New York City does not care about your excuses. It is expensive, competitive, loud, and relentless. And for exactly those reasons, it has produced more business builders per square mile than almost anywhere on earth.

The people who make it in New York have to be sharper, tougher, and more resourceful than almost anyone else. Here are the top hustlers who built something real from the city that never sleeps.

Gary Vaynerchuk: From a Wine Blog to a Global Agency

Gary Vee’s origin story is one of the cleanest examples of platform arbitrage ever executed. He took over his family’s liquor store in New Jersey and built Wine Library TV, a YouTube channel about wine, at a time when nobody believed online video was serious. He grew the store from $3 million to $60 million in annual revenue.

He then moved to New York, founded VaynerMedia, and built it into one of the largest independent digital agencies in the world, working with Fortune 500 brands. Today the VaynerX holding company spans media, sports, NFTs, and venture investments.

His edge: He saw the value of social media attention before most brands even knew what a tweet was, and he moved faster than everyone else.

Daymond John: FUBU from a Kitchen Table in Queens

Daymond John started FUBU out of his mother’s house in Hollis, Queens, with $40 in fabric and a sewing machine. The brand grew into a hip-hop fashion icon with over $6 billion in sales.

What separates John is not just the brand but how he built it. He used guerrilla marketing before the term existed: getting his clothes on music videos, building relationships with artists, and building the kind of cultural credibility that money cannot buy directly. Today he is an investor on Shark Tank and a sought-after speaker on brand-building. The same principle — using cultural alignment to build brand equity — is at work in how Nike built its identity around athletes and aspiration.

His edge: He understood that cultural alignment beats advertising every time.

Barbara Corcoran: A $1,000 Loan and a Real Estate Empire

Barbara Corcoran borrowed $1,000 from her boyfriend in 1973 and started a real estate company out of a small Manhattan office. She built the Corcoran Group into one of the most recognizable names in New York real estate before selling it for $66 million in 2001.

What made Corcoran brilliant was her instinct for storytelling and publicity. She sent out newsletters about the Manhattan real estate market that journalists started quoting. She positioned herself as the authority on NYC property at a time when the market was chaotic, and the press coverage that followed was worth millions in advertising.

Her edge: She understood that authority is earned through consistent, free information, and that earned media beats paid media every time.

Russell Simmons: Def Jam and the Business of Culture

Russell Simmons co-founded Def Jam Recordings in 1984 from a dorm room at City College of New York. He helped bring hip-hop from the streets of the Bronx to a global audience, signing Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys.

But Simmons was always more than a music executive. He launched Phat Farm clothing, Rush Communications, UniRush Financial Services (prepaid debit cards for the unbanked), and became one of the earliest advocates for extending financial products to communities that traditional banks ignored. If you want to see how another entrepreneur structured a business to get acquired, check out how American Express built a premium brand with a membership model.

His edge: He always saw the business layer underneath the culture, and he moved from music to fashion to finance faster than most people realized what he was doing.

Sara Blakely: Spanx and the Power of the Founder Story

Sara Blakely spent years selling fax machines door-to-door before she cut the feet off a pair of pantyhose and invented Spanx. She wrote her own patent, cold-called Neiman Marcus buyers, and built a billion-dollar company without taking a single dollar of outside investment for over a decade.

Blakely is closely associated with Atlanta, but the Spanx rise was deeply tied to the New York fashion and retail ecosystem. Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Saks: these flagship New York buyers gave Spanx legitimacy that national growth required.

Her edge: She solved a real problem she personally experienced, she owned the narrative from day one, and she refused to dilute her equity until she was ready.

Bernard Arnault: The LVMH Effect on NYC Luxury

Bernard Arnault is French, but his empire runs through New York. LVMH, the luxury conglomerate he built into the world’s most valuable company by market cap at its peak, operates extensive retail, real estate, and business infrastructure in Manhattan. His acquisitions and retail strategy have shaped Fifth Avenue, defined what luxury retail looks like in the United States, and influenced how dozens of brands approach the American market.

His edge: He understood that luxury is about scarcity, heritage, and controlled distribution, and he applied that formula at a scale nobody had attempted before.

Jay-Z: From Brooklyn to Billionaire

Shawn Carter grew up in the Marcy Houses in Brooklyn and became the first hip-hop artist to achieve billionaire status. Beyond music, Jay-Z built Roc Nation (entertainment, sports management), co-founded Armand de Brignac champagne, took a stake in D’Usse cognac, launched Tidal, and invested aggressively in companies including Uber and JetSmarter.

His edge: He treated himself as a business from the beginning and never stopped expanding the portfolio.

Martha Stewart: Building a Lifestyle Empire from Scratch

Martha Stewart started as a caterer in Westport, Connecticut, and built a multimedia lifestyle empire from the ground up. Her company went public and at peak valuation was worth nearly $2 billion. She understood before anyone else that domestic expertise, presented aspirationally, was a business category waiting to be born.

Her edge: She created an entirely new category and then owned it completely.

New York Still Has Room

If you are heading to New York for business, meetings, or to study the ecosystem firsthand, our NYC Business Travel Guide has everything you need to move efficiently through the city.

New York is still one of the best places on earth to build a business. The talent, the capital, the customers, and the competition are all here. Bring your sharpest game.

Also check out the operators who built empires in an entirely different kind of city: Top Hustlers From Las Vegas.

If you are serious about building, whether here or anywhere else, consider setting up your LLC the right way. Northwest Registered Agent makes it simple and keeps your information private.

Know a hustler from New York City we missed? Join free and let us know.