eMillions to BuzzBlaze: An Interview with Stanley Tang

The following is an interview with Stanley Tang, author of eMillions and founder of BuzzBlaze,  whom I’ve come to know from researching successful high-tech entrepreneurs.

Stanley discovered his entrepreneurial knack at age 11 when he started buying a couple of chips and “Mamee Noodles” every morning at the 7-Eleven and selling them for profit at school. He made a few hundred dollars – not bad for an eleven year old’s pocket money.

Then Stanley got into HTML & Java coding, learned about Google Adsense, and read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And as they say, the rest was history. Over the next couple of years, he wrote The Viral Marketing Blackbook and the #1 book in four categories on Amazon, eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires.

Without further ado,

LEE: You mentioned in your bio that you were 11 years old when you started your first entrepreneurial venture selling snacks at school. What made you choose to do business over the internet instead of a traditional brick-and-border business?

STANLEY: I have always been passionate about technology from a young age. As a kid, I loved doing web design and hacking together small websites. Internet business was the perfect fusion of my two passions: business and tech.

LEE: How many hours per day do you spend, on average, checking email, managing social media, and growing your business?

STANLEY: Right now, I focus most of my energy on school. Back in high school, when I was more active (since I had more free time), I would probably spend around on average 20-30 hours per week.

LEE: What type of people are your customers?

STANLEY: I would say my customers and subscribers are mostly people who are interested in entrepreneurship and business.

LEE: What has been your most effective marketing tactic or technique for your books?

STANLEY: For my book, it was all about getting partners (bloggers, marketers) to help promote your book. I would send review copies to as many people as I could. That way, if they liked my book, hopefully, they will also write about it and let their readers/customers/subscribers know.

LEE: Have you automated/outsourced any part of your business? If yes, how so?

STANLEY: Yes. I tend to outsource a lot of the small detailed tasks so that I can focus on the big picture. For example, with my book, I outsourced most of the graphics design, book publishing and distribution side of things to people who can to this better. That way, I could focus on actually creating the book and the marketing/strategy side of things.

LEE: What piece of advice would you offer others seeking success in the high-tech sphere?

STANLEY: Do something that you’re passionate about, rather than focusing on the money.

Currently, Stanley is working on BuzzBlaze , a social news aggregation site, and attending Stanford University.

Read more about Stanley on his site or follow him on Twitter.