Assertion Not checkable as stated
Neistat: YouTube's algorithm severely punishes channels that disable comments
“Yeah, you'll get annihilated in the algorithm for that. They punish you severely for that.”
Insight
Neistat: Never tell potential buyers you are selling your startup
“And when you meet with people who you think might be interested in buying your company, you tell them you're fundraising. You are never in the process of selling your company until it's been sold.”
Opinion
Neistat: Live video platforms struggle because they fail to make content interesting
“And I think the trouble that we're seeing, certainly we saw at Beam that they're seeing with spectacles, and that I think every single live platform, none of which have truly succeeded yet is because they don't address that struggle for interestingness.”
Insight
Neistat: Beme failed because watching people's unedited lives gets boring quickly
“And I think what we were trying to do with Beam, like, it's one of the things we talked about. It should be a four-second clip or a six-second clip. If you string a bunch of them together, it needs to feel fun, like you're watching an edited movie. We were wro…”
Opinion
Neistat: Media companies only use tech products for content distribution
“Almost every media company right now, their technology products are just a device to further disseminate the media that they're making. There isn't a holistic consideration of how can the media and then the technology that they're using to promote that media, …”
Insight
Neistat: Group discussions melt and destroy original creative ideas
“When an idea at its inception, it's an ice cube, and it's rock hard, and you can look at it, and you can see it, and you can study it, and you know what it is. But when a discussion begins, you have to pass that ice cube around the room, it starts to melt, and…”
Insight
Neistat: Relentless brute force is the only constant behind every success
“In the 18 years of my career, I found that to be the one sort of consistent, the one constant through everything. That in, in any version of success, it's been because of an absolute reluctance and of that sort of brute force. I will not stop moving until I ac…”
Insight
Neistat: Solving "struggle for interestingness" made Snapchat Lenses work
“I think that the struggle for interestingness, that's a line that we used to use a lot when we were pitching, but like solving the struggle for interestingness from a video perspective is paramount to having anything succeed, and I think what Snapchat did that…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Neistat: Gary Vaynerchuk invested $500K in Beme without understanding the product
“Gary's one of the first people I met with, and I pitched the product to him by myself as best I could. At the end of that pitch, he had this look on his face, and I looked at him and said, you don't have any idea what this is, do you? And he's like, I don't ge…”
Insight
Neistat: Startup investors respond strongly to founders with blind passion
“I think what I learned from seeing that kind of, like, maniac type person succeed, exceed, at least in the fundraising part of the process, is that, like, just how much people respond to that blind passion.”
Disclosure
Neistat: Set a Gmail filter to trash 'pick your brain' requests
“I literally have the words, pick your brain. I had that as a Gmail filter. So if somebody emails me saying I'd love to buy you lunch so I can pick your, they're filtered and they go immediately in the trash.”
Insight
Neistat: Direct advisor advice far outweighs reading business books or blogs
“I could give you a book on how to read on how to skateboard, and you can study that book and memorize that book and follow up the board immediately, but skate with Tony Hawk for five minutes, and you'll be better than anything that book could impart, and I thi…”
Opinion
Neistat: My YouTube Channel Drove Beme's Acquisition
“It was a big part of why the acquisition took place. It's why now this is not just a, no longer just a technology company, but a media and technology companies, because I think there was a demonstration of what we can do within that cross section.”
Insight
Neistat: Specific prompts elicit far better user video than open requests
“If you hand someone a camera and say, say something interesting, they're gonna have no idea what to say. But if you hand someone a camera and say, you know, what do you think about the latest healthcare proposal? They might, they'll probably have something to …”
Disclosure
Neistat cut his salary to zero during Beme's startup cash crunch
“We had like five months left of money. We could barely pay like our Amazon bills. Like we were struggling. We were pinching. It didn't work. I had cut my salary to zero.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Neistat: Beme never missed payroll and had zero turnover during sale process
“No one on our team ever There was never a missed payroll. There was never a delayed payroll. Like this was something that Matt and I always made priority number one. And I think that like, look, no one left. No one left. And this is a shitty seven month proces…”
Casey Neistat