I sat down with Gary at LessConf in Jacksonville, Fla., to talk about working hard and building brands.

Nancy: You are famous for cheerleading, for telling people to work an 18 hour day. How has being a dad changed your perspective on that?

Vaynerchuk: It hasn’t. I don’t necessarily need people to work 24 hours a day. I need them to not do stupid stuff when they’re unhappy. If that ends up being 12 hours a day, or seven, or four, that’s fine. Because obviously family is first. And a lot of times for a lot of people, your first job is first, because that’s what pays your mortgage. It’s just at night, instead of plopping on the couch and eating junk food and watching Baywatch re-runs, there’s a lot of opportunity to build brand.

Nancy: Although you are known for doing all that motivational speaking, recently it seems to me that your focus has shifted a little bit away from pure motivation into a little more practical advice, especially with the book. Can you talk about that shift a little bit?

Vaynerchuk: It’s always been there. It’s just that the “rah-rah” stuff is so sexy, and people focus on it. I’m not a motivational speaker as my profession, or a life coach, or a self-help dude. I build businesses. I built a $70 million wine company. AJ and I, my dad and I, our partners and family have spearheaded Vaynermedia, which is well on its way to being a million dollar company. And Gourmet Library. And I was the kid that was making a thousand dollars a weekend selling baseball cards, which if you prorate it is $52,000 a year for one day a week’s work. So, this is a knack, this is a skill. I’ve always said be patient, hustle, you know, practical advice, but it always got pushed to the side. So this is no shift…this is probably why I wrote the book. Because in a book environment, I think it comes through more for a lot of people. It doesn’t get lost as much, because there are sections just devoted to it.

Nancy: You’ve been investing in a lot of startups lately. What gets your attention or gets you excited about one? Like at my house, when we’re looking at a new tech product, it has to pass the mom test of “could our moms use it?”

Vaynerchuk: Well, I don’t think that I would invest in any startup if that had to be my barometer, because moms get involved later. Products iterate to become mom-friendly. Mine is, is this valuable? And does it invoke emotion? Those are the two things that I’d look at. Does this product make people think about something, feel something? Facebook inherently created an environment of your world, gave you a feel of speed, almost like having a fast Porsche that you never saw before. So those are the kind of things that I look at.

Nancy: So you assume that if it brings that kind of feeling, that that’s a good investment down the road, because it’ll gain some traction?

Vaynerchuk: No, that’s just some of the things I look for from a product standpoint. Then I look at who’s the entrepreneur — who’s driving the car. That’s imperative to me. And so, there’s a lot of factors. Is the product over-hyped in the mind of the entrepreneur, which means it’s not going to be as good of a deal for me? There’s a lot of practical things that I look at.

Nancy: You’re talking a lot about personal branding, finding your passion. What are the top three skills that you think people need to be able to craft that sort of branding for themselves?

Vaynerchuk: I think this is what’s important: I think everybody can win. Everybody is going to win. Not everybody is going to be Oprah, there’s going to be a lot of Donahues, and a lot of Sally Jesse Raphaels, and a lot of Geraldos, right? What I think is important is this, for people to understand: The fact that we all can now go to Yankee Stadium and tap the plate and get a swing at the bat, was not real three years ago. You couldn’t become a brand. What you were going to do — leave your kids and your husband and fly to LA and find an agent? You had no shot. So that’s what I’m screaming about. Not that necessarily everybody’s going to win on this epic level and everybody’s going to make a trillion dollars, but do not disrespect the fact that everybody has a swing at the plate. And that’s a big deal.

Nancy: Everybody knows you want to buy the Jets. Do you have any other goals?

Vaynerchuk: The only goal that I have is that, and to spend time with my family and make sure that they’re healthy. And even the Jets goal is a big one but not something I’ll let define me. I’m not going to jump off a cliff if I don’t end up buying them.

Nancy: A lot of web workers spend a lot of time on the road, just like you do. What’s the number one piece of travel advice that you’ve picked up in your time on the road?

Vaynerchuk: That’s a great question. I do a lot of interviews, so when I get a new question, they’re good. The number one piece of advice? I think there’s only two things you should do as a businessperson in this web world when you’re flying. Two: Sleep or do email…no in between. Hardcore get in the trenches with your audience and answer their questions, or get the rest you need to execute it. Don’t watch a movie. And I understand you need time to unwind, people need that. But that stuff needs to be cut out a little bit. That part, where you’re watching Seinfeld reruns on your flight. That’s those two hours that really are the difference in building a big business. Now if you’re happy, and content, then watch Seinfeld.

Are you really working towards your goals? What are you giving up?

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Do you work with family members? How does it work out for you?

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Laura reveals why screencasting app Jing (previously covered here on WWD) is her favorite. Strictly speaking, Jing is not a web app, but it’s a great choice if you’re looking for easy-to-use, inexpensive screencasting software.

What’s Your Favorite Web App, Laura Roeder? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

We have a few more video interviews from SXSW about web apps coming up. Find out when by following us  @webworkerdaily on Twitter.

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Web designers have long been using CSS to customize font size, style, family, backgrounds and layouts across a site. CSS3 brings a much more powerful feature set to those designers, including:

Text shadows, borders, shaped borders, boxes with shadows. No longer will you have to fancy up fonts as graphics files and embed them. Also, because of the detailed specifications for shaping a border, gone are the days of struggling with rounded corners. You can set the radius for each corner and voila!

Web fonts. Yes, you can now specify the font you want to use in CSS3, and the browser will auto-download it if it’s not already installed. No longer are you at the mercy of the fonts your users have installed.

CSS3 also offers transitions for dynamic effects such as changing the size, color or positioning of text by hovering your cursor over it. Move over Flash and JavaScript effects: CSS3 has got these animation-like features covered.

The current version of Opera already supports parts of CSS3, while support in Opera 10 will be even greater. Opera 10 beta should be available in the next few months.

Lie also showed me an e-book designed entirely using CSS3. The CSS took care if all of the intricate printing layout details, like pagination, that would normally be handled by something like Adobe InDesign. Fascinating.

Opera, Mozilla and Safari will all fully support CSS3 in the future; indeed, they have all had partial support for the standard for a while now. The lone party pooper is IE, of course. Lie is hoping web developers will rally together to ignore IE in their development strategies and, “free yourself from the IE prison.” A noble cause, but probably not realistic just yet. Personally, I haven’t used IE for eons (especially as a Mac user). However, many of my clients  are still adamant that IE is their visitors’ most popular browser.

Check out this live video demo of CSS3 by Lie at SXSW:

Håkon Wium Lie from Opera Software Demos CSS3 from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

What are your thoughts on CSS3? And how likely do you think it is that we’ll be able to banish IE from our web design work in the future?

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Lie is a fan of Google Docs (yes, another one!), and here’s how he uses it.

What is Your Favorite Web App, Håkon Wium Lie? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

We have a few more video interviews from SXSW about web apps coming up. Find out when by following us  @webworkerdaily on Twitter.

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Here he talks about why he uses Paint.net and Plurk.

What’s Your Favorite Web App, Wagner James Au? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

For updates from WebWorkerDaily, follow us @webworkerdaily on Twitter.

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Got Flickr? Amber does and here’s how she uses it.

What’s Your Favorite Web App, Amber? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo

Follow @webworkerdaily on Twitter for soundbites, SXSW follow-ups and more.

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Stephens explains why she likes Twickie.

What’s Your Favorite Web App, Nichelle Stephens? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo

Tune in for links to upcoming video soundbites from SXSW by following us at @webworkerdaily on Twitter.

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