Enterprenuer
Ira Belsky, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Artlist, is a top creative technology company that provides content creators with editing tools and more than 880K digital assets.
Ira is a self-taught filmmaker who has a passion for creating stimulating visuals.
Artist, a creative stock and licensing leader, bring together creative instincts and business savvy.
From where did the idea of Artlist originate?
In northern Israel, the company was founded by four friends in 2016.
Itzik Elbaz, a web developer at Mellanox and co-CEO of Artlist Today. Eyal Raz, a music producer (CCO at Artlist Today), and I, a freelance creator and CEO of Artlist Today.
Before Artlist’s foundation, music licensing was made on a pay-per-song basis.
This model proved difficult for many indie filmmakers.
Artist founder Ira Belsky was one of those filmmakers.
Along with Itzik and Eyal, and Assaf, he decided to combine the growing demand for royalty-free music in video with the subscription-based model of companies such as Spotify and Adobe.
They saw a gap between low-quality stock music created for profit and high-quality music in a premium film industry.
Artist, a pioneering creative technology company, has grown to offer content creators powerful video editing software and over 880,000 digital assets.
This license covers all projects worldwide.
Artlist has four products to help people tell their stories through video.
Artlist.io is a royalty-free music platform and SFX platform. Artgrid.io is a curated stock footage marketplace.
MotionArray.com is an all-in-one marketplace that allows creators to upload video templates, presets, and music.
FXhome is a cutting-edge image, VFX, and video editing software.
Artist collaborates with a growing number of creative contributors around the world.
It updates its catalogs every day with new content while maintaining consistently high quality across all its media and platforms.
Artist was founded in 2016 and has been a pioneer in the industry, offering subscription-based products with an unparalleled license.
It is now the best 360-degree solution for content creators.
Artlist is a top startup, according to WIRED and LinkedIn.
It counts Google, Apple, and Nike among its 16 million customers.
How do you make your day more productive?
My day is dominated by meeting people. This could be in meeting rooms, casually in the hallways, or during coffee breaks.
I believe in personal contact with employees and make sure that everyone I meet feels valued and heard.
With a toddler and newborn at home, it isn’t easy to find a balance between work and family.
How can you bring your ideas to life?
It is essential to build a team of talented professionals around you that can complement each other, use the same language, and share ideas.
Next, you need to create organizational processes that make strategy real.
Which trend is your favorite?
The content democratization trend is fascinating to me.
I love seeing how millions of creators have opened new worlds of ideas and content.
This trend continues to produce new content that was previously unknown.
Which habit makes you more productive as an entrepreneur than another?
Recognizing your strengths and focusing on them is an excellent way to go.
This will allow you to limit the amount of energy you spend on areas you don’t know and maximize the daily potential you have.
Separating work and pleasure is another essential habit. It makes me more productive over the long term.
We are not trying to save lives, and no one will die if they finish what we started today.
What advice would your younger self give you?
It takes time for things to become successful. You must be patient and understand that everything evolves at its own pace. Give them time to grow.
We need to hear something you believe is accurate and that nearly everyone agrees with.
Unpopular belief: The next generation will be more successful than we.
Many people believe that young people are more focused on their phones than on their education or intellectual growth. But I don’t think so.
Young people today want to be YouTubers and content creators.
This shows that they are creative and desire to be innovative and competitive.
It doesn’t make a difference if you want to be famous today or when you were younger.
What is one thing that you recommend to everyone as a successful entrepreneur?
Do not limit yourself to explaining what your idea is.
Always try to explain the reasoning behind it.
People who know the reasoning behind their actions are more productive and have a more significant impact than those who know how and what to do.
Which strategy has been most successful in growing your business?
Keep your eyes on the users and think about improving the product.
Because I am from the same place as our users, I can identify with them.
Therefore, I try to see things from their perspective and not mine as Co-CEO.
Because of this, I find it a benefit when someone attempts to solve a problem they have experienced.
How did you overcome that failure as an entrepreneur?
We needed to grow equally in all of our branches as a company.
We did not want to focus our efforts on the country’s center; we wanted to expand in the less developed regions.
We are working hard to recruit workers from developing countries.
We are making progress, but it is something we will continue working on in the future.
Which business idea would you be willing to share with our readers?
Right now, I am focused on developing Artlist products.
I’m constantly thinking about how we can add more value to our users and how to improve their experience.
Artlist is the only business I’m involved in. I have no time for other business ideas.
Artist would not have been founded if I wasn’t interested in entrepreneurship and innovation.
Which was the most expensive $100 you spent recently? Which and why?
It cost less than $100, but my wife and I bought costumes for our children for Purim, which is a Jewish Halloween.
Watching my daughter walk around in the Little Mermaid as Ariel with a big smile was well worth it.
Which piece of software or web service can you use to help you be more productive?
TikTok – Despite all the negative reviews about the app, it allows me to clear my mind and connect with our users deeper.
Which book would you recommend to our community? Why?
Since I am more visual than a person, I consume most of my content via video.
Hans Rosling is a Swedish doctor, epidemiologist, and statistic expert.
He was a Public Health Science professor at Karolinska Institute, one of the top medical schools in the country.
He spoke about all the misconceptions we have about our world and how it is highly probable that we will be wrong about everything we think we know.
https://youtu.be/Sm5xF-UYgdg
Another recommendation would be a YouTuber and video creator I admire who creates thought-provoking, enriching, and educational content.
This is an excellent example of what I was saying about the younger generation.
Vsauce delivers meaningful content via video to the entire world.
And in the video below, he talks about why every generation fears its successor and shows that, in actuality, generations improve over time.
That fear stems from our suspiciousness of new things: https://youtu.be/LD0x7ho_IYc.
Which quote is your favorite?
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter note.”
(The first instance of this was a sentence that was translated from a text by Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician/philosopher.
This quote states that being concise is more accessible than being verbose.
However, it takes more work. I can relate to this.
What could the Key Learnings “Ira Belsky” offer to Enterprenuer readers?
To maximize your business and personal success, surround yourself with talented people from diverse fields.
Do not assume that you are the expert on everything.
Listen to other opinions and challenge the status quo to find exciting new ventures.
Reflect on the logic behind all your actions and thoughts.
This will help you understand why you do what you do and rally others to work together towards a common goal.
