How To Succeed As An Entrepreneur

By GEORGE HUNKELE

Michael Martocci and Anthony Golasewski are two 23 year olds who both grew up in Matawan with aspirations of becoming entrepreneurs. While the two come from different backgrounds and have different ideas, both of their goals are the same, success.

For Martocci, his idea of Swagup came to him in May of 2015, the year he dropped out of school. For Golasewski, his ideas are always spewing out, coming up with new potential business ideas day by day.

Entrepreneurial Success

For many entrepreneurs, success is a hard thing to come by. Some entrepreneurs don’t find immediate success and give up, while others spend their whole life searching for success. According to Forbes, nine out of ten startups will fail eventually, and three out of four will fail within five years. Forbes also mentions that, in 2013, only 23% of young people owned a business, while in 1996, 35% of people did.

“It’s not whether the glass is half empty or half full, it’s who is pouring the water. The key in business and success at any endeavor is doing your best to control your destiny. You can’t always do it, but you have to take every opportunity you can to be as prepared as and ahead of the competition as you possibly can be,” Mark Cuban, 59, successful entrepreneur told how in what publication. link

The first question budding entrepreneurs have to ask is what product they plan on offering or selling. If an entrepreneur designs or offers a product with no market value, then they are just wasting their own time and money. According to Fortune, 42 percent of startups fail because there was a lack of market need for their product.

“Don’t start a business. Find a problem. Solve a problem. The business comes second,” said Kevin O’Leary, 63, successful entrepreneur, speaking to whom??

I use to fall in love w/ ideas, I’ve learned to fall in love with customers…Having a vision for a company is important, but you need to shape your vision around what customers actually need…Everyone wants to force their thing down our throats, in a world of talkers, listen

— Michael Martocci ? (@MichaelMartocci) February 21, 2018

How To Start A Business

Once an entrepreneur has a successful idea to suit the market, they must begin to grow their product. The biggest reason that many startups fail within the first five years is because they don’t have immediate success and run out of money. It is important that entrepreneurs are fully invested in their business when it first starts up.

“If you are under the illusion that you can start a business and run it at your life’s schedule, you are mistaken. The business is like a starving puppy, when it needs to eat, then it needs to eat regardless of what you have going on personally,” said Robert Herjavec, 55, successful entrepreneur.

Two more important parts of growing a successful startup are working smartly within your business and recovering after failures. These are two of the other top reasons why startups will fail. It is important to realize that every startup will go through tough times and that as an entrepreneur you always need to be working to grow your business.

Martocci and Golasewski

Both Martocci and Golasewski are two entrepreneurs that appear committed to this excellence. Martocci dropped out of college his sophomore year to pursue his dream of necoming an entrepreneur, while Golasewski just graduated college while running some of his businesses in his spare time.

Immediately after dropping out of college, Martocci helped create a gym program with NFL Punter, Steve Weatherford. The program was called Armageddon and it provided a workout plan to help build muscle mass in your biceps and triceps.

Martocci’s current company, SwagUp, is basically a middleman distributor who helps large companies customize products. The company offers multiple types of products and packages with anything from customizable water bottles to t-shirts. The company is extremely successful, netting close to six figures of profit in only its first year.

In a normal day, Martocci wakes up in his hometown of Matawan and goes straight to the gym for his daily workout. From there he heads to his newly acquired warehouse in Linden, N.J. where he makes sure everything is running smooth. He then checks his compute for any possible client complaints and new orders. If he doesn’t have any, he moves straight towards finding new clients, which he basically does by himself, with some help from others.

Martocci himself has always been a hard worker who is on his phone all hours of the day to make sure his customers are happy. “He has got to be the most committed 23 year old I have ever seen, I don’t even really know if he ever sleeps,” said Brian Liebell, employee at SwagUp.

Golasewski runs multiple smaller companies that he is just now able to put all his time into, after graduating. Some of these businesses include his blinds cleaning business, t-shirt business, and flag designing business. All in total, Golasewski has made about $20,000 annually. Of course, he hopes to see that number go up now that he can devote all of his time to his businesses. He has no employees.

In a normal day for Golasewski, he wakes up and goes through the full rundown on his businesses. He checks for new customers and orders as well as places order for his customer’s flags and shirts. He also uses multiple different types of social media to promote his businesses. All in all, it can be a lot to keep track of and is impressive from many people’s point of view.

“Between college classes and three different businesses, it is definitely a lot to keep track of, but I really enjoy doing it,” said Golasewski. At the very least, Golasewski said that he would run his businesses on the side if he decided to go after a full time job.

According to Martocci, taking classes was a big distraction, he believes you need to give all of yourself to your business or it won’t succeed.

While Martocci and Golasewski are both hard workers, the difference is that Martocci works smart. Martocci is devoted to only one business at a time and doesn’t take classes to occupy his time on the side. Any sucessful entrepreneur would probably tell you that you need to be fully devoted at first.

Martocci and Golasewski do things in different ways and have found different kinds of success but are one in the same. As two young entrepreneurs, they are still looking to grow and have more success going forward. Of course, the statistics say they will fail, but don’t tell them that.

“My favorite motto is to work hard when you’re young so you can relax when you’re older,” said Martocci.

MORE: How Martocci came up with his idea for Swagup