Making Something From Nothing: Ira Belsky Of Artlist On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Hire people that are smarter than you — When starting a company, hiring is a step you haven’t yet thought about because you don’t know which kinds of employees you need and how they will help you. When you get to the point where you’re ready to hire, pick experts in their fields and give them the freedom and motivation to do their job.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ira Belsky.

Ira Belsky is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Artlist, a leading creative technology company with products that provide content creators with editing software tools and over 880K digital assets. A self-taught filmmaker with a lifelong passion for creating beautiful and stimulating visuals, Ira brings both creative instincts and business savvy to Artlist, now a leader in the creative stock licensing industry.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born and raised in the Golan Heights, Northern Israel, in a home of farmers who grew all kinds of crops such as mango and grapefruit. I’ve felt connected to my artistic side since I was young. I liked drawing and was attracted to the world of video and filmmaking early on. After I served in the army, I worked as a freelance video filmmaker, editor, and producer.

Although one of my brothers studied photography in college, I am the only one in my family who chose this path and decided to turn my hobby into a full-time profession. That is also how I came up with the idea for Artlist with my co-founders. As a filmmaker, I recognized the need for a quality, affordable online music catalog.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Simple common sense is the key to decision-making. If you can’t explain something in a short, simple sentence, then you probably don’t understand it well enough to make a decision.

I believe that following our most basic logic can help us get better insights in both personal and business decisions.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I’m a very visual person, I’ve always felt more connected to visual design and drawing. In the film and video creation world, No Country for Old Men is a film that had a big impression on me early on. I like movies that powerfully connect the narrative and the visual. I feel as if this movie represents what inspires me.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Our company’s success does not mean that we know a “secret to success” that other people don’t. We believe in a delicate combination of good ideas based on a correct understanding of the market and its needs, plus the relevant abilities to execute those ideas at a high enough level to meet demand. This equation is relatively simple on its face but complicated to execute. You need a bit of luck, but you also need to make the most of the opportunities that are presented to you. Good timing is often one of the most important factors, as is an accurate execution capability and a successful vision of the right model that will provide the most significant value to users.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

I believe that if you are going to do something nobody has ever done before, then it is probably not something people need. Almost anything you can think of has been done before in some way, shape or form. The chance that no one has come up with your idea before is pretty slim.

You will hardly find a successful product that was not based on something similar. It’s all a matter of development and the market’s maturity for that product.

Even seemingly new ideas are rooted in previous ones, then refined in a particular way. Social networking existed prior to Facebook. Before TikTok, there was Vine. Before Apple there was Microsoft. The list is endless.

From the early days of Artlist, we believed that the very existence of our competitors pointed to the value and potential of our industry. The question you need to ask yourself is either: “Do I have an idea that produces a great value?” or “Can my idea truly disrupt or revolutionize the market?” Both can work.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

• Identify, characterize, and understand the existing state of the market and its needs.
• Define and refine your USPs.
• Define the MVP, including the product’s business model.
• Understand the development budget and find a funding source if needed — in our case, Artlist started as a bootstrap.
• Build your product with a knowledge of both similar and less similar products in the global market. Even before you have even created a database of users, it’s important to understand the market’s best practices.
• Build a marketing plan.
• Launch the product.
• Monitor product development and keep refining and improving it based on new information from your users and the market.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

You shouldn’t try to know everything on day one. If you want to succeed, it’s more important to learn and develop your knowledge along the way rather than think about what could have been. Even so, everyone can benefit from these tips early on:

1. Simple is smart — A good idea is one that can be explained simply. At the beginning of our product building, there were complex and philosophical discussions about how it would work and how it should feel. Then we realized that if there are certain things we can’t explain and justify simply and briefly, it’s because we don’t understand them enough and we’re not ready to take them on at that moment. Your ability to explain more and more aspects of your product and vision simply is a sign you’re making progress.
2. A critical component of making informed decisions is data — We logged our first 1,000 subscribers with pen and paper. Lots of early decisions were based on gut feelings. That comes with the territory. As we gathered data, however, our confidence in our decision-making and trajectory grew. That said, don’t avoid making decisions if your data is lacking. That can hold you back, too, especially at the start.
3. It’s a marathon, not a sprint — We initially thought there would come a day and a milestone that would let us declare the product was a success. As we progressed, we realized that this finish line is still far away. I’ve replaced my vision of early beachside retirement — ice-cold margarita in hand, of course — with my hunger to keep growing Artlist and chasing all kinds of business success.
4. Concentrate on building a good business rather than increasing profit — Over time, we realized that the success of the business and our success can’t be separated. Good businesses attract and retain good employees. This requires patience and prioritizing. The product and the health of the company come first.
5. Hire people that are smarter than you — When starting a company, hiring is a step you haven’t yet thought about because you don’t know which kinds of employees you need and how they will help you. When you get to the point where you’re ready to hire, pick experts in their fields and give them the freedom and motivation to do their job.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

It depends what kind of person you are. Personally speaking, I am an autodidact. I taught myself how to be a video creator and an entrepreneur. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree or formal training in business. However, I know how to teach myself skills and find information, especially on the internet, so I never felt the need for someone to guide me professionally. That does not take away from people who seek professional guidance — that has real value, too. For the most part, it’s important to find people who have done what you’re doing and grow those relationships. They can provide insight and help you understand whatever comes next. I co-founded Artlist with three other people, and the variety of opinions was great. It was like each of us had three full-time consultants.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Both methods are excellent. It really depends on the product, its development cost and how much time the the founders can devote to product development.

If you can bootstrap, I think it’s a good way to keep your company in your control, and more importantly — it keeps the focus on the value you produce for your users rather than for your investors.

There are serious benefits to venture capital investment, however, and it’s a standard step for most companies at some point in their development. Artlist started as a bootstrapped company and when we became more established we enjoyed support from investors. A large part of our current growth is thanks to our investors.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Artlist pays tens of millions of dollars out to the creators who stock our catalogs with innovative, high-quality music, footage, SFX, and other tools and digital assets to millions of content creators to express their ideas. We’re very proud to say that we help so many creators and artists worldwide make a decent living from their work.

Within the company, there are so many employees who feel Artlist is just the right place for them. Our employees work for a company that encourages them to express their talent and creativity in the best possible way. Creativity is key to our corporate culture, and I’m personally very proud of that.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I want to build products that allow people to continue creating, both by supporting and rewarding creators financially for their work, and by connecting them with potential collaborators who can enrich each other’s work. It is true that we have a business value in this equation even today, but if I were thinking of my dream from the perspective of doing good for the world, going beyond my personal value, I would like to affect the lives of millions.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would say Neil deGrasse Tyson, who’s an astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science educator. What’s incredible about him is how he made scientific and logical thinking accessible to everyone. I am interested in meeting him because I feel we have a similar way of thinking. It’s amazing to me how he took it upon himself to be the face of scientific and logical thinking. He has inspired so many people who would otherwise might not have been interested in science and astronomy.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.