The Importance of Setting Small Milestones
An authentic insight into Jason Wong’s story.
Jason Wong is a digital marketing consultant and founder and CEO of Wonghaus Ventures, Wonghaus Media and Fifthtee. He specializes in viral content creation, influencer marketing, social media marketing strategy and business development. Startups reach out to Jason for his Gen-Z perspective and background in new-media marketing to tackle their problems. He has experience in working with authors, tech startups, consumer products, and fashion. Jason told me he is passionate about driving social change, building meaningful relationships, and making an impact with his ventures.
Being awe-strucked by Jason’s amazing journey, I reached out to him and I’m glad to have him take time out of his busy schedule to give us an authentic and in depth insight to his story.
Humble Beginnings
Q: How did you get started and what or who inspired and empowered you to?
I started as a social media influencer on the microblogging platform Tumblr. Traditionally, influencers make their living by working with brands and companies to promote their products, but I slowly lost interest in doing that repetitively, and wanted to expand my horizons. I decided to challenge myself by exploring the business side of social media. There are a few people that I look up to, such as my friend Joyce, who founded her clothing store at age 14 and grew it to become a million-dollar business a few years later. By surrounding myself with people that are successful and have similar goals and ambitions, I was able to positively direct my energy to grow as a person and an entrepreneur.
Q: What unique and creative strategies if any did you use when you were first getting started?
When I first started, I focused on building strong relationships with the influencer community, which in turn, helped myself as well as my businesses in the years that followed. I worked hard on establishing a reputable personal brand, among the influencer community as well as the public. I started creating content that resonated with my audience at the time and engaged with other influencers using my contents to drive more exposure to myself and my content. This was proven successful when my content began being reposted by other mediums beyond Tumblr. I diversified early, understanding that nothing last forever and everything that I create on one platform can cease to exist with just a click of the button. As such, I focused on establishing greater social media presence on other platforms as well as creating new businesses to work together with my social media influencer network.
2. Mindset
Q: What mindset distinguished you from others who were doing the same thing? How did you develop it?
Personally, my mindset was the biggest thing that set me apart from the crowd. I don’t think I am particular more skilled or experienced than many other people, but I had the mentality that prepared me for failure and recycled the energy from that to drive forward. They say that people that started with nothing are the most dangerous because they have nothing to lose, and therefore they have no fear. With every venture that I take on, I go into it with the determination to make it successful because I have no room to step back, and thus I must constantly charge forward. Growing up with a single parent and having to work at an young age made me appreciate the value of the dollar more than others my age, and it taught me to work harder than others, because my mother was sedulous in working to put me in an environment where I can can be successful.
3. What is your definition of success?
Growing up as the only child and from a lower-middle class family, my idea of success was reaching the level of financial freedom where I can provide for my family while doing something that I am genuinely passionate about. I realized that, when you don’t have money, you have to depend on others, your boss, the government, your relatives, and because of the lack of financial freedom, you will always be a dependent, and never independent. Thus, the goal of financial freedom was always in the back of my head in everything that I do. On the surface, pursuing wealth may seem very shallow and materialistic, but I am not chasing a particular number in my bank balance, but rather the status of financial freedom for myself and my family in which we can be independent in the land of the free.
There are many milestones that I set for myself, and I see them as little ‘successes.’ Moving out of my family’s home, getting my car, my apartment, and hitting 6-figures in sales, just to name a few. These are just the little success milestones that I set for myself because at the end of the day, they’re the small examples that I am getting towards my goal of financial independence. Of course, I don’t believe that wealth should be the ultimate end goal and symbol of success. I value my network of friends and acquaintances that help me become a better person and improve in the work that I do.
As I grow older, and having a little more financial freedom to pursue other milestones of success, I became more appreciative of intangible things like my family’s health, my friend’s happiness, and my own well-being. I always had the natural desire to be the provider, whether it is in my family or my friend group, and as such, I feel the utmost sense of success when I am capable of bringing my friends and family a better life and more happiness.
4. Failure
Q: What do you think is the main reason why some people face failure when going after their vision?
Because failure is inevitable. Failure will show up anytime, anywhere. I think of failures as an integral part of any entrepreneur’s journey. With that idea in mind, it comes down to not how to avoid failure, but rather how to overcome it. No one has the perfect vision at first, but maybe they will get close to it after a number of failures and improvements.
5. What is the best piece of advice you have received or came across and would like to share with everyone?
My advice to young entrepreneurs is to take the big leap while you are young. Young entrepreneurs who are still financially dependent on their parents have the biggest advantage over others because of the huge safety-net in place. If your venture fails, you don’t have to worry about the financial baggage like kids, a wife, mortgages, or car payments like other older entrepreneurs might have. Younger entrepreneurs also get more free pass in their failures, and have more opportunities to take these failures and turn them into lessons for future success. When you’re young, it is more socially acceptable to fail because you don’t have the myriad of experience as older entrepreneurs. Your young age can be your greatest asset or your biggest enemy; it depends on how you use it in the world of business.
To view Jason’s work and get in contact with him visit jasonwong.co
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