AJ Vaynerchuk

AJ Vaynerchuk was born to Sasha and Tamara Vaynerchuk. He has one brother, Gary, and one sister, Liz. After completing his schooling, he attended the Boston University from 2005-09. Presently, he is married to a lady called Ali. AJ has been suffering from Crohn’s Disease from the time he was in his late teens. At the time of stepping down from VaynerMedia, he had stated that it was getting difficult for him to manage the business responsibilities along with coping with the disease.

Born into a family of businessmen, AJ Vaynerchuk knew from a young age that he was meant for an entrepreneurial career. He started with selling toys as a preteen, and moved to designing websites for sale as a college student. After completing his studies from the prestigious Boston University, he joined his older brother Gary to launch VaynerMedia, a social-first digital agency based in New York City in 2009. The two brothers worked hard to make this venture a resounding success and were soon able to open offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well. AJ also served as the COO and oversaw the company’s operations and expansion. In 2013, AJ co-founded GrapeStory, a mobile-first marketing agency and production house. In this company, he managed certain aspects of finances, business model, and growth. The ambitious young man became a partner in VaynerRSE in 2014. This is an investment fund focusing on consumer technology, meant to act as a business incubator in addition to traditional angel investing.

Even though his business career was on the rise and he was doing exceptionally well on the professional front, everything was not going smooth for AJ Vaynerchuk who was battling certain health issues. In order to focus more on rebuilding his health, he left VaynerMedia as the COO in May 2016. He also left GrapeStory at around the same time. In June 2016, he co-founded VaynerSports, a full-service athlete representation firm. The firm provides players a variety of services related to their professional career. Some of the company’s high profile clients are professional athletes Jalen Reeves Maybin, Braxton Miller and Jon Toth.