Here at Young Entrepreneur, we are committed to bringing our readers great content in the form of resources, advice, tools, and much more. One of the best sources of information about what it takes to make it as a young entrepreneur comes from others who have made it happen. They’ve felt the excitement you feel, they’ve been through the challenges you’re facing, they know what it takes to achieve success, and we want to share their stories with you. So today’s post is the first in a series of interviews with such entrepreneurs.
We’re honored that our first interview in this series is with Giancarlo Massaro, founder of AnyLuckyDay.com. Giancarlo embodies what it means to be a young entrepreneur and has some outstanding advice for anyone in business or thinking of starting a business. Enjoy the interview!
Giancarlo Massaro
20 Year Old Entrepreneur
Founder of AnyLuckyDay.com
Twitter: @anyluckyday
What ignited the spark in you to start AnyLuckyDay? How did the idea for your business come about?
When I was 13 years old, I created my first website on a free website builder for my club soccer team. My goal was to showcase my team and get companies to sponsor us. As a result, I raised over $5,000 for my team through the website. Since that time, I have actively been building small niche websites and selling them for a profit. Once I went to college, I dropped all of my online work to focus on school and Division I soccer, but then I had no source of income as a fulltime student. So in December 2008, in my sophomore year at college, I started thinking of ideas for a new online business. While watching TV late one night an infomercial came on and I immediately thought to myself “wouldn’t it be great if I could test these products out before I had to buy them?” That’s when the light bulb went off in my head, and with a little tweaking, AnyLuckyDay was born.
How long do you stick with an idea before giving up, and how many hours do you work a day on average?
I don’t start work on something unless I believe deep down that it can and will succeed. There’s no point in sticking with an idea that has no foreseeable future. The funny thing is though, no one, not my family or friends, thought AnyLuckyDay could be successful and profitable. I was the only one who saw the light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, AnyLuckyDay made no money for an entire year. I worked 7 days a week, 12-14 hours a day. One time I even stayed up for 36 hours straight just working and working. I would stay in on weekends when my friends were out partying because I was that motivated to prove everybody wrong. Now that the business is profitable and doing well I have been able to cut down to a 6-8 hour workday.
How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Social media is a major aspect of marketing for my business. I’m the type of person who likes to explore and take advantage of all the free marketing options, rather than dump money into banner ads and PPC campaigns. I use Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to effectively market AnyLuckyDay on the social media front. The best part about the social media aspect is that my audience willingly promotes the daily contests through their networks, allowing it to spread without me having to do much work. My most successful (and most expensive) form of marketing has been Peter Shankman’s ‘Help A Reporter Out’ as it has helped me acquire hundreds of new clients.
What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
I feel that the major difference between the two is that entrepreneurs care more and are more passionate about something that is theirs. When you work for someone else, you don’t own their company; you just get paid to work for them. I know this situation all too well. Last summer I worked for a company in order to raise more money to fund AnyLuckyDay (before it was profitable). I was extremely unproductive and disliked the fact that I had no say in any matters because the company was not mine, and I had to do what I was told. I found myself eager to leave work everyday just so I could get home and continue working on AnyLuckyDay. Bottom line – I feel that entrepreneurs are passionate about their own ideas and their own creations, not someone else’s.
What three pieces of advice would you give to young people who want to become entrepreneurs?
1) Be prepared to work harder than you ever imagined. If you want to succeed in the entrepreneurial world you have to make sacrifices. I would estimate that I’ve worked over 10,000 hours since I started AnyLuckyDay two years ago. Working a normal 9-5 job at 40 hours/week for a year only comes out to about 2,080 hours a year. You do the math, being an entrepreneur is a lot of work.
2) Ignore the naysayers and those who try to bring you down. If you have an idea and you feel it is solid enough to have a foreseeable future, then stick with it. I’ve had so many people tell me that my business idea would never work and that AnyLuckyDay would never make a dime. I just ignored all those people because they were naive. Just because it wasn’t an overnight success, they thought it had no future. They had no idea how hard I was working and the plans that I had in store to turn it into a profitable business. Now they are all saying, “I wish I thought of your idea first.”
3) Be prepared to fail. I developed about 4-5 different online businesses since I was 14. I would always get an idea in my head and think it was the next big thing, only to see it fail and turn into nothing. I view those as blessings though. You can’t be afraid to fail because through those failures you learn new things which help you along your entrepreneurial journey.
Giancarlo with just some of the 'swag' he's acquired through AnyLuckyDay
We want to thank Giancarlo for a great interview. If you took something particularly useful away from his words of wisdom, please share in the comments below.
