They say, behind every successful man is a woman who is with him through all his tribulations. In entertainment parlance, actors and actress have a ‘Godfather’. However, Dheeraj Jorwal is no godfather! In fact, he is much more than that to the youtubers and content creators he caters to. As being founder of ‘Brandzup Media’, a multi-channel network company (MCN), Mr. Jorwal has brought together an impressive bunch of talented artists and jettisoned them into the ‘viral’ orbit. Today, Brandzup manages some of the top YouTubers like Amit Bhadana, Harsh Beniwal, Elvish Yadav amongst others. We caught up with Mr. Jorwal for a quick byte:
1) What is Brandzup? How would you introduce Brandzup to people?
Branzdup is a platform to incubate and act as a mediator to accelerate an artist. We pick a random promising talent and help him/her grow and also manage them. For example, I am a civil engineer from NIT, Surat. However, I was interested in other things and hence always tried to dabble myself into it. So I used to think if there was someone to support me or a platform available to me, then I would have been at the next level. Thus, I thought why not we put up a platform where we can actually give talented people an opportunity to grow. We scout for talented artists and once we zero in on someone based on the ability to engage the audience, business feasibility, and sustainability, we help them to convert their talent into a business. Our marketing strategies are such that, we help the artist reach out to people with a 10x booster. Talent management is all about helping them understand how to make videos, what type of content to work on etc. and we do all. In short, we offer a complete package to artists to turn their talent into successful business ventures.
2) Some of the most googled questions are who started Brandzup and who its founders are. Perhaps you can answer this in a better way.
I am the founder of Brandzup. Back then, when I was planning to start the company, I wanted to work with people who could understand me and work with me in a collaborative manner. Sanchit Goyal and Rohit Yadav were two individuals with whom I had already worked together in a previous start-up and hence we understand each other very well. We have a diverse range of skills and hence build upon each other’s strength. Thus we got together and started the company in January 2016. Currently, we have a core team of 5 people and a production team of 15-20 people.
3) During our research, we found that you have been active on Quora answering a host on questions on website creation how to install WordPress etc.
Yes, I was always interested in computer science. I was into ethical hacking and coding and web development was my passion. I passed out from 12th standard during the economic slowdown (recession) hence, although I was interested in computer science, I was admitted into civil engineering in NIT, Surat in 2010. However, I continued my passion for web development by starting a group in college and even today that student organization is still there. During those days, Quora was a craze hence I used to actively answer queries there.
4) You didn’t have a footing in the YouTube industry. Yet you are now one of the biggest names in YT industry in a short span of time. How did this happen?
We were initially involved in marketing only on Facebook. However, the future of our company was still sketchy, we weren’t sure where this was going to lead us to. Those days, marketing involved a lot of initial costs. Our reimbursement and fees used to be paid later and hence money had to be put in initially and at that time, I had only 35,000 with me. But we were doing good work hence one day, I received a call from Mumbai from an ad agency asking if we could market a movie. When I heard the movie name was ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’, I didn’t even ask who was cast in the movie. I directly started promoting it. However, I was told later by a friend that it stars Ranbir and Deepika. The teaser went viral on Facebook and the ad team was so impressed that I was paid double of my investment instantly. Then they followed that up with the marketing of the trailer assigned to us. Things started cascading and next movie we got was ‘Jolly LLB 2’. We were the digital partners for that movie and soon other things started to fall into place.
In January 2017, we started supporting artists who were uploading videos on Facebook and Instagram. Harsh (Harsh Beniwal) used to ask us to upload videos for him and that is when we thought when not create a support system for such talented people. Then we started working with others YouTubers like Elvish, Realshit, and others too. People started noticing our work when they saw our YouTubers’ content was under trending and were getting more views.
Back then, I along with Sanchit and Rohit had discussed creating such a platform but we have never thought we would be able to build a business around it. The YouTubers we support come from very humble backgrounds. Harsh is a very talented artist but comes from a humble background. We took creators like him and helped them build a business model around it, initially on Facebook. Once the Facebook earnings hit a ceiling, we switched platforms onto YouTube to generate a different kind of organic growth. In fact, Bhadana’s (Amit Bhadana) Facebook page was started from scratch, and then we started providing content which started trending. Not only this, whatever Chinese entertainment apps like ‘Tik-Tok’ you see, these are initially marketed through our company so that we can provide them launch into the local Indian market. We have had more than 100 brand integrations. In fact, TVF, which is one of the top MCN’s comes second and we are the number one in brand integrations. We publish more than 120 videos per month across different Indian social media.
5) There has been a spurt of so many digital contents. Currently, your focus is working on YouTube, how you will integrate into other digital platforms?
With so many digital platforms, they will definitely need their content to be marketed. We already have a business model in place to cater to other digital media space. Currently, we have a very robust production capability which we can easily extrapolate to other digital platforms. We can produce content up to an hour and we are looking leverage these capabilities whether it is on YouTube or other digital platforms like Amazon Prime, Netflix etc. Also, we ensure that the creators under us don’t mutually cut on each other’s viewers. We try to mold our creators to cater to a different set of audience by experimenting with different genres to ensure there is all-inclusive growth of everyone. Thus every artist has a unique set of content.
6) How many Youtubers does Brandzup mange currently?
We have around forty-five plus YouTubers working with us currently.
7) Within a span of 3 years, Brandzup has grown and today manages the 5 of India’s top 10 Youtubers! What is the mantra behind such stupendous success?
Traditionally, we have two markets. One, the Bollywood market which has a legacy of 50-60 years. The other market is the north Indian market where we provide so much of regional content. We have created content that everyone can watch it. Our content thus caters to all the masses. That is why we have grown so big in such a short time. We may have only 5 of India’s top 10 YouTubers but who knows we may have all top 10 in the near future!
8) If any YouTubers wants to approach Brandzup, What should the artist do?
We are constantly scouting for new talent. And if you are talented, definitely you would be on Facebook or YouTube showcasing your talent. Our team is constantly watching videos all day literally! When we see a video we see if the content that is being showcased is sustainable in the longer run. The social media is rife with people starting a YouTube channel where one of their videos goes viral and the next few turn out to be a damp squib. Then they desert their YouTube channel. We are not looking for such artists. We want artists who are consistent in their hard work. Once we zero-in them, we groom them to take them over cloud nine. We don’t run after money. We want to make sure that the content creators get recognized for their content, the money will come automatically.
9) How much do Indian YouTubers earn on an average? This is one of the most asked questions!
To put things in perspective, some of the top YouTubers in India earn more than some of the Bollywood stars. To give out a rough estimate, a 10-15 second shot of a top YouTuber can earn him/her 2 to 3 lakhs! They earn more than 10 to 20 times for a complete story. If you are talented and with the right amount of grooming you will be on good terms with respect to earning!