Stories of entrepreneurs who rose from rags to riches virtually overnight have become incredibly popular lately. The secret, however, is that the “overnight success” doesn’t truly exist in the way that it’s presented to the public. Moreover, having to become successful in an extremely short period of time puts enormous pressure on entrepreneurs of all ages.
Damian Prosalendis is debunking that myth by telling his story. At first glance, Prosalendis is a young, 24-years-old business owner who made his first million at the age of 20. He wants aspiring entrepreneurs to know that his story is not one of an overnight prominence. In fact, Damian’s journey to success was very challenging.
Prosalendis grew up in Greece where he studied Chemical Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His parents allowed him a stipend of $200 a month to live off of. He quickly realized that this was not the route to success. After a year and a half, Damian dropped out. Initially, he took on jobs that paid no more than $3 per hour. The months ahead were tough. He slept in a roach-infested dorm room on a mattress he dug out of the trash.
Then, Prosalendis became interested in freelancing and building a digital business. He signed up for the digital platform Fiverr and began to attract clients offering copywriting services. He was so good at it, that Prosalendis managed to make a million dollars off his services on Fiverr. He did all of that without the official business degree. In fact, Prosalendis believes that Fiverr taught him more about business in a short period of time than his university career ever did. His only regret is not dropping out sooner.
Since that success, Prosalendis has scaled his business enormously. Today, he is the owner of SPXMAC — a consulting firm that serviced over 10,000 clients from 116 countries, ranging from new start-ups to multi-million dollar e-commerce brands. Damian also founded Badass Talent, a model and talent management agency based in Miami, Studio Badass — a video production studio that focuses on luxury lifestyle productions, and Anax Publishing which is a digital media company that specializes in personal development publications. Damian Prosalendis’ latest venture is ProsaMedia — a marketing agency that helps established businesses become multi-million dollar empires.
While it may seem like all of this success happened virtually overnight, the entrepreneur explains that this can not be farther from the truth. “Everybody aspires to be the person that starts something so novel the world has never seen before but ideas alone are worthless. Execution is priceless,” he shares, adding: “A savvy businessman can succeed in any industry because the fundamentals of business building exceed in importance the uniqueness of a business idea.”
Damian often gives the analogy of climbing the cliff to startup owners. “The journey to success is like pushing a giant ball up a cliff. It takes tremendous effort in the beginning, and it gets more and more tiresome before you get to the top. You put all that effort and get nothing in return for a while, despite exerting every inch of willpower you have to get the ball rolling against the force of gravity. However, once you reach the top of the cliff, the ball starts rolling almost magically. You don’t even have to break a sweat, as you slightly push it with the edge of your fingertip and it starts rolling down the other side, in a seemingly effortless manner,” he shares.
The myth of “overnight success” is making many owners feel pressured and like a failure, when in fact, success is neither easy nor quick. Prosalendis has his eye on the future. His new dream is to own a $100,000,000 black matte superyacht and get his permanent residence in Monaco. Damian truly believes that the combination of passion and hard work will make any entrepreneur unstoppable.