Name: Anthony Frasier

Title: Co-Founder 

Contact: @AnthonyFrasier

Company: The Phat Startup

What They Do: Inspiring entrepreneurs, media company and lifestyle brand

Originally From: Newark, NJ

College: N/A

Field of Study: N/A

Recommended Books: The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

 

Listen in to the interview:

 

A Few Notes From the Show:

  • Business Development and Partnership focus.
  • It’s about finding the dopest content they can put on the site; the dopest entrepreneurs they can interview.
  • skill he thinks should have is about building and maintaining strong relationships (and maintaining them).
  • Dropped out of school because didn’t feel it was for him.
  • Was working at Kmart stocking boxes overnight.
  • Was building a gaming website during the day and working at night.
  • Learned to build traffic to his gaming website
  • He leveraged the work he did for his website to secure an internship with a local startup even though he didn’t have a degree.
  • After 1 month he raised their traffic by 300%.  They hired him as a full-time employee at that point.
  • Used the time at the startup to learn everything he could about startups.  That was his college.
  • Eventually that startup failed but he took everything he had learned while there to pitch to one of the investors. He invested $100k on the spot in Anthony’s idea for a FourSquare App for video games.
  •  Applied to the NewMe accelerator and got accepted.  That threw him in a world wind as now he was building his startup in Silicon Valley instead of New Jersey.
  • In 1year went from being a stock boy at Kmart to being an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley; with no education, just using what he had to take him to the next place and being patient.
  • Was on CNN Black in America: Silicon Valley (can see on itunes).
  • Eventual his startup failed but he wasn’t discouraged. He started volunteering at NYC tech events which is where he met his co-Founder, James Lopez.
  • Doesn’t think everyone should learn how to code, they should learn how to prototype.
  • Basically need HTML, Java script and CSS to building a prototype.
  • Learn how to prototype first and code second.
  • suggest using things like TreeHouse.com, Programs like: axure, balsamiq(lets you create wireframes and connect them to each other).
  • Advice is to sacrifice.  Not saying you can’t have a life but it requires a life change.

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