HIBT Lab! Nas Company: Nuseir Yassin

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1:06Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.com slash built. I've stayed in awesome homes on Airbnb in places like Athens and Berlin and Rome, and each time these places have given our family a chance to feel like locals. It's the best way to travel. Picture this. You're spending a cozy evening out of town in a home you booked on Airbnb. The space is thoughtfully designed and you think, I bet I could host my own home on Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Your AI agents make your teams more productive, right?

1:48But if they aren't connected to the rest of your business, how productive can they really make your teams? Any business can use AI, IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. And just a reminder, this episode of How I Built This comes out each Thursday, and it's a little different from our Monday show. Here on the lab, we focus on three main types of entrepreneurs, founders who are trying to build world-changing technology or working on ways to change how we live. We also talk to the new generation of media entrepreneurs, so YouTubers and other content creators.

2:32And occasionally, you'll hear from past guests of How I Built This who have an update to their story. Anyway, my guest today is Nosair Yassin. He's probably best known as the creator behind Nas Daily. Nosair started Nas Daily in 2016. Right around the time he quit what he calls a mind-numbingly boring job as a software developer. Nusair decided to travel the world on a fixed budget and create a one-minute daily video for 1 ,000 straight days. Over time, he picked up more than 40 million followers on Facebook. Today, he's turned his brand into a multi-dimensional media business. He's created an edtech company that offers courses on how to become a content creator.

3:20He's built a software brand that helps content creators manage their communities and monetize their content. And he has a brand studio that produces videos for corporate clients. Nassir grew up in a small village in northern Israel, and it wasn't an easy upbringing. He struggled with his conflicting identities. He's a Palestinian who is also a citizen of Israel. So first of all, this is a background I do not recommend to my worst enemy. Part of me wishes I was born in Denmark. Yeah. Great country, but boringly great, right? So not many people know this, but 20 % of Israel is not Jewish. And I think this shows how complex the situation is.

4:03This isn't Jews versus Arabs. This is Jews and Arabs versus Arabs, Muslims, and Christians. I mean, it is a complete mess. And ethnically, I'm Palestinian, father, mother, Arab speakers, Muslim, but nationality is Israeli, which means you grow up without a flag. If you can wave a flag and you're proud of it, you should feel lucky. I can't wave the Israeli flag and neither can I wave the Palestinian flag because I never lived in Palestine and I don't feel that belonging that a Jewish person feels to Israel. So it's quite complicated to say the least. Yeah. You grew up in pretty much an entirely Arab environment, right?

4:45Yeah. So for the first 19 years of my life living in Israel, I had zero Jewish friends. None. I had none. Zero. How does that happen? Just explain. I mean, just because of where you grew up or where you lived, like everybody around you was a Palestinian descent? You know, we talk a lot about forced segregation and, you know, that that is a real problem and between Israel and Palestine. But there's also self-segregation that we don't talk enough about in which, you know, Arabs choose to live by themselves and they don't want a Jewish neighbor and a Jewish person doesn't want an Arab neighbor, a Muslim neighbor, because we don't have a shared history in a way.

5:21We don't have a shared background and experiences. And so now you end up with Israel, you know, entire towns that are 30 ,000 people that are of the same ethnicity. And then next to us, there's a town that's Jewish, 100 % Jewish. And it's just, it's crazy that this is the world we live in. So you grew up in this village and, you know, that was the world you knew. And I guess when you grew up, you really had a dream of being an astronaut. Yeah. I wanted to be an astronaut. I thought the only worthy thing to do is to do space. Yeah. Still might be. Then reality hit. I was a Muslim. You needed physical traits that you can't control, like perfect eyesight.

6:05But also you need religious traits, unfortunately, at least in Israel. And I didn't have that. So that dream quickly dissipated. You couldn't become an astronaut, presumably because one of the criteria is you have to go to the military and most Palestinian Israelis do not. And if I did, I would lose my family, basically. I would be called a traitor. It would be like a betrayal, right? It seems like already in high school, you knew that if you wanted to sort of have any agency over your future, it was not going to be in Israel. It was not a glass ceiling that you can see through. It was a concrete ceiling.

6:42Like there's just no way from here. Like you can't be prime minister or it's impossible. You can't be in the broadcasting. But it's not because there are laws against it, to be clear. Like to be clear, I like Israel and I support Israel's existence and I want to make Israel better. It's just for me as a 17-year-old nobody kid, I knew that I needed to immigrate to get the opportunities and the credentials then to come back and fix this stuff. I mean, not only did you decide to come to the U.S., but you decided to apply to Harvard and you got in on a scholarship to go there. So you get to Harvard and you're studying economics and I think you're also doing computer science, right?

7:27Yeah. Yeah. And so were you thinking, all right, I'll graduate and move to Silicon Valley and get a job at a tech company? Yeah. So the question is, why did I need to be at a tech company? Because I thought tech was the ultimate equalizer. You could be a Muslim Arab Israeli and still build a nice app and people could use it because they'll never know who you are and how you look like. Right. So I thought tech could hide my identity because my identity is a big problem for me growing up. Let me hide my identity. If my product is good, you will use it and download it and give me money. While in other industries like finance, right, you have to be the culture, you have to be a bro culture, you have to be that, you have to be tall, you have to dress nice.

8:11And I just couldn't compete. But in tech, I could compete. That's why I went to tech. Yeah. I guess while you were a student, you started or you built your own search engine that was designed to do internal searches in like Facebook and Twitter. Like, did it go anywhere? Did you like, was it just a fun side project or did you actually turn that into something bigger? So, you know, when I was at Harvard, the social network movie came out and, you know, I think everybody was inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit of a fellow Harvard alumni or Harvard dropout. We can build technology products. We can create something meaningful in this world.

8:53So I tried roughly 10 times every semester I was building a company and almost all of them failed. But here we are. So I guess while you were there, you started to make videos just for fun. And tell me about how you got into that. I was just fascinating with not forgetting things. I thought that if you don't record it, it's forgotten. And so I really started to get into videos because I thought there's something there with creating a video that could last for generations. So I dabbled with it, but nothing too serious. We made one video. It did well, but it didn't feel like you could build a career out of content.

9:39This is a video that you basically sent a hamburger on a weather balloon, right, up into the stratosphere. And you videoed it, and then you put that on YouTube. And it was like, hey, I'm going to send a hamburger into space. Basically, me and my friends were one of the first to send a hamburger to see the curvature of Earth. Yeah. Not really space, curvature of Earth. We called it space because it's more fun. And it did really well. It got a million views. It made us famous for 15 seconds exactly. And then it died. Yeah. Then we're back to computer science. So you graduate and you go into the world of tech.

10:12You go work for Venmo in New York, right? As a software developer, what were you doing there? Honestly, nothing. You want the truth? Nothing. I was overpaid, underworked. 120 ,000 bucks a year. That opened my eyes to like what an effective organization look like and what an ineffective organization looks like. Yeah. Did you set out to become an entrepreneur? Was that your idea? I mean, did you think, I want to be an entrepreneur? I'm going to start here at Venmo and then I'm going to figure out what that means. You know, everything I do in life is motivated by one thing. It's not the love for money.

10:52It's not the love for fame. And it's not the love for entrepreneurship. It's anger. I'm so angry at the way the world is structured. I can't believe that we are okay with living in it. Are you okay with living in Israel where like one village is 100 % Muslim and another village is 100 % Jewish where there's literally self-segregation? How do you live in America where I was begging the United States to give me an H-1B visa and then I had win it by a lottery? Like the visa system was sucked. The New York metro subway system, like I was angry about. I was angry at so many things. I was like, I couldn't contain it.

11:30Wow. I mean, it's interesting because anger is a very powerful motivator. And I think anybody who's being honest about themselves and their lives will recognize that there are moments in their life when anger did actually have a huge impact on decisions they took. And for me, for sure, many times. But it's funny because you are certainly in your videos, like such an optimistic, positive person. And so like I wouldn't think, oh, there's Nas Daly. That guy's angry. Well, you know, anger could be utilized in both ways, right? One, you can do it to destroy. But another is could be to like show what the opposite can be.

12:11And so for me, Nas Daly is building what I want media to be like. Now, it's a lot more positive, but media today is incredibly negative, and it focuses on twisting narratives, and there's too much power in the hands of the few. And I think Nasdaily is my angry statement towards it. Yeah. All right. You're doing this job, this desk job in New York. A lot of people probably in your village are like, yeah, he's in New York. He's like living the dream. Meanwhile, you're kind of figuring out how to get out of what you see as kind of a nightmare. So what did you start to think about doing? So you're at Venmo.

12:50You're like, okay, I'm an engineer. I could go to another company, but I'll do the same goddamn engineering. And it's like, ah, it's not for me. And I wasn't the best at it. And I wanted to find something I'm good at. And my idea was, let me just quit. And let me just figure out something to do. And I found travel to be incredibly meaningful. And I thought if I travel around the world, I should document my journey. And if I have no job, I should not take a single day off, right? Taking a weekend off when you have no career, I mean, that's ultimate irresponsible. So I said, if I'm jobless, I have to work every single day for the next 1 ,000 days.

13:28So I came up with this idea. Let me make a video every day that's one minute long and put it on the internet. And by the way, were you kind of experimenting with this stuff for a while before you decided to do this? Clearly, you were proficient with a drone because I've tried a drone and I've crashed them many times. I'm useless. But clearly, you were playing around with this stuff for a while. No. So actually, I had like two days of training. Wow. I was like April 6th. I started, downloaded Final Cut Pro, learned it for two days. April 8th, I quit. And then April 9th, I started quick, quick, quick jump from the deep end of the pool.

14:06That's how I think things should be done. And so the idea was I'm going to travel. You save money, obviously, from this job. I'm going to travel and I'm going to do a one minute video every day and post it on the Internet. And was there like a bigger sort of thought around this? Like maybe this will catch on. Maybe I can like turn this into like a thing. Maybe I can I can become influential. No, none of that. people that look like me, people that have my upbringing, do not believe they'll ever be influential. People that look like me do not belong in front of the camera, maybe behind the camera, if around the camera at all.

14:42But I didn't know this would be this big. I just was frustrated, and I just wanted to see the world and tell the world what I see without filters. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, how Nosair Yassin embarks on a 1 ,000-day journey to show the world from his perspective and turns that into Nas Daily. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Lab.

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19:28Welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest is Nosair Yassin, the creator behind the Nas Daily concept, which has millions of followers from all around the world. So you post your first Nas Daily video in New York, April 9, 2016. I have no clue why I'm doing this, but I think it'll be fun. Here's the idea. Once a day, I'm going to make one video that's one minute long. That's it. In New York City, off to Egypt today, Kenya, Ethiopia, India, then Nepal, then Japan, then all the way to Man Francisco, and then back home to New York City. I'm assuming you put this out there and what, five people see it, maybe your mom and your dad.

20:10This is not on the evening news that night. It's not on the NBC news. Yes, yes. I got 75 new followers on this new page I started, and that meant the world to me. 75 people said, click, I'm going to follow your journey, my friend. All right. So did any of your friends say, you know, like, are you really going to do this video a day? Like, that's a lot of work. Like, or I mean, your parents, did they say, wait, we said you sent to Harvard. You left the village. You're in this tech company in America and you're doing what? I was making more money than my parents combined at Venmo. And now I was doing nothing.

20:52And I could watch Netflix every day, but that's not why we are born. So they didn't like it. They didn't like it. But this is why I'm so lucky because they were like, you control your life, go whatever you want. But my parents want the least risky way for me to live. I want the riskiest way for me to live. And that's where you get the clash. but luckily they were supportive and they just watched the videos. All I wanted from them was to watch the video, click like, click share. That's it. All right. So you go embark on this journey. And when you decided to launch this one minute video day, you called it Nas Daily.

21:30Yeah. Nas means people in Arabic. So people daily. Did you think that maybe you could make this into your job? Because you would eventually have to sustain yourself. So So when you embarked on the journey, did you think, okay, I got to figure out how to make this thing into a business? So I was using my savings for the first two years because I wasn't making money from this, but I had a belief. I had a belief that if I could find one person to like my video, I'm pretty damn sure I could find a hundred. If I could find a hundred, I'm pretty damn sure I could find a million. And if I can find a million, I'm pretty damn sure I can find a hundred million.

22:04Now, that was my first belief. My second belief was if I can get the attention of a million people, it is very easy to make a million dollars. I just need the attention of a million people. Views as a currency is more powerful than dollars. I'm curious about the logistics of this. Like filming a one-minute video is not just turning your camera on for a minute. Like how did you structure your day on the road? I mean you would get up and you would sketch out an idea and then you would pursue it and then you would start to film. it's 14 hours of daily work. It's not two minutes. It's not two hours.

22:40It's not five hours. It's 14 hours. It's a very well-structured day, okay? Wake up at eight, upload yesterday's video. Respond to comments for the first two hours. Start the day at 10 or 11. 11 until 2 p.m., start thinking of a video idea. I need a video idea today. I need to think of something. I need to script it. I need to find the person to make a video about. Two to six, that's when sunset is. I film it. Four hours. Film, film, film. Six to seven to eight, I go back to the hotel and I dinner and all that stuff. eight to midnight, I edit and I get the video ready, four hours to edit. And then I sleep and do this for 2.7 years every single day, no matter if it's a weekend, if it's Christmas, if it's your birthday, if your mom was in surgery, if your dad went to the hospital, it did not matter.

23:23A video had to be made. If you were sick. Oh yeah, completely. That's the least thing that mattered. And I was sick. Yeah. And were there days where you just like pointed the camera at yourself and said, this is my one minute video today. I'm in bed. I mean, were there ever days where you just kind of did that? Maybe like three, four, like less than 1%. Wow. All right. Well, let's start with how you got the attention, right? You start to post videos on Facebook, but when you just put a video up, I mean, you go on YouTube today, there are tens of millions of YouTubers who make good videos with like 50 views.

23:59So how did you get an audience? So first of all, I traveled around the world, so I tried to get local audience wherever I went. But my first 270 videos didn't really work. I was averaging like 10 ,000 views. It's pretty good. It's not bad. No, but it's 10 ,000 Facebook views. So it's 10 ,000 three-second views, which honestly means it's like 4 ,000 real views and 2 ,000 real people that care. So it's not enough to sustain anything and make any money. But for me, I was on a learning journey. So I needed to iterate as fast as possible. So I gave myself 24 hours to make a mistake. If I made a mistake on day 68, I could fix it on day 69.

24:41And so I was creating, improving every single day until I became really good at telling a story in one minute and telling it energetically and making it in 24 hours. And that's when I hit the jackpot on day 270. That was a Facebook video about how inexpensive it is to travel in Thailand. So today's mission is to go with my local Thai friend Smuky and my actual cousin Babbit to go find the cheapest noodle in all of Bangkok. This noodle cup, 12 baht, which is$0.35, 35 cents for one meal. That noodle cup is so cheap, you can buy 60 of it without breaking the bank. That video got 25 million views, I think, and kind of blew up.

25:33Yes. I don't like the fact that this is the video that went viral, but yes, how affordable Thailand is. So part of your journey, I think it was around day 320, was when you went back to Israel where you grew up and you started to make videos. And that really created some tension. I mean, on the one hand, I think the majority of people loved your videos. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Arabs, Israelis like them. But there were a lot of people who didn't like them because you would do videos that seemed counterintuitive. Like, for example, you made videos about, you know, Arab doctors in Israel and you made videos about, you know, Israelis and Palestinians playing backgammon together or just a video about how expensive Tel Aviv is.

26:18You know, you weren't doing videos that maybe some Palestinians would want you to make or people in the Arab world would want you to make about Israel that were negative. I mean, there were a lot of people, particularly in the Arab world, who didn't like what you were doing and were telling you that online. Yeah. So, like, all media companies, for as far as I can remember, is only doing critical videos about Israel. It's making Israel look like it is the worst place on planet Earth, worse than North Korea. And my personal experience was the opposite of that. I mean, it wasn't rosy, but it wasn't as dark as they make it sound.