Gerard Adams
| Gerard Adams | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
1984 (age 31–32) Livingston, New Jersey, United States |
| Other names | “Entrepreneur’s entrepreneur”, Millennial Mentor |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Occupation | Businessman, entrepreneur |
| Employer | Elite Daily, FOWNders |
| Known for | Co-founder, Elite Daily |
| Website | Gerard Adams Official Website |
Gerard Adams (born December 20, 1984) is an American serial entrepreneur, millennial branding expert, philanthropist, TEDx speaker and business executive.[1][2][3] Adams is best known as co-founder of Elite Daily (known as the “voice of Generation Y”), which sold to the Daily Mail in 2015 for $50 million.[4][5] He is also a contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine.[6]
Early life and education
Adams was born in Livingston, New Jersey in 1984, and grew up in Belleville, New Jersey. His father worked at Prudential Financial and his mother at A&P.[7] In an interview with BeYou, Adams said he was born with a “natural hustle mentality.”[8][9]
He graduated from Belleville High School and became interested in the stock market at the urging of his father, who asked him to look up Prudential stock. He spent one semester at Caldwell University before he dropped out to work for an investor relations firm.[8]
Career
In the 2000s, Adams was inspired by online forums on Raging Bull and Silicon Investor, which he said had contributors who lacked credibility, and added a ratings system to his own forum to found Wall Street Grand.[10] The website included a 5-star ratings feature to evaluate writer contributions. Adams claimed he grew Wall Street Grand to $10 million in revenue before the 2008 stock market crash.[10] He founded several other finance-related companies, including an online investor-relations and financial-marketing company, and the National Inflation Association, which educates consumers on how to survive in any economic environment.[11][12]
In an interview with journalist Farnoosh Torabi, Adams said that he took a position in investor relations at nanobatteries firm mPhase to build an 18,000-investor audience.[10] Adams pitched the idea to mPhase executives of a real-time demonstration of the mPhase nanobattery. However, in front of an audience of hundreds of investors the technology failed to operate, leading to what Adams has called his “first failure.”[10]
Adams is a partner in KD Healthcare USA, a medical device company.[7] He also invests in New York City real estate and new housing developments. Adams has helped develop affordable housing for communities in Newark, NJ, where his father and family were raised. He has invested in nine different startups.[7]
FOWNders
Adams has said that he was mentored by Tony Robbins.[7] Inspired by Robbins’ quote, “success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure,” Adams launched FOWNders as a mentorship movement to help others succeed in business.[7] FOWNders is a non-profit start-up accelerator with the goal of establishing Newark, New Jersey as an innovation hub. Adams modeled the business after major Silicon Valley incubators and assembled a team of trailblazers and branding professionals to support FOWNders entrepreneurs with benefits that include free workspace, mentorship, and access to start up financing.[13][1]
Elite Daily
Adams provided the initial funding for Elite Daily, an idea that originated in February 2012, which he co-founded with his interns David Arabov and Jonathan Francis.[4][7][14]
Forbes credited Adams with being “able to recognize that his interns were ‘onto something.’”[2] Adams told both Francis and Arabov to “forget the internship work” and “join forces,” as partners to build Elite Daily. By the end of 2013, the company earned $400,000 in profit and averaged 41 million readers monthly.[4] In 2015, Adams, along with his co-founders, sold Elite Daily to the Daily Mail for $50 million.[2]
Awards and recognition
Adams is a celebrity judge for the 2016 Shorty Awards, which honors "the best on social media."[15]
In 2014 and 2015, Silicon Alley named Adams to its Top 100 List, which ranks the “coolest, most inspiring people in the New York tech industry.”[16] In 2016 Adams was a celebrity speaker at Brandathon and gave a TEDx talk at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.[17]
Personal life
Adams lives in Manhattan with his dog, a dachshund named Gigi.[7]
See also
References
- 1 2 "Millennial Mentor Gerard Adams Dishes on Rise to Top at TEDx NJIT". Huffington Post. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
- 1 2 3 "What's Next For The Cofounder Of Elite Daily?". Forbes Magazine. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "Meet the Millennial HuffPo". DigiDay. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- 1 2 3 "How Elite Daily's 20-something founders sold their startup to Daily Mail for ~ $50 Million in cash". Business Insider. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "Elite Daily, Content Farm Or Groundbreaking Site For Upwardly Mobile Youngsters? You Decide". TechCrunch. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ Adams, Gerard. "Gerard Adams". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Gerard Adams". The Marilu Henner Show. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- 1 2 "Elite Daily Co-Founder Gerard Adams". Official Be You. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "Gerard Adams, the Millennial-Minded Entrepreneur". New Theory Magazine. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 "Gerard Adams: Episode 278". Farnoosh. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "NIA President: Beware of National Food Inflation". Fox Business News. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "Buy Lohan, Sell High". The Slate. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "Real Leaders Create other Leaders". Inc. Magazine. Retrieved 11 September 2016.
- ↑ "Elite Daily Raises 15 million and has 40 Million Uniques". Business Insider. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "Gerard Adams Joins the Real-Time Academy". Shorty Awards. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "Silicon Alley Top 100: #43 Gerard Adams". Silicon Alley. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "How Brandathon is helping startups re-invent themselves". SmashD. Retrieved 22 February 2016.