While other corporations succumbed to the pandemic, Michael Pusateri thrived off it
It’s upsetting to reflect on these past two years co-existing with COVID-19—it was something no one could have foreseen, and has had serious implications on millions of livelihoods and businesses around the globe. But for a sparse bunch, they’ve managed to avoid that fate. Michael Pusateri, CEO of Bent Pixels is one of such individuals. As the world’s largest gaming lifestyle media platform, Bent Pixels works with content creators to help generate earnings on YouTube by connecting them with advertisers, producing and distributing video content at scale through branded campaigns. Learn more below as Pusateri talks about the pandemic, working remotely, and “campers” in video games.
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How did the pandemic affect your business?
Our business is focused on YouTube, which was positively affected dramatically. A lot of people were in lockdown watching YouTube content. We noticed a 20 to 30 per cent increase in views across our creator partners. Subsequently, our revenue was very positively affected as well. We feel very fortunate to be a company that was not negatively affected by the pandemic like so many others were.
Were there any internal changes born from the pandemic that will remain once the dust settles?
We’ve always had a distributed team worldwide, but the pandemic solidified that policy even more. Our productivity remained with the team members doing sales or business development and creator-focused efforts.
What significant shifts are you expecting in the near future for your business?
Bent Pixels has been in the creator economy for over 14 years, and we couldn’t be more excited for the continued growth and evolution of creators as they build bigger audiences and business around them. We focused on bringing in additional financial resources and helping creators grow monetisation in areas they can’t do themselves—these two important additions will expand in accordance with the growth of our partners and the markets we work in, like APAC. We expect continued development across Asia including the markets we are focused on which includes the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Do you see a future of more businesses incorporating remote work to their daily operation?
Businesses in our space: the creator economy, will continue to incorporate and expand remote work for sure. Creative aspects of the business will have to be collaborative and most of it will be live, but all other aspects of running a creator business and driving revenue for those creators we work with can be effectively managed remotely.
What is something you have learnt from a video game?
I’ve learned “campers” do not survive long in most video games. In other words, you better keep moving. If you stay in the same place; remain stagnant in the war zone, for example, you’re dead and that’s exactly how it is in business. Don’t be a camper!
