# Beme (2014 – 2017)

- URL: https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/startup-graveyard/beme/
- Sector: Social media
- Country: United States
- Total funding: $6 million
- Cause of closure: Acquired and shut down

## What did it do?

Beme was a media company, and a mobile app of the same name, founded by well-known YouTube creator Casey Neistat and Matt Hackett. The app let users share videos of between 2 and 8 seconds with their followers instantly, with no way to edit or preview them. The aim was to offer an unfiltered sharing experience in place of the curated image of social media.

## Why did it shut down?

Although the app drew attention in 2015, the company was spending about $180,000 a month with a small team and had raised $6 million in total. In November 2016 CNN bought the company, reportedly for $25 million, with the aim of building a new media brand for a young audience. The new owner's priority was not the app but the team's talent, and the Beme app was shut down on 31 January 2017. The founders left in January 2018 and Beme joined CNN Digital Studios.

## The story

When you shot a video on Beme, you could not watch it, trim it or add a filter. The clip, between 2 and 8 seconds long, went to your followers the moment it was recorded. Casey Neistat and Matt Hackett's idea was to offer an antidote to social media's culture of curated images; Adweek presented the app as a tool for weeding out fakery, and the art publication artnet discussed it as an experiment in avoiding an artificial self-image.

Neistat, a video maker and short-film director often described as a YouTube star, founded Beme Inc. with Hackett in New York in 2014. The app launched on iOS on 17 July 2015, and the Android version followed on 2 May 2016. In May 2016 Neistat told TechCrunch that the company had raised $6 million in total, had 11 full-time employees, 10 of them technical, was spending about $180,000 a month, and that he himself took no salary.

With the Android version, the app had become available on both major mobile platforms. On 28 November 2016 CNN announced that it had bought Beme, reportedly for $25 million. CNN's aim was to invest in the company to build a new media brand for a young audience. Neistat explained the sale to his followers in a video on his YouTube channel. The next day Hackett emailed users: the Beme app would close on 31 January 2017. The team would work, with full creative control, on a new project due to launch in the summer of 2017; Jake Roper, host of Vsauce 3, joined the team as head of production.

This new chapter did not last long either. On 25 January 2018 Neistat announced on his YouTube channel that he and Hackett were leaving Beme and that the company would join CNN Digital Studios; Neistat would continue to be credited among the programme's producers. The YouTube channel Beme News kept producing content until August 2019.

Beme's story shows that a founder's strong following can give an app a fast start, but creating a lasting user habit is a separate job. What the acquiring company valued was not the app but the team's ability to produce content.

## Lessons

- A founder's personal following gives you a fast start, but do not forget that the app has to retain users on its own.
- Measure your monthly cash burn and remaining runway transparently; weigh up strategic options before your alternatives narrow.
- When selling to a media company, be clear about expectations for the product's future; more often than not, what is being bought is the team and its talent.

## Sources

- [Beme (company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beme_(company))
- [CNN buys Casey Neistat's Beme app, brings the YouTuber in-house](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/28/cnn-buys-casey-neistats-beme-app-brings-the-youtuber-in-house//)
- [CNN Acquires Social-Video Startup Beme, Co-Founded by YouTube Star Casey Neistat](https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/cnn-casey-neistat-beme-acquisition-1201927533/)