Gary Vaynerchuk or Gary Vee as he is most often referred to is a Russian-born entrepreneur living in America. He is also an author, speaker, and internet personality.
Gary Vaynerchuk (GaryVee) has an estimated net worth of 200 million dollars.
The 45-year-old entrepreneur has been crowned as the first wine guru of the YouTube era.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s early life and background
Gary was born in Babrugsk, the Soviet Union, his family migrated to New York City’s Queens borough in the United States when he was three years old. From a young age, Gary was very entrepreneurial.
As a child, he operated a lemonade stand franchise which earned him quite some money. He also traded baseball cards and made a lot of money while still less than 14 years old. He had a natural eye for deals from his teenage years and a sales talent that made him thousands of dollars every week.
At the age of 14, Gary joined his family’s retail business. While in college, he discovered the internet and potential ways of using it to make extra money while pursuing his college education. His exploration of the internet led him to discover the art of collecting wine. He saw this as a potential way to grow his family business. In 1998, he graduated from Mount Ida College with a Bachelor of Arts.
His career and success
After graduating from college, Gary assumed control of his father’s business called Shoppers Discount Liquors. His first move was to change the name of the business to Store Wine Library. He took his newly found knowledge of the internet and created winelibrary.com, which he used to boost his product’s online sales. Doing this earned him over 60 million dollars worth of sales in just five years from an initial 3 million dollars.
In 2006, he saw another opportunity and started a YouTube vlog called Wine Library Tv. Gary was so passionate about his Youtube channel, he produced Vlogs on a daily basis. His content included wine reviews, tastings, and wine advice. Gary’s popularity multiplied to where he became a sought-after personality.
He appeared on Conan O’Brien as a guest. This and other appearances drove up his views on YouTube. However, he ended the YouTube show after 1000 episodes. His career on YouTube did not end there though. In 2014, he created a new YouTube show, which currently has more than 130000 subscribers.
Before starting the new show on Youtube, he created a podcast called The Daily Grape. He also launched Wine & Web, a show on Sirius XM satellite radio. He featured a Wine of the Week segment to discuss new wine tastings and talk about new technological trends.
At the end of 2009, Gary and his brother established Vayner Media. This company focuses on helping large brands and Fortune 500 companies thrive on social media. He landed a lot of prominent clients like NHL, Pepsi-Co, General Electric, and several others. He is currently still working with these clients and is currently the CEO of VaynerMedia. The company is currently worth more than 100 million dollars and employs around 600 employees.
- His angel investment in companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr
- A ten-book deal he signed with HarperStudio in 2009. Four of the ten books have already been released
- He also established a new company in 2017 called The Gallery
- He broadcasts and creates documentary videos from his YouTube series called DailyVee
- He started the AskGaryVee Show on Youtube
- In 2019, he co-founded another wine company called Empathy Wines
- He is also the co-founder of a restaurant reservation software company called Resy
- He is the chairman of a modern-day media and communications holding company known as VaynerX
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