Andrew Wise - wisestartupblog.com

I hope everyone had a productive week and I am sure most of you are looking forward to the weekend and maybe some recreation time?!? I wanted to end of the week at YGG with a great interview featuring Andrew Wise, he is doing a great

job of living his life on his own terms and building quite a formidable business portfolio. You can check out more about him at his blog!

We know you’re a “Young Go Getter”, but so our readers know, how old are you?

I am 25 years old, and have been out of college for just 3 years.

Can you tell us the quick history about yourself, and what drives you to succeed?

I’ve had a lifelong dream of being an entrepreneur, starting with when I was in middle school selling clearance items from Wal-Mart on eBay. I graduated to selling Dell computers out of my dorm room, and in my last year of college joined a really cool music startup, Grooveshark.com. I was with the Grooveshark team for 2 years after college, learned a lot, had a great time, and met a lot of great people.

But it was time for me to move on. I wanted to run my own company instead of working for someone else. My goal isn’t to be the richest guy in the world, I just want to be able to have enough money so that I can decide when I want to wake up, when I want to go to sleep, because to me that’s what having money is all about, giving you freedom to live your life.

We know you are a younggogetter, but I am sure there is more to you than that. What are some other things you have done prior to you current job or things you are currently working on?

Some of my recent accomplishments have been starting an SEO company that 6 months into creation has generated more than $75,000 in revenue, SEOLinkWheelers.com. One of the projects I’m the most excited about is CouponKim.com. My goal is to turn it into one of the top savings sites on the web. There are a lot of players out there, but the majority of the sites really suck presenting a huge opportunity for growth.

Adversely, what has been your biggest vice?

Prioritizing. At any given time, I have about 5 projects I’m juggling, and 3 new projects I’m itching to start. Everyone struggles with not having enough time, but since I can’t create time. Every morning I put together a list of “needs” and “wants”. The needs are everything that has to get done, pay the hosting bill, fix that bug, etc. The wants are the cool projects I’ve been waiting to work on.

What can we expect next from the talented Andrew Wise in the near future?

I hope to introduce some great features to Coupon Kim and start helping people everywhere save money on literally everything.

Everyone starts to feel burn out on a project every now and then. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and focused?

Depending on the project, if I am really burned out, I like to look for a way to sell the property. For projects that I can’t sell, and need to push through, one of the techniques I use is to write down all of the accomplishments I’ve made on this particular project. Then I take this list, and make projects 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months outward. This helps me 1) feel better about where I am in the project and 2) gives me some nice easy, medium, and impossible goals to strive for.

Can you give us three tools that you use every single day to make your life as a younggogetter more efficient, productive, or fun?

To keep my sanity, I LOVE podcasts. I’m a big fan of the Adam Carolla podcast, and putting this on can help me put some humor into my stressful day and give me a chance to relax.

I would list my iPhone here, but that’s a little vague for this list, so instead I’ll list my favorite iPhone app. Things. It’s a simple task list that I can sync to my iMac. Every time I have a thought or idea, I put it in as a task, and now I have 68 running tasks.

I just bought an iPad and absolutely love it. I use it every morning, on every break, and while traveling. Whenever I have a contract or long PDF, I send it to my iPad, kick back and actually read the file. There have been so many contracts I didn’t want to read because reading from the computer screen is such a strain for any document more than 3 pages.

What is your favourite quote?

Nobody ever lost money taking a profit.
Bernard M. Baruch

And last but not least, if you could give one piece of advice to fellow Young Go Getters, what would it be?

For those of you out there, who want to start a business, do not give up that dream by working for someone else. Keep the job you have, but as soon as you get home, start building your own business. Invest as much of your money as you can into growing this business as fast as possible, because as soon as you can start making money from this business, you can quit your job, and pursue your dreams.

So what I would suggest is to pack your parachute and get ready for the jump. Don’t quit your job and figure out what you’re going to do. Use your salary from your job to help build your business, because as soon as you quit, if your company is not making any money, it means your rent doesn’t get paid, and you can’t eat.

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