Someone who I’ve been following in the media recently is Gary Vaynerchuk who recently hosted a live-taping of his widely popular podcast with Brian Solis at South by South West. Vaynerchuk, author of the bestselling novel “Crush It” identifies the growth engine behind viral phenomena like Hotmail, eBay, PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, illustrating how these entrepreneurs built multimillion and in some cases billion-dollar businesses from scratch, all without spending a dime on marketing. Their users spread their product for them. 

Says Vaynerchuk:

“Three years ago I was an anomaly, a guy with very limited technology skills who used social sites like Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr to build a highly fulfilling and profitable personal brand … The opportunities are endless—I don’t think enough people have grasped just how much society and business and even the Internet have changed—and my story is about to become a lot less usual.”

(via SXSW, FastCompany)