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Yan Gorshtenin, founder & CEO of Netlodge. In this insightful interview, he discusses his entrepreneurial journey, the creation of Netlodge, and what’s coming up next. Yan describes himself as a highly energetic and motivated strategy and operations professional. Yan is the perfect example of a young entrepreneur bringing other entrepreneurs great insight via an online platform of start-up content. Gorshtenin began brainstorming and planning Netlodge in 2014, when only 14. Netlodge now has 60,000 followers across social media, including 1,000+ startups and entrepreneurs on its platform.
City where you’re from: Los Angeles
Hobbies: Innovating, Football & Track, Gym 24/7 😛
Favorite quote:
Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.
Twitter: @gorshtenin and @netlodge
Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?
I wanted to do big things when I was 14 starting Netlodge. I was hungry for success, few years later I am still innovating and am 16 making 6 figures. I wanted to create a product/service where it can make the world a better place with the exploration of meaning and doing work that changes the way people start a business and share content without having to pay hundreds of dollars for marketing.
Who were your biggest influences? Was there a defining moment in your life?
My biggest influences would be my parents, they would always give me the freedom to explore with anything I had started with such as the very first businesses I opened while even being in middle school throughout high school till now. I always had created my own opportunities as nothing was handed to me, as I grew up I would see my dad and mom struggle to pay for some bills and it took a toll on me as I was so young and was not able to work or do anything about it. I grew up watching my parents hustle and I ended up hustling and starting from nothing to now being somewhere from hard work, I learned that if you put in the work, you’ll get the results you worked hard for in the end.
I’ve always considered myself blessed to have people in my life who wants me to be better and do better such as my dad and mom.
My parents have been the greatest influence of my life. They’ve taught me how to enjoy life and at the same time how to struggle hard so that I can enjoy by allowing me to experience all the ups and downs in life.
Now
What are you working on? How did you come up with this idea?
I’m currently working on scaling my media platform (Netlodge) to help more startups and founders grow their content organically without having to pay a dime for marketing to any firms from their own pocket.
I started Netlodge as a storytelling platform (through content) and struggled to get growth the first few months back in 2014, I thought to myself as how I can market my platform and add value for people to come to it on its own. I never paid for any advertisements nor a single dime to a marketing firm, I ended up making Netlodge into a growth incentive tool that I used to grow our own platform.
How is your product/service different and unique? What has been your favorite moment with it? What’s the vision?
Our service is the first to market ever since the launch and nothing has launched up to date to beat us. We offer a free growth incentive to those who need the growth when starting up and don’t have the budget to pay for their marketing or advertising needs.
My favorite moment would be getting noticed by big tech giants such as ProductHunt, Forbes, Startup Grind by Google and TechCrunch. A moment I would never forget is being my age as of now, 16, and exhibiting Netlodge at Techday LA in September 2016 in front of 10,000 startups, investors and students on what we do and how we change the world through growth. The looks of the people that I laid my eyes on while showcasing our platform inspired me as people looked up to me as a young entrepreneur.
If you do Facebook ads, what types of creatives/campaigns do you use (we like specifics)? If you don’t, what untapped marketing channels do you take advantage of?
We don’t do facebook ads as people find us, We use Medium and Instagram as one of my ‘hidden gems’ for content promotion. Medium.com is great because it ties into our Twitter account and notifies our Twitter followers that are also registered as users on Medium.com that you just published new content. It’s a unique way of getting our blog content in front of all our followers.
Did you experience failure along the way? What did you learn from it?
I’ll say it with pride and honesty, yes of course I had failed. A startup fails time to time and from day one, netlodge has been a tool and experiment that has just happened to come out from the ground up and help people succeed. I opened about my failure, when it took a year for 150 members to register on our platform. I changed my behavior and gained insight, 2 ½ years later we have thousands on our platform sharing their content. I figured that there was a need for Netlodge, there was a big enough market and market our platform in a cost effective way.
Value-add questions
Give the readers the best entrepreneurship advice you have.
My biggest advice: Do not be afraid to fail and focus on the vision, not what someone else thinks. Do not let negative minds defeat your purpose.
Teach us something about {internet marketing, social media ads, fundraising, sales funnels or another topic} Can you recommend any favorite websites to learn that topic?
The best marketing tip would be to make relationships and connect socially with people. There are countless online marketing strategies but business comes down to relationships and there’s no better way to strengthen a relationship by taking it offline as often as possible.
While working on your project, have you come across any interesting bit of knowledge that you’d like to share? (i.e. any new research finding, any new platforms, some novel management technique, etc)
It takes times to grow, you can when growing your product or service those thousands of users grow, the buzz will grow, and soon people will be calling you up to offer you funding. And investors will want to speak to you, not because you have created a great product, but because you have created a great product that people are using.
What daily habits do you have that allow you to perform at your peak?
One of my daily habits would be working out constantly, I work and then I work out. After I finish working on Netlodge and reaching out to prospects, I would be going to the gym to think more about how I can innovate and basically release tension.I love to have time alone, my time alone recharges myself, helping to cultivate my peak performance levels again and again. You must give yourself time to recover from the stress of constantly being around others.
What should an entrepreneur focus on?
You must follow a groundwork as an entrepreneur, consider innovating first. It’s the first thing you should do and during the idea and brainstorming phase of starting up, without innovation there is nothing you can differentiate yourself from competition. It all depends on how you innovate yourself, it takes coming out of your comfort zone and taking priority over convenience if you want to be successful.
Walk us step-by-step through the process that you had to go through to get from the early stages to where you are today.
There is no early stage, no step by step. It’s a mountain of hard work and sweat and tears. I started Netlodge in mid 8th grade, no one believed in it and no one cared. I mean, who would? Teenagers around me just wanted to party and I wanted to be successful, Throughout 8th grade, I finished programming Netlodge then when I went into 9th grade, I started telling everyone about the platform and buzzed it around a bit. Netlodge got noticed and 2 years later, I’m in 11th grade and 16, We have over 170,000 monthly viewers on all our content. Forget that, there was all hard work and sweat before the success, I started Netlodge in my townhouse garage, i took out the couch from my room and put it in the garage along with my desk. I stayed up every night even when I had school the next till 2am or even 4am developing and designing the interface on all Netlodge platforms. All the hardwork I put in is still being paid off till this day, little do you know we are changing the way startups grow.
What are some of your favorite books?
Some of my favorite books would be the Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gitomer’s and Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
Where do you see yourself and your product in a couple years?
I see myself retiring at the age of 19, I wrote myself a check of $500,000 at the age of 14 and still have not opened it, I promised myself I would open it 5 years after starting Netlodge. I see Netlodge going IPO and being public. Not only do I want to be successful, but I want to inspire those who want success as much as they want to breathe.
I bought my own foreign car (BMW M sport e90 COUPE) at the age of 16, if I can do it, you can do it.
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