Gary Vaynerchuk has a simple online success formula: take your hobby, (sewing, baseball cards, books, gardening, etc.), create a website, use old-fashioned “hustle” to sow the internet with as many links back to your website as possible and then “monetize” the heck out of every online interaction, and/or wait for a business development person to see your potential and invest in you.

This book is filled with vague platitudes and creepy huckster-speak:

• It’s a whole new world; build your personal brand and get ready for it.
• I did it with good, old-fashioned hustle–every customer who walked in got monetized to the fullest.
• At a certain point, your business will start gaining eyeballs.
• Today, everybody else can make $40,000 to a million so long as they can nail the correct combination of their medium and passion.
• When you’re ready, though, the opportunities to monetize your personal brand will blow your mind.

Whatever happened to doing something for its own sake? For the satisfaction that comes with making something? Success is, indeed what you make it. I guess my definition of success doesn't include monetizing the heck out of every online interaction I have with others.