Come April, travel vlogger Nas Daily will be hiring for his team in S'pore

SINGAPORE — Fans of the Nas Daily videos may soon get a chance to work with the popular travel vlogger behind them, as he plans to set up a video production house here and double his team.

Mr Nuseir Yassin, the 27-year-old behind the popular video series, said on Thursday (March 21) that he plans to arrive in Singapore by April 20, and hire about five more people to join the Nas Daily Media Company in the “next few months”.

“The goal is to get a whole big office right next to the Facebook office in the big Marina (One) Tower…so it’s just a matter of time until we get there,” he told TODAY in a phone interview from Israel. 

Mr Yassin’s move to Singapore was first announced on Instagram by his girlfriend Alyne Tamir on Wednesday.

He will be here on the EntrePass, a work permit that allows foreign entrepreneurs to start a business in Singapore. The permit lasts for a year and has to be renewed at the end of the period.

The Palestinian-Israeli Harvard graduate, who is known for visiting different countries and documenting his experiences in one-minute videos on his Facebook channel, said that he will also continue to publish weekly videos on social issues once he is here to “keep the channel alive”.

However, his production house will focus more on creating Facebook videos for clients.

It will be “one of the best, if not the best” company for creating such videos, he said.

“If you’re a start-up looking for good videos that explain what you do… you should probably go with the Nas Daily company, because (it) lives and breathes Facebook videos.”

CLAPBACK AT THE HATERS

Mr Yassin, who has had to fend off accusations that his ultra-positive videos on Singapore were sponsored by the Government here, stressed that he was “self-funding” the company’s move.

He chose Singapore as his base as it is near the countries that he wants to visit next, such as Australia, China, India and Vietnam.

Besides that, the “straightforward” tax system, good Internet connection and business-friendly environment made it a no-brainer, he added.

“If you're building a business, that's the kind of environment you’d want to be in.” 

He said he had also considered Israel, a place he describes as “the Singapore of the Middle East”, San Francisco in the United States and Berlin in Germany as potential bases for his company.

Mr Yassin is well aware of the vocal critics here who do not think highly of his previous portrayals of Singapore, a place he has named “the almost perfect country”. They have said that his videos gloss over the challenges and problems faced by citizens.

To them, he has this message: “Actual criticism is great, but kids playing with their keyboards on the Internet are not worthy of attention.”

He is also well aware that Singapore is not perfect, he said.

However, it would have been impolite “to go to someone else’s home and start criticising them” if he had not lived there long enough, he noted.

Besides, he added, the main point of his videos is to highlight the best aspects of every country he visits, and to share those with a global audience.

“You might be sick of NEWater, sick of the airport… But when (citizens of) other countries suffer two hours just to go through the airport, or have water pollution… it is important for them to learn that someone else (has managed to solve it).”

THE PEOPLE’S SUMMIT

Aside from setting up his company here, Mr Yassin is planning to host an annual "Nas" summit or conference — he is still mulling the name.

“Nas means people in Arabic. So this conference will be all about the people of Singapore, by the people of Singapore,” he said.

Mr Yassin said that the planned day-long conference, which he hopes to hold the same week he arrives, will be a non-profit venture and will likely be a “money-losing event”.

But it is important to him to begin his journey in Singapore this way, he said.

“I want to bring the average Singaporean, the rich Singaporean, the poor Singaporean together for one day and just talk about the story of Singapore. The good, the bad, anything. Everybody gets a chance to share something with everybody.”