One of India’s top creators and speakers opens up about his journey and what the future holds for platforms and creators on Siddharth Rajsekar’s YouTube show Masters Secrets
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Social media creator and angel investor Raj Shamani may have millions of followers across platforms today, but his is not an overnight success story. In a recent Masters Secrets interview with India’s leading digital coach Siddharth Rajsekar, Raj Shamani — one of the top creators in India with 1.1million followers on Instagram alone — reflected on how he went from a trial-and-error mode in his career to painstakingly building an engaged follower base running into millions.
Asked about his beginnings and what is it that drives him, Raj Shamani answered, “In the beginning, honestly, it was money and fame. In the beginning, I was this child who was overlooked and never got attention from friends, teachers, or parents. I thought being famous and rich would steer everyone’s attention to me. Once it began, it became about freedom to essentially travel anywhere or work on any project freely or associate with the right people.”
It was during the pandemic that Raj realized that the financial freedom he created for himself at a young age allowed him to take three major decisions in his life: Where to live, with whom to live and what to work on.
“These three decisions should be yours to take, not anyone else’s. But in India, these are the only three decisions that one’s parents take and it doesn’t turn out to be right for everyone. I felt, that whoever is consuming my content should be able to take this decision for themselves. That became the drive. At first, I wanted to make 1,000 people creative and then 1,000 more. That’s how it started,” he added.
After becoming one of the youngest Indians to represent India at the United Nations when he was just 17 and starting off on Instagram as a content creator, Raj quickly made his way into all other channels by interviewing some of India’s best business owners and entrepreneurs. He is now running one of the most successful podcasts in India, as well as his fast-growing YouTube channel.
Speaking about his childhood, Raj shared how he hopped from one activity or career choice to the next within months. “Nobody would take me seriously because I’d not do one thing intensely. One moment, I’m playing basketball for a month, then football and then cricket. The fourth month, I wanted to be a financial trader, then a rapper, or a DJ, and so on. I was moving from one thing to another because I was curious and inspired by role models around us.”
Mentioning this pattern of not being able to focus on one thing, he added, “At some point, I thought I need to find out what I’m good at, go so intense on that I’ll become top one percent in that, so people have no choice but to take me seriously. That eventually became storytelling for me.”
While trying to find his niche, Raj began to research top speakers and came across the highly-followed entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. “I was inspired to do things in life only because of certain role models. No one wants to get out of their bed and do bigger things if they don’t have role models in front of them because else, there’s no hope. Because Gary was recording himself, I began to do the same wherever I went to speak. Initially, wanted to build a brand on social media, so I didn’t care about the audience, just my next content.” Raj Shamani also got a chance to meet Gary in Singapore, who encouraged him to be honest about his process of discovery on social media.
In 2020, Raj Shamani decided to make consistency his creator’s pivot and posted a video every single day to challenge himself. “I thought, I’m gonna outwork everybody,” he said, adding how he turned his obsession with researching big businesses into a facet of his knowledge sharing. He began to share short, snackable content on top businesses in layperson’s terms.
Speaking on the creator economy, he said, “One thing about it is, it’s just getting started. It’s gonna blow up. We creators will eat up TV. Second, if a creator is only trying to capitalize on trends, they’re only as relevant as the next. You’ll gain followers faster but you’ll go down faster too.” Raj explains two types of creators: Topic-based creators and relationship-based creators.
“Topic-based creator is someone who creates, let’s say, ‘How to make money in 21 days’. People are coming to you for the topic, not for you. A relationship-based creator inserts their personality into their content. The latter is very difficult to pull off to start with. One needs to start with topics in your target market and slowly start putting personality into it. That’s how you become an ultimate creator” he said.
Giving useful advice to creators trying to pick a platform themselves, Shamani said, “People want to get more of the product or person who is winning. Creators should go on a platform where some thought leader is already winning. Whenever the thought leaders move to a certain platform, they attract their crowd. Wherever the crowd is moving you go there. Moreover, Twitter is an underrated tool and has big potential.”
Summing it up, Siddharth Rajsekar — founder Internet Lifestyle Hub and creator of Freedom Business podcast — said, “This book titled Range by David Epstein is about how generalists actually triumph in a specialized world because one has that range. With your career, it’s been like that too. With me, it’s the same — I’m a musician and college dropout and did different things until the dots connected. What I like about Raj Shamani is that he’s truly driving forward the creator economy in India.”
Check the full Master Secrets interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1TAFoqAFuc
About Siddharth Rajsekar
Siddharth is one of the World’s leading digital coaches with a fast growing community of 15,000 members. He teaches trainers, coaches and teachers how to start and run a successful digital coaching business with a complete blueprint.
Contact Info:
Name: Siddharth Rajsekar
Email: Send Email
Organization: Internet Lifestyle Hub
Address: 78/132 Doctor Radha Krishnan Salai Mylapore, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600005, India
Website: https://internetlifestylehub.com/
Release ID: 89080848
