Entrepreneur of the week
01/11
Zachary Feldman
Founder, Monalisa Sun
Where did you grow up, and what was your childhood like? Were there any early experiences that shaped how you think about work, money, or success?
I grew up in Brooklyn NY lived there most of my life id like to say I had a great childhood with many friends and what I belive to be few enemy’s, good memories overall and I had what I needed and then some at most times in my young young years, however there were way more titular years the older I got where we didn’t have much, but I had/have a great mother who would give me the shirt off her back or the food in her plate until I was later on able to repay the favor and then some and still do.
Earlier on something that really shaped my thoughts on money and success was definitely my mom, she did finance for 25 years for car dealerships and she was always the person I looked up to growing up without my dad in the picture she played both roles, my dad and my mother and before she got sick with COPD she topped out at making a quarter million dollars a year as a woman and a predominantly male business working 14 hours a day to provide for me as well as my sister as well as my two friends that she basically adopted that moved with us for five years because their own family fell hard times and got evicted
I saw her work ethic and I tried my best to emulate that from a young age. I didn’t think anything was impossible. I had a taste of the finer things in life until she got sick and then I needed to get back to it with my own hands
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced growing up, and how did those experiences shape the person you are today?
I had an incredible amount of trials and tribulations. once my mom had gotten sick because I was kind of thrust into being the main provider, while trying to chase fame and ambitious abstract ideas,and it depends on the time, i’ll give you a few of the main ones.
I would say once my mom got sick. It was very hard for me to handle my mom going in and out of the hospital constantly every month every other month while holidays are happening birthdays are happening Christmas New Year’s. Everything is happening and my sister had moved away, so I’m handling life on my own trying to provide for my family while my mom is constantly in the hospital after seeing her be the most strong person managing 50 people in a dealership to laying in a hospital bed, very unwell with mostly me as the person to look after her and bring her everything she needs. It shaped a lot of who I am today because I would give my everything for my mom in every way shape and form I owe her the world for being so strong and supplying me with the life that she did for so many years and an inspires me to try to help other young entrepreneurs that may have been going through something similar when they had only one person to return to, and they unfortunately can’t turn into them because they have to be the “man” in the situation and greeted out without showing how they really felt.
My earlier life it was pretty similar to most kids just moving a lot and I probably moved nine or 10 times when I was younger before I turned 13 or 14 I moved from Florida (where I was born) to New York, to New Jersey several different places all over and I always felt like I was the odd man out. I cared a lot to have friends at the time, but I always was the odd man out because I was the least tenured of anybody usually I was the new kid on the block. It shaped a lot of who I am today because I make sure that everybody feels included as much as I can. I try to be the voice for the voiceless as much as I physically can not in a way where it’s biased but more so where it’s just something that’s objective if there’s the kid that needs the attention if there’s the person that could use a friend I’d like to say I’m pretty obligated most of the time but if I ever see a moment that I’m able to help people it’s my pen-ultimate goal to make sure everybody knows they have a place in the world.
And lastly, and I would say the most effective to me, and not necessarily my childhood, but just a challenge that I face that I think really made me into a man I had had cars I had clothes I had had all the fine things, but I had hit rock Bottom at some point It was during Covid. My mom was exceptionally afraid of getting sick because she felt like she would meet in unfortunate circumstance because a lot of of her friends had passed away. I didn’t find a job online or rather I found one, but it made me dang near not wanna be on the planet Because I was going through it in my own head at the moment. And so that didn’t work out I couldn’t physically go outside and work in my mind at the moment because I didn’t wanna get my mom sick. We were out of food stamps. We were out of any amount of funds that we could have. We were months behind on bills so for the first time in my life, I called my father And asked him if he could help.
For context He just sold my childhood home and was sitting on roughly $200,000
I’ve spoken to my father throughout the years and I visited him many times, but he never was a help never paid for a thing that had to do with me in my whole life and I asked him just the one time if he could give me $100 to be able to buy food for me and my mom And he said verbatim I will never forget
“you’re a man figure it out”
I wish I could explain how Volitile that statement made me because again I have love for my father, but as a bigger man today I do at the time it was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever heard.
My father, who had not raised any of his children had told me what it meant to be a man or tried to, and it was the best lesson he ever taught me unintentionally and from the wrong place in his heart because he had just denied his son food.
I cursed for the first time on the phone with him that he ever heard me curse at 20 something years old which may have been late to learn this lesson I’d already been the man of the house, but I maybe was just the boy of the house but once I heard that I said I vow, to you I would never ask you for another dollar so long as I live and he immediately regretted it and try to offer me money and I said I promise you I won’t take it ever, but the difference is when I am able to afford it, I will look out for you in a way that you never look out for me and from that moment forward.
I always make sure that I have me, regardless of whoever else perceives or tries to make me perceive that they have my best interest at heart. I make sure that I am good not in nefarious way, but just in a way where I understand I have to get it on my own or not have it at all no matter what.
And I don’t say that last bit to put my father down because I’m sure that there’s nuance behind his upbringing that I still try to figure out to this day that allowed him to think that that was the appropriate move I don’t have heat in my heart, but it was a moment that shaped me indefinitely.
Looking back, what is one mistake or failure that ended up teaching you the most in your journey?
I’d say all my failures have taught me a lot and kind of shape who I am but if I had to single out one specific failure, I would say opening my hookah lounge would be a big one, at the time Lightskinzack was all the rage and I had a lot of friends and a lot of people that thought very highly of me and I thought that that meant something but I also couldn’t afford a cab home and had to walk home 4 miles because I was putting on a front as though I had it all together, when I absolutely did not, at that point I learned it’s not about who you emulate it, It’s about who you are and I vowed to be true to myself since then, instead of putting on a front for who I think people would like me to be.
I live my life as much as I can, by my own terms within reason.
Aside from that just more so the failures back from 2023-2024 or so within my solar company taught me real deal struggle while trying to feed others and that taught me how to really balance responsibility, especially when other people’s families being fed are on the line.
For young entrepreneurs watching this who want to build something meaningful, what is the single most important piece of advice you would give them?
The single most important lesson I can share is this: Fail as fast as you physically can.
“Fear kills more dreams than failure ever could”
Are words I live by.
The sooner you discover what doesn’t work, the sooner you find what does. This isn't about being reckless; it’s about controlled experimentation, no paralysis of analysis.
Time is your only finite resource. The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is the refusal to stop. If you possess an unshakable definitiveness in your vision and the faith to keep going long after others have capitulated, you become unstoppable.
As a kid or teenager, did you show any early entrepreneurial signs? Things like selling something, creating content, or finding ways to make money?
When I was younger, I wish I could tell you who gave me the nickname Lightskinzack it was probably when I was around 13 or 14 years old. The nickname caught on I made my first brand “lightskin” hoodies
I have a friend named Gabe which I believe you featured, that invested $1000, I want to say in me starting up that first business, which was selling hoodies out of a black garbage bag in Myst Lounge when I was 17, I sold 50 of them in two days no drop offs everyone came and got one as well as Hookah.
Seeing someone I didn’t know out of those 50 people, at kings plaza one random day while I was wearing my hoodie taking a picture with them (them not knowing I was the maker of these)!gave me a feeling I had never felt, it’s one thing for those you know to support you and I was and am grateful, but having people you’ve never met believe in your vision was an incredible feeling to me
Before becoming an influencer, what were you doing? Was there a specific moment when you realized social media could become a real opportunity?
Linearly I worked at the Riviera catering hall as my first job at 16 it was the only job I was ever fired from, I worked at Applebee’s and she said Bay I managed Myst lounge on Kings Highway and around that time I got “ verified” on Snapchat I started promoting where I met quite a few celebrities in a different light and it kind of showed me that they were very normal , I went on to open my own hookah lounge (failed badly haha) and then my second (failed worse and almost got shot) but throughout this entire time. I’ve always wanted to be. An influencer.
I’ve always had some form of notoriety in my younger years when it came to social media, but when Covid hit, I went hard on figuring out TikTok.
I need to figure out a way to make money from home while being able to also again try to be able to take care. Take care of my mom and help her with things while not risking going outside so it was a pipe dream of mine and I guess a good one at that to just post as many times as physically possible during the day. There were various different moments where I knew that social media could be an actual way out. And a real opportunity once I started making my first checks once I started getting my first sponsorships I would say that that’s when it really hit me and then the hardest that it ever hit me was when I had my first video go very viral, which was a video that clipped a Kid Cudi song and he actually made a post that pertained to it and I was reposted by complex and RAP and Worldstar and a bunch of other places because the video went again very viral and I made some good money off of it or would I perceived that the time as good money. From that point until I really locked into the Solar business I was extremely gung ho with social media and trying to help people get into it as much as I could and I can give many different success stories where people have gotten a decent amount of followers and or views because of the amount of effort I put into telling them to chase their dreams to become a social media influencer.
Many people want to become influencers today. What do you think most people misunderstand about building a real platform online?
I don’t think people really understand that being an influencer now that I’m looking back at it and I’m not as much in the game as of now it’s very similar to being an entrepreneur if not the exact Epitone of it because you were basically selling yourself, well better yet you are selling yourself, I think people misunderstand many different parts of it. You can see it linearly happen when somebody gets their first thousand it’s very similar to the next person that gets their first thousand their first 10,000 followers their first 30,000 followers their first hundred thousand everybody goes through extremely similar cycles until they get to a certain level and then they become either somebody that makes money from this or not when they get to 100,000 and they think it’s time to launch merch and it doesn’t work. It’s been happened 1000 times over or when they get to 1000 followers for the first time and they think that they finally made it. People misunderstand that building a platform. Online isn’t really worth anything unless you are a commodity in some way shape or form unless you teach them something engage and change their life somehow the platform isn’t really worth anything it is not easy. It is not a fluke and is not a totally possible thing for everybody to do the same way as being a successful entrepreneur it’s not necessarily made for everybody. It’s something everybody can attempt, but unless you’re willing to put the grind and grid into it it’s not something you should even look at for a second if putting up 5 to 10 videos a day sounds like a nightmare then I would say most people shouldn’t even focus on building a platform on social media
What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned running a real business compared to building a personal brand online?
The two are similar in that you have to sell yourself whether it’s to investors, whether it’s too potential clients, whether it’s to your workforce, or whomever else, but building an actual business is a whole different animal altogether in my opinion there’s a lot less to hide behind, in my opinion, there’s a lot more responsibility and the biggest lessons I’ve learned are insurmountable comparatively speaking being a social media presence was/is a really cool part of my life, but I wouldn’t say that it built a crazy amount of depth in me, whereas owning a business has open doors that I’ve never known existed prior to doing so it’s allowed me in great conversations with people like yourself to actually be taken seriously, rather than as an “act” of sorts, the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from business is the multiple that I’ve opened is loss and appreciation. I didn’t really have that from social media, social media if a video didn’t go well it would make you sad, but it’s on to the next.
The pain that you feel from business, especially a budding business is something like nothing else, but when you do come across that moment of triumph before the next challenge, it is one of the best feelings you can ever feel, as well as knowing that you built something with your own two hands and it allows you to live your life with relative and I say this very loosely “freedom” it’s a feeling like nothing else in my opinion.
Entrepreneur of the week alumnis
Previously featured entrepreneurs recognized for leadership, innovation, and impact.