Gary Vaynerchuk

“Winelibrary.tv was about building personal brand equity. It was a business move. Now, it was totally surrounded by a passion for wine, but I very much gave a lot of thought to doing a sports-video blog instead.”

“If there's a problem, we at Wine Library never tell ourselves that once we handle this issue, we'll never have to deal with the person again. We talk to every single person as though we're going to wind up sitting next to that person at his or her mother's house that night for dinner.”

“People are chasing cash, not happiness. When you chase money, you're going to lose. You're just going to. Even if you get the money, you're not going to be happy.”

“You have to respect your parents. They are giving you an at-bat. If you're an entrepreneur and go into the family business, you want to grow fast. Patience is important. But respect the other party... My dad and I pulled it off because we really respect each other.”

“Eighty-five per cent of the crowd is going to fall in love with me - they're going to feel it, wow. But fifteen per cent are going to think, 'This guy is obnoxious.' I spend enormous time with them - every negative review of 'Crush It!' on Amazon has a response from me - and I can probably bring back ten of the fifteen.”

“I think what's happening for me, it's fun to see other things besides Facebook and Twitter take hold. The maturity of Tumblr as a real player is exciting. I think Pinterest has proved to be a major player. It's fun to see Instagram become a major player. It's fun to watch things like SnapChat, and Vine, try to vie to be the next thing.”

“The world has changed - through technology, through wine-making techniques, the quality of wine is greater than it's ever been. Whereas ten, fifteen years ago it was very easy to find lots of bad wine, it's kind of hard now. The technology, the science - it's like, are you kidding? We're in the golden years of wine!”

“I want to sit with 80- and 90-year-old people more than anyone. They have played this game before. Not one of them has told me, 'I wish I had more money.'”

“People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, 'Soave,' and say, 'Oh, O.K., cool.'”

“Being authentic, and being perceived as such by your audience, relies on your ability to ensure that every decision you make when it comes to your business is rooted in being true to yourself.”

“Beaujolais is so underrated.”

“Here's how I work: It's 2013, and most marketers are operating like it's 2009. I'm always trying to market like it's 2015, but not like it's 2020. A lot of my contemporaries who understand where the world is going, go too far out, and aren't practical. I have always prided myself on being visionary, with a heavy practicality.”

“Think of social media as the Internet. I can't think of anyone betting against the Internet in 2012.”

“My dad is like a cactus - introverted and tough. I'm a people person, like my mom, but I got my competitiveness from my dad. He came to this country from Belarus with nothing and built a real business. He's my hero for giving me that need to run a business and for having enormous confidence in me.”

“I'm a big fan of Mashable and TechCrunch and other outlets like that, but TechMeme obviously does an amazing job of aggregating.”

“We're living in what I like to call the 'Thank You Economy,' because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way - and do it authentically - are going to have a prayer of competing.”

“People who build family businesses are not classically trained. They have to deal with an enormous amount of politics. You think corporate politics are tough? Go work for your dad or your mom.”

“I hate recording all the shows for the week in one day, because I want to be able to mention current events and pop culture. If Madonna punches Britney in the face today, I want to reference that on 'Wine Library TV' tomorrow. Monday's episode is always the best, because it's hot off the press.”

“Anyone working for a big company might be skeptical that a large business, or even a strictly online business, can form the same kind of friendly, loyal relationship with customers as a local retailer. I'm saying it's already been done because I lived it.”

“When we launched the WineLibrary website in 1996, I didn't even own a computer yet. I just understood that there was an opportunity here to market in a different way.”