Disclosure certainty 5/5 debate potential 1/5

Neistat matched five years of YouTube subscriber growth in five months

Casey Neistat · a16z Podcast | I Reject the Term Viral Video · Jan 2, 2019 · at 6:49

YouTube creator Casey Neistat discusses content frequency and channel growth with Instagram early team member Bailey Richardson on the a16z podcast.

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“In five years, I accrued 500,000 subscribers and a hundred million views, which made me a runaway success. I switched to daily content, and in the next five months, I accrued another 500,000 subscribers. So it took me five years, I duplicated in five months. In the next five weeks, I got my next 500,000 subscribers.”

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