Booming Digital Stars E-Book

Harsh Pamnani

• Herausgeber: Pencil
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 287

Beschreibung

11 Inspiring Journeys from India's Creator Economy

Leseprobe

Praise For The Book

Harsh is an outstanding writer! I frequently read his articles and books. The kind of people he covers are truly inspirational, and the insights he shares are beneficial. This book by Harsh and Manish, covers the inspiring journeys of individuals who have created their unique paths using digital platforms. Digital is the future! I advise people to learn from these stories and do something innovative and impactful using digital technologies!

–Anand Kumar, Founder, Super 30

If the last several decades in Marketing were about building sustainable corporate brands, the next decade will be about building personal brands. Harsh Pamnani and Manish Pandey have written a gem on how to build strong personal brands. Everyone who cares about succeeding in a digital world should know and understand the journeys covered in this book.

–Kartik Hosanagar, Professor, The Wharton School

Harsh Pamnani and Manish Pandey display a rare intimacy with their subjects. They are candid and objective, yet warm and endearing. Their stories demystify the people we meet in newspaper headlines. They make them human without taking away their glories.

–Dr. Sandeep Goyal, Managing Director, Rediffusion

Today’s digital content creators are change-makers, thought leaders, and bigger than many politicians, cinema, and sports stars. I would like to congratulate Harsh and Manish for bringing out this revolutionary book with the 11 inspiring journeys of prominent digital content creators of India. This book will not only introduce you to these youth powers, but it will also tell you about India that has become powerful once again. Read on to discover the new India that the world will stand up and salute.

–Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai, Director, Chanakya International Institute of Leadership Studies & Bestselling Author

Manish has been tracking TVF literally since the beginning of this creator revolution, when India saw its first-ever original online content in our video Rowdies (2012), which became the first viral hit. He had the vision of how this Creator Economy would explode, more than we as creators did. Given that Manish has guided some of the top creators of India, like BeerBiceps, for over a decade, there is no one better than he, and Harsh, to give us a glimpse of the creators’ world.

–Arunabh Kumar, Founder, The Viral Fever (TVF)

BOOMINGDIGITAL STARS

11 INSPIRING JOURNEYS FROM INDIA’S CREATOR ECONOMY

BY

HARSH PAMNANI & MANISH PANDEY

ISBN 978-93-5458-955-3

© Harsh Pamnani & Manish Pandey, 2021

© Caricatures: Harsh Pamnani & Manish Pandey, 2021

Cover design: Ashish Samant

Caricatures: Prashant Arts

Layout: Ashish Samant & Priyanka Sawant

Printing: Thomson Press

Published in India 2022 by Pencil Select

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All rights reserved worldwide.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Any person who commits an unauthorized act in relation to this publication can be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not purport to represent the views of the Publisher. The book’s contents are based on interviews of the respective persons and information in the public domain with some creativity in the narration of the incidents/ acts/moments/sentences. The authors do not make any warranties about its accuracy, comprehensiveness and disclaim any responsibility or liability for the same. All the contents of the book, including caricatures, are made for information and entertainment purposes and doesn’t intend to defame, malign, disrespect, impair, disparage the belief, faith, or sentiments or reputation of any person(s), community(ies), organization (s), religion, caste or nationality in any manner whatsoever.

We dedicate this book to everyCreator and every Enabler of theemerging Creator Economy.

And to our families, friends andmentors, who have stood by us always.

Meet The Authors

HARSH PAMNANI

‘To create a better version of yourself, surround yourself with the people who are amongst the best in their fields, understand why they are leading and inculcate their good habits. In the digital world, access to a lot of content is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Choose carefully what you consume.’

Harsh is a storyteller by passion and a brand expert by profession. He earned his B.E. in Computer Engineering from IET-DAVV, Indore, and his MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur. His bestselling book series Booming Brands, was widely acclaimed by eminent academicians, Indian government leaders, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Harsh also writes for various business publications, including Forbes. He has worked variously with think-tanks like the World Bank, corporates like Deloitte, and start-ups like FirstCry. He also teaches Branding at MBA colleges like MICA, Ahmedabad, and is a popular speaker at fora such as TEDx, Google Business Group, Josh Talks, IIT, and IIM.

Contact: www.harshpamnani.com

MANISH PANDEY

‘Your past doesn’t define your future. If you are honest with yourself and your goal, you can craft an inspiring journey. In the digital world, whoever holds the power of the community is a king or queen of their own space. Sometimes, when people become famous, they show arrogance. Stay humble.’

Manish is a much sought after brand consultant, social media evangelist, and mentor to new-age digital brands and Influencers. He is currently part of the leadership team at Josh Talks, one of India’s largest and fastest-growing impact platforms.

Contact: [email protected]

Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn: @join2manish

Contents

Introduction

Making Your Mark

Bhuvan Bam

Ashish Chanchlani

Kabita Singh

Nikunj Lotia

Prajakta Koli

Ranveer Allahbadia

Madan Gowri

Team Naach

Yashraj Mukhate

Abhi & Niyu

Ujjwal Chaurasia

Reflections & Afterthoughts

Acknowledgements

Introduction

21st Century: An Era to Monetize your Creativity

Business has only two basic functions

– marketing and innovation.

Peter Drucker

We are all born with our own innate passions, strengths and talents, such as singing, dancing, acting, cooking, telling stories, making others laugh... But only a few of us are encouraged, either by our parents, or the social system we live in, to turn our passions into professions. Why is this?

Perhaps because our elders know of the struggles creative people inevitably face. Every year, many talented people come from India’s small towns to the large cities like Mumbai, only to face rejection at auditions and interviews. The few who do get a chance to showcase their talent, struggle to make a living. Even fewer ever aspire to a comfortable life.

On the other hand, conventional jobs allow people to earn decent livelihoods. Thus, even highly creative people are pushed towards regular jobs with steady salaries. We have all come across people who speak in dull tones about their monotonous jobs but sound excited when relating stage or debating performances in school or college. Regrettably, they have had to sacrifice their inner passions to achieve socially acceptable lifestyles.

If this unfortunate reality has been your own experience, do not give into pathos just yet, for all is not lost. There is now another scenario.

If you have spent some time on the Internet in the last 10 years, you will have noticed something different happening in India. From nowhere, digital content companies such as The Viral Fever (TVF) and Pocket Aces, have emerged and created national visibility for artists performing at local theatres and gigs. You will also have noticed content creators like Bhuvan Bam, Ashish Chanchlani, and Prajakta Koli, interviewing filmstars and endorsing brands. Who are they? How did they get here?

They are regular people who have forged unique paths to success by turning their passions into their professions. Welcome to the new India, where more and more people are making money on the Internet by following their passions and doing what they do best. This emerging trend is called the Creator Economy. It is worth our while to explore it in some depth here.

The Creator Economy features small businesses centered around independent content creators such as video bloggers, writers, comedians, musicians, etc., who monetize themselves, their skills, and their creations. But these small businesses differ from traditional small businesses such as salons or grocery stores. These new-age small businesses are powered by numerous digital technologies, which give them a global reach from day one. They go where the internet goes.

To expand the customer base, a salon manager needs greater input of time and effort. Hence s/he can only serve a limited number of customers a day, resulting in limited earnings. However, digital assets once created, can be sold infinite times, allowing creators to expand earnings without extending time and effort.

Since many people pursue their passions part-time, it is not easy to guess at the figures relating to the Creator Economy. However, we found some interesting numbers in the public domain. According to SignalFire, a leading venture capital fund in the Creator Economy, more than 50 million people worldwide consider themselves creators, despite the Creator Economy having been born just a decade ago. According to CB Insights, brand deals are the largest monetization opportunity creators have. But many new monetization opportunities such as online courses, subscriptions, own brands, affiliate links, monetary tips, etc., are also emerging.

You might be curious to know why creators get brand deals. Here is the answer. For a long time, marketers relied on traditional media channels and celebrity endorsements to create brand awareness and boost sales. However, conventional marketing techniques no longer suit the millennials, who prefer social media to watching TV or reading newspapers. Content creators who enjoy a large following on social media are termed Influencers. Many Influencers forge genuine connections with their followers, who tend to consider them as experts in their respective niches and so take their recommendations seriously. By collaborating with Influencers and leveraging their relationship with followers, brands generate awareness and increase sales. This practice is called Influencer Marketing. Generally, the cost of collaboration with a social media Influencer is less than the cost of collaboration with a filmstar or cricket celebrity. So in the same budget, a brand can collaborate with multiple Influencers instead of one celebrity, and can achieve tremendous reach with greater frequency. Now that makes sense!

To underline the rise of Influencer Marketing, here are some figures. According to eMarketer, 84% of marketers prefer to launch at least one campaign with an Influencer. Business Insider Intelligence estimates that the Influencer Marketing industry will be worth about $15 billion by 2022. According to digital marketing agency AdLift, India’s Influencer market is estimated at $75-150 million a year. These significant figures suggest that Influencers are more likely to impact consumer buying decisions in the immediate future. You may have already experienced Influencer Marketing. Recall your interaction with the brand messages of leading start-ups in industries such as fintech, ed-tech, neobank, or even FMCG, fashion, cosmetics, and travel. It is likely you have become aware of many new brands through Influencers or friends who follow Influencers.

Now let’s have a look at some of the technologies and players fuelling the rise of the Creator Economy.

Creation tools: Steve Jobs once said, ‘Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them’. The tool that laid the foundation of the Creator Economy was the personal computer. Because of computers, people began to create information digitally. When information became digital, it became easier to edit, share and search. Another tool that has accelerated the growth of this economy is the user-friendly smartphone with its powerful digital camera. Smartphones allow even amateurs to become professional photographers and videographers. Numerous tools have emerged to help creators express their creativity. For instance, many artists use GarageBand to create music. Design tools such as Canva allow creators to create visual content. Online recording platform Riverside.fm enables creators to record studio-quality videos and podcasts.

Media platforms: For decades, large media houses controlled the world of content. Editors held the power to make or break the destiny of any struggling artist. Now internet-enabled platforms have changed the game by removing the traditional gatekeepers. These platforms help creators distribute their creations, get discovered, and establish an audience base. For example, the blogging platform Medium is popular with writers, the audio streaming platform Spotify with musicians and podcasters, and the online video-sharing platform YouTube with video-bloggers and filmmakers. By creating visibility through these platforms, creators can earn the social currency of reputation and attention, which can then be monetised in various ways. Many platforms also split their ad revenue with creators.

You might wonder how good and bad creators are differentiated on these platforms. The quick answer is that these platforms capture audience feedback in the form of comments, likes, and shares. This online word of mouth acts as a catalyst to connect to new audiences, like a chain of reinforcement. These platforms have algorithms that help in recommending suitable content to different audiences.

Creator management agencies: Once creators have built a substantial audience base, they are approached by brands to advertise products and services. Events, performances and speaking opportunities emerge. To remain trusted with their audience base, creators have to be careful about the brands they choose to partner with. They cannot sacrifice content quality to push a brand message. These commercial transactions can divert a creator’s focus from his/her primary activity – creating exciting content for their specific audience.

This is where the role of talent management agencies comes in. They alleviate the commercial pressure on creators by selecting brand deals, negotiating contracts, planning brand campaigns, and conducting in-depth post-campaign analysis. For their service, these agencies take a percentage of the creator’s earnings. In the past few years, many talent management agencies have emerged in India, of which Monk Entertainment (Monk-E), Artist Aadmi, OpraahFx, and One Digital Entertainment are the best known ones.

Creator marketplaces: Marketplaces act as intermediaries between creator supply and customer demand. To use an analogy, these marketplaces are like Uber and Amazon, where creators can sign up and start earning revenue with a minimal set-up. Marketplaces typically charge creators a subscription fee plus a percentage on brand campaigns. These marketplaces have built-in analytics and reporting capabilities that help brands analyze their campaign outcomes. To name a few examples, Gumroad enables creators to sell software, e-books, PDFs, and other digital goods. Tag Mango and Pepper Content are the leading marketplaces of Indian origin that have empowered creators to become financially independent. Marketplaces flourish when they provide sufficient growth opportunities to creators. So, besides customers, marketplaces provide necessary tools and training to creators. For instance, Teachable’s online teacher community provides a dedicated space for creators in a similar business phase to network.

Given new market conditions, especially related to Covid-19, more people are exploring how to monetize their passions. As more creators enter the supply side, more ecosystem players, tools, and business models are emerging to support them. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Instagram would build a suite of Influencer tools to connect them to brands. Interestingly, venture capital funding in the Creator Economy start-up space has skyrocketed. Many global as well as Indian start-ups have raised millions of dollars from marquee investors. Some investors are also coming forward to invest in individual creators.

You will have realized by reading thus far that the Creator Economy is BOOMING! The market will inevitably see a crowding of creators. When a market gets crowded the customer (demand) gets numerous choices, while the creator (supply) faces immense competition. But a plethora of choices also leads to customer confusion. A wrong choice can spoil their experience and turn them away. As a case in point, if multiple customers experience poor quality work, this emerging economy could collapse.

To avoid confusion and get desired value, customers use brands as quality-guarantee shortcuts to make choices. In fact, they pay a higher price for a trustworthy brand even if an unknown alternative is available at a lower price. As in the products market, brands are also preferred in the creators market. However, many creators are clueless about what they need to do to stand out as a brand. There are also popular misconceptions. Many creators think that by gaining social media followers, they can create their brand. That is incorrect. A personal brand is not made just by the number of social media followers. Customers do not look for general popularity, rather they seek out a creator who is known for something. In marketing terms, what they look for is a brand with positioning.

You know by now that though the size of the Creator economy is humongous and the available opportunities immense, the chances of creators getting lost in the crowd are higher than the chances of getting noticed. But where there are problems, there is also literature with case studies and solutions. There have been many books written about becoming the CEO of a large corporation or creating a fast-growing start-up, and business schools teach how to analyze and manage large businesses. But it is hard to find a book or business school course on creating and managing a single-person brand in an emerging Creator Economy. Hence this book. You may justifiably wonder what special insights we have to offer. Read on and you will find details of the solutions we have created.

Though the market is crowded, India has seen the rise of an entirely new breed of first-generation creators who have established powerful personal brands through their content, entrepreneurial mindset, and social media. Due to their increasing popularity and credibility, they are often perceived as role models, not just by their followers, but businesses, mainstream media, and Bollywood (in itself a great Influencer). These creators have begun replacing traditional celebrities such as filmstars and athletes in brand endorsements and promotions. They are even seen in web series and movies. In this book, you will find 11 stories of leading Indian creators and gain insights on:

1.How they started from scratch.

2.How they achieved popularity in a highly crowded and competitive market.

3.How they identify new ideas for content creation and brand collaboration.

And much more. The lessons captured in these stories will help aspiring and emerging creators build their brand in their chosen niche. If you have a skill, you have an opportunity to shine a light on it and earn a livelihood. Why sit and wait for Godot when you can leverage the power of the Creator Economy? Move ahead to turn your passion into your profession.

We wish you a great innings in the marketplace.

MAKING YOUR MARK

Before you tell yourself you have no right to invent this or improve that, remind yourself that the person before you had no right either, but did it anyway.

Seth Godin

CHAPTER 1

BHUVAN BAM

From Restaurant Singer to High Value Digital Star

Work hard in silence; let your success be your noise.

Frank Ocean

When you think of Indian cinema, which name comes to mind first? Amitabh Bachchan, perhaps? He is generally regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. And when you think of the Indian start-up ecosystem, which name comes to mind? Flipkart, maybe? It is generally thought to be India’s biggest and most successful start-up story. And when you consider Indian YouTubers, which name springs to mind? Bhuvan Bam of a certainty, acknowledged as India’s greatest YouTube sensation.

Bhuvan was the first Indian to hit two million subscribers on YouTube. As impressive as that is, he was also the first Indian to cross 10 million subscribers on YouTube. As of April 2021, over 40 million people follow him on various social media channels. Bhuvan’s life is a classic rags-to-riches story. A youngster of 18, he would sing gigs at Delhi’s Moti Mahal Deluxe restaurant, for a meagre monthly earning of INR 3,000. While his pockets were practically empty, he was full of hope and aspiration.

By the age of 25, he was a self-made millionaire.

The winner of dozens of awards such as Global Entertainer of the Year, at the World Bloggers Awards in Cannes, France, Most Popular Channel on YouTube, at the WebTVAsia Awards held in South Korea, Bhuvan also appeared on Forbes India’s 30 Under 30 list. He was the first Indian YouTuber to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

Bhuvan’s achievements did not end there. He appeared in the short film, Plus Minus, which earned him a Filmfare Award. In December 2018, he began a digital series on YouTube called Titu Talks, that featured Shah Rukh Khan as his first guest. By February 2021, he had released seven music videos, including Heer Ranjha, which became the #1 hit song across charts on iTunes within an hour of its release. Bhuvan is one of the few Influencers in India associated with multiple famous brands. Currently, he is the brand ambassador for Myntra. In the past, he has been brand ambassador for Tissot, Pizza Hut, and Lenskart. Bhuvan also runs a merchandising brand – Youthiapa, and a production company – BB Ki Vines Productions.

But success was not instantaneous. When Bhuvan started his YouTube journey, his first four videos received only 15 views. However, in less than five years, Bhuvan had become India’s first digital content creator with 3 billion collective views. Considering his humble beginnings, Bhuvan’s journey is the stuff we dream of. But it is true.

This is his story.

The beginning

Bhuvan Bam was born on 22 January 1994, in Baroda, Gujarat, into a middle-class family. His family later moved to Delhi. As a child Bhuvan had little interest in academics. He preferred to watch movies featuring the noted comedians of Hindi cinema – Govinda, Kader Khan, Johnny Lever... Repeating their filmi dialogues became a favourite pastime. His passion and natural flair for comedy was not limited to the home. In school, he would entertain his fellow pupils by mimicking their teachers. Besides comedy, he loved sketching. While others bent to their books in class, he would doodle and draw.

When Bhuvan was in class IV, his mother enrolled him in a classical music class. Initially, he found it very dull. But as he gradually grew to understand that classical music was the foundation of all types of music, he applied himself seriously. He learnt to play harmonium, keyboard, and guitar. Music became an instrinsic part of his life.

Bhuvan’s goal was to be a singer-musician. However, his parents, especially his mother, wanted him to do B.Com from the prestigious Delhi University (DU). The cut-off for the B.Com course in the top colleges ranged between 91% and 99%. In Junior College, Bhuvan scored 74%, far short of the required percentile for admission. He ended up choosing to study History at Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, DU.

During his undergraduate years, Bhuvan joined a Delhi-based band called Astitva as lead singer. The band performed gigs at restaurants and private parties. In early 2015, a turning point arrived when he saw a news video covering the floods in Kashmir. In the video, a journalist asked a mother, who had just lost her child in the floods, how she felt. Bhuvan was stunned by the insensitivity shown by the reporter. Using his newly brought smartphone, he did a 15-second satire on the reporter and put it up on Facebook.

The video got 15 views and a few Likes. Unfazed, Bhuvan posted three more videos on his profile page. One of his friends told him these dramatic videos did not look good on his profile page and it would be better if Bhuvan created a separate Facebook page and did his experiments there. At the time, Vine was a very popular video hosting service that allowed people to post and share six-second video shorts. As Bhuvan’s videos were also short, he thought he would create a Facebook page under the name BB Ki Vines (Bhuvan Bam Ki Vines).

Since his school days Bhuvan has loved making people laugh, cracking jokes and doing mimicry. So he decided to post his comedy videos on his newly created Facebook page. The first double meaning video was titled I am Feeling Horny. It first became popular among his college friends. From college WhatsApp groups the video travelled to other colleges, and suddenly he was famous as far afield as Karachi University! Soon the video crossed 15,000 views, and within a week Bhuvan had over 30,000 fans on Facebook.

As he posted more videos, his fame spread, and within 8 months he had over eight lakh followers on Facebook. Seeing the response to his videos, a friend suggested Bhuvan shift to YouTube, as he could earn from the videos as well. In late 2015, Bhuvan started his YouTube channel.

There are many valuable lessons to be learned from the evolution of Bhuvan Bam as a personal brand. Here are some of them.

Hustle and iterate to find your right market

Marketing Guru Seth Godin once said, ‘Everyone is not your customer’. Finding a market with customers who welcome you with open arms does not happen immediately. In the background, many iterations happen with the product (creator), and trials and rejections take place in different markets. But once the fitment between product and market is found, growth picks up.

To validate this point, here is a true story. In the 1960s, a tall and thin young man did a voice audition at All India Radio, but was rejected. He wanted to be an actor, but many filmmakers rejected him because of his height and unconventional looks. He did a few minor roles in small films, none of which took his acting career anywhere. By the age of 30, he had 12 flops to his credit. But he refused to give up, continuously working to improve his craft.

In the 1970s, the romantic hero dominanted Bollywood, and many of the popular lead actors of the day turned down the ‘angry young man’ role in an action film called Zanjeer. It was finally offered to our struggling young actor. Perhaps it was a fortunate alignment of stars. Audiences were looking for a change from stereotypical romances to action-oriented films. Zanjeer became a super-hit and turned our struggling actor into a well-known star – Amitabh Bachchan. And as they say, the rest is history.

In similar vein, the start of Bhuvan’s journey had been nothing short of a bumpy ride. He had failed to get into a B. Com course at every college he applied to, and was compelled to shift academic focus to History. During the two-month vacation before college began, he thought he would work and earn some pocket money. Randomly, he applied for a delivery boy job at a Domino’s outlet in the Malviya Nagar area of Delhi. There too, he was rejected.

Bhuvan had been learning music from a musician named Salman Khan, who performed at Moti Mahal Deluxe Restaurant in Delhi’s Saket area. One night, Salman’s brother was not available to play guitar, so he asked Bhuvan to accompany him. The incentive was a free dinner. Bhuvan readily agreed. That day, Bhuvan learned that he could make money by playing music at the restaurant. For the next two years, he performed every day, Monday to Sunday, from 8 PM to midnight, receiving INR 3,000 as a monthly salary, and free food. Encouraged by the appreciation the patrons displayed for his music, Bhuvan began writing his own songs and composing his own music. He had become what he had always wanted to be – a popular singer-musician.

To gain recognition as a musician, he applied to almost every reality show in India. He stood in line for hours before being rejected or shown the door without an audition. On one such occasion, Bhuvan waited for an audition from 6 AM to 2 PM. Then he was told the audition would happen the next day, based on token numbers. The person then threw tokens into the air. To catch the tokens, candidates were jumping on each other. Seeing this pathetic treatment of artists, Bhuvan hit his nadir. He decided then that he would never again attend a reality show audition.

When he heard about an opportunity with Fox Star Studios, he prepared and shared seven songs with the selection team. He was rejected, and received nothing for his efforts. Trying his hand at comedy, Bhuvan sent numerous mails to OTT platforms. None of his emails were answered. He also participated in several comedy hunt competitions, but was never recognized for his performance.

But Bhuvan was not ready to give up. Despite the many rejections, he kept honing his skills, pitching to different platforms. Eventually, he found YouTube as a medium to showcase his talent in comedy, singing, and acting. Incredibly, he garnered one million (10 lakh) subscribers on YouTube within seven months. Due to his rising popularity, in 2016, Bhuvan earned a collaboration opportunity with The Viral Fever (TVF), one of the leading OTT platforms in India. Today, Bhuvan is considered the poster boy of YouTube stardom in India. ‘Rejections can break you, but they certainly make you,’ he says.

Dare to differentiate yourself

One of the core principles of brand building is differentiation. Marketing Guru Al Ries said, ‘A branding program should be designed to differentiate your cow from all the other cattle on the range. Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.’ So how did Bhuvan differentiate himself in the crowded comedy space?

People want a break from their stressed lives, and comedy is a great way to do that. Perhaps that’s why numerous stand-up comedy acts are performed in every big city, and there are countless comedy videos on YouTube. Comedy is big business in India and hence a crowded category. Every day it becomes more difficult for a comedian to stand out. Moreover, your jokes can be copied, nor can you please everyone. In such a tough market, the rise of Bhuvan Bam is truly commendable.

At the very start, Bhuvan realized that if he wanted to do comedy for any length of time, he would have to do things differently. He noticed that online content consumption was mainly in English, by an English-speaking audience. To differentiate himself, he chose street humor in Hindi, with a heavy dosage of Delhi slang. He also found that comedy videos were filled with insults to others. Again, to differentiate his act, Bhuvan chose to write scripts that had some meaningful message, delivered in a funny way. Initially, he aimed at college-going, middle-class youth. But later, he started creating funny content around the problems faced by every middle-class household in India.

Another challenge in comedy is to remain fresh and come up with different content each time. To develop a style and tone which made him different from the others in the space, Bhuvan created 19 quirky characters, portrayed by himself. This kind of character-based comedy by a single performer, had not been done in India before. He started off these characters with parents, then added three best friends, and then Titu Mama, modelled on his own uncle, followed by others. These characters were full of life and true to their personifications. People could identify them in their daily lives.

Bhuvan says, ‘To make a good joke, you need a good concept and a great script.’ To find concepts, Bhuvan observes people and situations carefully. He says the Delhi metro is a great place to observe people and pick up traits for characters. He spends a lot of time going in-depth into a concept and spends about two weeks preparing a script. He picks a clichéd storyline and then builds a strong plot with his lively characters. He also incorporates crisp punch lines and timely dialogue. Then he spends four or five hours creating the video.

Unlike the videos of many other artists, Bhuvan develops his at zero production cost. He shoots with his phone camera, without a tripod, which means he has only one free hand to act. ‘I can hold the camera without a selfie stick for 20 minutes at a stretch,’ he likes to tell people. Moreover, instead of shooting his videos at fancy locations, he shoots them in a small room in a middle-class home. On digital platforms, people prefer crisp content. Therefore, after a shoot, Bhuvan spends 15 to 20 hours editing his four or five-hour video to turn it into four or five minutes. The simplicity and relatability of his content have made him vastly popular.

Hiding emotion and feeling is another tricky part of being a comedian. A comedian has to make people laugh irrespective of what he might be feeling. As a case in point, Bhuvan’s elder brother Aman was in a major road accident just after receiving his pilot’s license. He survived but was laid up at home for over six years. His dream of becoming a pilot had slipped from his hand. Often, while making his audience laugh in the external world, Bhuvan‘s personal life was full of tears and pain for his brother. During those trying years, Bhuvan never stopped motivating his brother to look at a better future.

Cut from the same cloth as his brother, Aman did not give up. Today, he is a pilot with Indigo Airlines. Bhuvan says, ‘The day Aman achieved his dream, the four of us (my parents, my brother and I), celebrated with a pizza party at home. It was the best night!’

Partner with people who see your value

Artists create the best output when they enjoy their work. But to support themselves, they also need to earn. When they try to do both, one or the other aspect gets impacted. Greg Norman, a successful athlete turned businessmen, believed, ‘Our success is a direct result of knowing how to market a brand and having the right people representing the brand.’ Collaboration between an artist and a business partner who represents the artist, can create enormous value. That is exactly what happened when Bhuvan found his business partner and manager, Rohit Raj.