Gary Vaynerchuk is an American-Belarusian businessman, author, speaker, and online celebrity. He is the CEO of prestigious businesses like “VaynerMedia” and “VaynerX” and has achieved great success in the social media and digital marketing fields. It is also known that in a matter of years, he turned his family’s $3 million wine company into a $60 million enterprise. Born in the Soviet Union’s Babruysk (modern-day Belarus), he immigrated to the United States at the age of three with his family. He began making a good amount of money as a teenager by getting involved in a number of side businesses, such selling baseball cards and flowers. He later started working for his family’s retail wine company after earning his degree from Massachusetts’ “Mount Ida University.” He assumed control of his father’s retail firm and successfully transformed it into an e-commerce giant. He established the framework for the Wine Library, VanderMedia, and The Gallery. As an angel investor, he made a few profitable investments, and his knowledge of business helped many other companies grow. Gary began writing in 2009 and earned a 10-book contract with HarperStudio. So far, he has authored six books. Gary, who is regarded as the “first wine guru of the YouTube era,” has appeared on TV multiple times throughout the years.
Early Life & Childhood
On November 14, 1975, Gary Vaynerchuk was born in Babruysk, Soviet Union—a city that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, became known as Belarus. He was raised with a brother and a sister and was one of the family’s three children.
Gary went to the United States with his family after being born and raised in Babruysk. The extended family lived in a studio apartment in Queens, New York City, and his father worked as a businessman.
In New Jersey, his father began working at a liquor store. One of their family owned the store. His children accompanied him to Edison, New Jersey, where they now reside. Gary had an entrepreneurial spirit from the beginning and started up a lemonade business to supplement his income while he was in school.
He had always been interested in getting money, even before he was an adult. He gathered flowers from his neighbors’ gardens when he was a teenager and sold them on the streets. This was his very first commercial endeavor. His business expanded thanks to his inherent charisma. His teenage lemonade stand suddenly became a franchise, and he started overseeing numerous lemonade booths throughout the city.
In addition, he made thousands of dollars every week trading in baseball cards. By then, his father had assumed complete control of the liquor store and had requested Gary to become a partner in his venture. Gary was unable to refuse the idea, and he quickly stopped engaging in any independent activity.
He graduated from “North Hunterdon High School” in the interim. After that, he enrolled at Newton, Massachusetts’ “Mount Ida College.”
Career of Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary spent his whole high school and college career working at his father’s booze store. Their Springfield, New Jersey store, “Shopper’s Discount Liquors,” was turned over to him. But Gary wanted to gain from the rapidly expanding e-commerce market because he was aware of it. This gave rise to the concept that revolutionized his father’s company.
Gary opened an internet store that he called “Wine Library.” In an effort to promote himself even more, he launched the “YouTube” channel “Wine Library TV,” hosting a daily webcast in which he talked about various wine varieties.
After rebranding in the middle of the 2000s, the family firm experienced rapid growth. The company was initially valued at $3 million, but by 2005, it had grown to a $60 million valuation.
Additionally, in 2006, he launched a regular video blog on “YouTube” called “Wine Library TV,” where Gary tried and reviewed a variety of wines in addition to giving advise. The program ran for 1000 episodes in 2011. The Daily Grape, a daily podcast, took its place thereafter. This video podcast series is thought to have had a significant impact on Gary’s wine business’s rise in popularity.
Gary was thrilled with the project’s performance and knew that internet marketing was the best course of action. Together with his younger brother, AJ, he founded “VaynerMedia” in 2009. The business started off with little funding and quickly grew to be a multimillion dollar operation.
“VaynerMedia” offers services in the areas of influencer marketing, e-commerce techniques, paid media, personal branding, and small-business marketing. It practically addresses every facet of internet marketing. With customers like Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, and General Electric, the business has made a name for itself as one of the leading global companies in the industry.
After only a few years of establishment, the business was included in AdAge’s A-list of agencies in 2015. The company expanded significantly the next year, hiring 600 people and generating $100 million in gross revenue annually. The business also secured a deal with “Vimeo” to facilitate the connection of brands and filmmakers for online content.
In 2017, Gary acquired the “PureWow” company and changed its name to “The Gallery.” Thus, after incorporating several components into “PureWow,” a new business was established.
In addition to managing his own businesses, Gary has served as an angel investor for numerous well-established and startup businesses. Among the significant businesses he has invested in are “Twitter,” “Venmo,” and “Facebook.” According to a credible American publication called “Entrepreneur,” Gary’s net worth was assessed at $160 million in 2017.
Other projects that Gary is associated with are “VaynerRSE,” “BRaVe Ventures,” and “VaynerSports.”
Gary has additionally demonstrated a keen interest in the media. In 2017, he made an appearance on “Planet of the Apps.” The show followed young app developers as they pitched their concepts to panelists. Gary was one of the regular cast members that gave the contestants advice and served as a judge.
The #AskGaryVee Show is a YouTube series that Gary started in 2014. Gary employed his internal staff to construct the show rather than hiring outside experts. Gary responded to inquiries sourced from “Instagram” and “Twitter.”
Gary launched the “DailyVee” video documentary series on a regular basis in 2015. The show chronicled Gary’s life as a businessman, including his live recordings, in-person interviews, and broadcasts of investor meetings. The presentation aided Gary in his goal of exposing as much of his company’s inner workings to the wider audience as possible.
Up to now, Gary has also authored six books. He inked a contract with HarperStudio in 2009 to write ten books. “Crush it! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion,” his debut book, went on to become a best-seller. The other five works, which all had an entrepreneurial theme, achieved a reasonable level of success.
Honors & Awards of Gary Vaynerchuk
Inspiring success stories from Gary Vaynerchuk have appeared in Time, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Gary was included in “The Wall Street Journal’s” 2011 list of “Twitter’s Small-Business Big Shots.” He was listed as one of the “20 People Every Entrepreneur Should Follow” by “Bloomberg Businessweek.”
He was included in Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list in 2014.
Individual Life of Gary Vaynerchuk
Lizzie and Gary Vaynerchuk were joined in marriage in 2004 and have been together ever since. Xander Avi is their son, and Misha Eva is their daughter.
Net worth of Gary Vaynerchuk
The estimated net worth of Gary Vaynerchuk is about $1 million.