RepresentASIAN: Benny Luo, CEO of Nextshark

(UCI)

Today we'll be interviewing Benny Luo! You may have never heard of him, but his entrepreneurial skills have tremendously benefited the Asian community.

In 2013, Luo built NextShark, an online publication targeting Asian Youth, with just $3,000 of his own money. Four years later, the site has a full-time staff of 12 and brings in nearly three million monthly unique visitors. The site covers everything from politics to hate crimes to entertainment, all with the focus of global Asian youth. This year, Luo was featured in Forbes' 30 Under 30. Talk about an inspiration.

See Benny's creation, Nextshark, here

​1. How did you get the idea or concept for NextShark? Were you inspired by any particular experience?

In college, me and two friends had Asian American blog, which did well for what it was. However, we didn't think the market was big enough at the time for it to turn into a real business.

In 2011, I co-founded a company called NewMediaRockstars.com, which was a leading publication covering internet celebrities at the time. I sold that company in 2013 and took $3000 to launch NextShark.com.
Believe it or not. NextShark actually started off as a site on business and success for millennials. While we saw decent readership after about two years (1.5 million readers a month), we hit a plateau and were struggling to scale the business. 
After looking through our data, we noticed a lot of our Asian-centric content performed well. Whether it was a profile on an Asian American entrepreneur or featuring a successful tech company in Asia, our audience seemed to respond really well to it.
So we decided to do more business content centered around Asians and Asian Americans. Two months later, the 2016 Rio Olympics happened and our readers urged us to cover Asian athletes. We did that and traffic started picking up. Another month passes and our readers tell us to cover more political news happening in the Asian American and/or Asian community. Before you know it, we nearly quadrupled our traffic in less than six months. ​

2. Has being a minority in America helped or hindered your path to success in any way?

I think anything that happens to you in life is how you perceive it. You can look at your ethnicity as a crutch and let it hold you back, or you can see it as a strength and push your forward.

Of course, I've had my fair share of microagressions and racist incidences whether in my personal or business life, but I've never let it get to my in anyway. I've merely just focused on doing good work and striving to better myself everyday. As Steve Martin says: "Be so good they can't ignore you.

3. How have you been able to spread your message and convince people to care?

By listening to what our readers want :)

At the end of the day, we are a small team and need all the help we can get. I think a big part of our success is because of our loyal readers who constantly tell us what we need to be talking about. There are already tons of issues that people care about. We are just grateful to be able to offer a platform that shines a light on critical issues within on community.

4. Young Asian-Americans often feel lots of pressure to pursue “success.” What is your definition of success? Do you have any advice for today’s Asian-American youth?

​For a huge part of my life, I thought success was based on the amount of money in my bank account. As I've gotten older, I think success is finding what you truly love to do.

As Asian Americans, I feel like we are often pushed towards "safer routes" in life. When I was young, my parents constantly urged me to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. I tried pursuing these careers, but I struggled so much. My heart just wasn't in it and I felt miserable. But, don't take this as me knocking on those careers. If you dream is to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, then pursue that with all your love and passion!

My advice to today's Asian American youth is to experience as many things as you can before you get older. If you're interested in something, don't just talk about it: DO IT. Your sole purpose in these next 10 - 15 years of your life is to find out what you want to do for the rest of your life -- what makes you excited EVERY DAY to get up in the morning. If you can find what that one thing is, I think you've found success.

Benny has been the absolute most pleasurable person to work with. He is a fantastic businessman and an even better person. Seriously, you have to check out NextShark. It puts DeclarASIAN to shame.

Author: Claire Cao