Giancarlo Massaro is a college student and 20-year-old entrepreneur who has built the business AnyLuckyDay around giving away products for free. He started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 14 when was able to allocate companies to build, host, and sponsor a website for his nationally-ranked club soccer team in which he was able to raise over $5,000 for through the website.
Having built and sold websites for 5 years, it wasn’t until January 2009 when Giancarlo finally launched a project that he was determined to stick with and grow. Since January 2009, Giancarlo has promoted over 200 different companies, and given away over $30,000 in products and services. The way AnyLuckyDay works is that sponsors buy a day on which a number of their products are given away and promoted to AnyLuckyDay’s audience on their site as well as through a variety of different social media channels.
What are you working on right now?
Acquiring more and more sponsors to promote for 2010. Currently I have sold a little over 130 days in 2010, and I am constantly searching for companies that have products/services that I’d like to promote to my audience.
3 Trends that excite you?
1. The power of spreading content is no longer in the hands of mainstream media. Everyday regular Joe’s now have the power to spread content with the click of a button.
2. Companies are realizing that their ad dollars can be spent in better places. Instead of using billboards and commercials, companies are turning to social media outlets to promote. This gives the little guy, like me, a chance to help these companies spend their ad dollars wisely.
3. The internet has created an endless avenue for creativity and ideas. From an advertising standpoint, we’ve gone from radio, to television, to computers and the internet. Wondering what the next big thing will be in the advertising world excites me.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I’ll be honest, I can’t code or design a website, but that has never stopped me. Since I was 14, I have been turning my ideas into a reality. I come up with an idea, I plan it out, I hire someone to create it for me, and then I take over. From there, the sky is the limit.
What is one mistake that you’ve made that our readers can learn from?
From a features standpoint of a website, start small, then add things as you go. My biggest mistake was wanting to have hundreds of different features implemented into my site from the get-go, and then realizing I didn’t need any of them.
What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Follow your passion, work hard, ignore the naysayers, and don’t be a follower. I feel like everyone thinks that they need to follow the typical “guidelines of society” per se, where you must go to high-school, you must go to college, and then you must get a 9-5 job out of college in order to be successful. What is the fun in that? I like to think outside the box, or take the road less traveled. I don’t want to work for anyone. I want to work for myself and do something that I am passionate about, and that is what I have set out to do.
What is in the future for Any Lucky Day?
My goal is to sell out the rest of 2010 and continue running contests every single day. For 2011, I am planning to have companies fill out an application where they can apply to be a part of Any Lucky Day. I want to make it more exclusive, and I want to be able to hand pick the companies that I want to promote that I think will be a great fit for my audience.
Who are your biggest influences and where do you get your entrepreneurial spirit from?
My father and mother are extremely hard workers and they are the two biggest influences in my life and have always supported and helped me tremendously through all my endeavors.
I get my entrepreneurial spirit from my father who started his own company after coming the United States from Italy at the age of 17. Without an American high-School or college education, my father was able to learn the English language, and build a successful business that he is still running to this day.
Connect:
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.