3 ms·
After Casey's latest launch of Beme (pre CNN), he shed some additional insight into the money Beme had raised and how they spend it. To date, Beme has now raise
by arosier 9y ago
After Casey's latest launch of Beme (pre CNN), he shed some additional insight into the money Beme had raised and how they spend it. To date, Beme has now raised $6,000,000+ (presumably $6,619,242 assuming a $4 Million Series A on top of the existing stated Seed round).
The first launch of Beme led to 400,000 downloads in the first 6 days. Users posted 1 million videos in that same time frame. While there were breakout areas or "10s of thousands of consistent users, "after the cool down from the initial launch, they saw user engagement fall and realized the product was not working. There was hope that there was still validity in the concept (posting unedited - authentic video footage); however, the app needed a redesign to thoroughly test the concept.
Beme has 11 full time employees (10 of which are technical, 1 of which runs their social media communities (Jack)). Casey does not collect a salary from Beme. With this being said, it sounds as if Casey does not include himself in this employee count as he would most likely fall into the non-technical category. Beme splits their employees into 3 teams. Most likely these are divided by platform: Android, iOS, and Web.
The burn rate for these 11 employees is $180,000/month or $2,160,000/ year. Beme has the option to monetize through in-app advertising, in-app purchases, and selling of user data. With no signs that any 3 of these revenue streams have been activated at this time these expenses are being paid for from the venture capital money raised.
The second release has seen a surge in downloads to over 1 million, with added engagement after the first 8 days of launch. Time will tell if the added interest is purely based off of Casey's current social clout, or if the concept has legs to become a standalone sharing platform.
https://techcrunch.com/video/casey-neistats-youtube-life/519622188/ https://techcrunch.com/video/casey-neistats-youtube-life/519...