developed dozens of websites and launched several products, garnering thousands of subscribers and over 100,000 followers on Twitter. While Stanley has been busy studying at Stanford, he hasn’t put aside his entrepreneurial ventures, so expect to hear a lot from and about this amazing young entrepreneur in the future.
Enjoy the interview!
By the age of 17, you had accomplished more than many entrepreneurs ever do. To what do you attribute your success so far?
I have to say the biggest reason for my success really just comes down to working hard. You really have to be committed and be prepared to work very hard. I’m not the smartest person around, however I worked very hard on my business. Most people who get started give up too quickly and aren’t willing to put in the effort, thinking they can just make money by pressing a magic button. I think there is a lot of hype that gives the illusion that making money online is easy, but in reality the opposite is the case.
You’re attending Stanford University. There has been a lot of debate about how important higher education is for entrepreneurs. What are your thoughts on the topic?
I think it’s critical that young entrepreneurs attend college. It’s not just about the education but the overall experience you get from college – it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you can never go back to it. College is also the place where you get to meet awesome people and form lifetime relationships – it’s the perfect place to meet your future co-founders. Also, having been at Stanford for just a little under two months, I’ve already got the chance to meet people like Mark Zuckerberg and MC Hammer as well as listen to Ron Conway and Andrew Mason speak. At college, you don’t have to just limit yourself to academics – why not start your next big venture at college?
Your latest project, BuzzBlaze, is a tech news aggregation site. How will it differ from those out there now, like Mashable and some others?
BuzzBlaze is essentially a social news aggregation website as opposed to a blog like Mashable. You can think of it as a RSS reader on steroids. The content is presented in an elegant format by allowing you to browse your content visually through images – like a magazine – all in one beautiful interface. In addition, you can choose to share those articles as well as see what news feeds your friends are reading – so essentially you are sharing your RSS feeds to the public. There is a lot more to it, and you’ll see exactly what it’s like once it’s launched in the next few weeks.
What advice can you offer to Young Entrepreneurs hoping to have the kind of success you have had?
My one piece of advice would be to follow your passion. Make sure what you’re doing is something you truly love, as opposed to just for the money or hoping for a good outcome. Otherwise, even if you do achieve your goal, you’ll just find yourself unsatisfied, because the fun really is in the journey, not the destination. Most people confuse personal achievement with happiness. So do what you love and the rest will follow.
How do you define success?
I think success is different for everybody. For me, success is building something cool that changes the world or creates some sort of impact on society, whether it’s through technology or some other means. I love entrepreneurship and tech startups, because I love to create things that are cool and something people will find useful in their lives – in other words, some sort of utility. That is what drives me and that is what I consider to be success.
Matthew Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Adam. Matthew is co-author of the newly released book:Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs.
Awesome stuff dude. Good job with making it. Stanford sounds like the place to be for up and coming start-ups.