From likes to launches: Influencer Inc. gathers steam

In 2014, while swotting for a B.Tech., Shlok Srivastava started a YouTube channel where he explained the features of smartphones. Tech Burner was a hit with fans, and Srivastava convinced his middle-class parents to let him drop out of placements. Today, he has a social net worth (read: followers) of 12.5 million.

But our story begins in 2017, when Srivastava met Neel Gogia, a college student looking for pocket money. Gogia became his manager (neither knew they would later become co-founders). After a successful run on social media, Gogia, who was now running his creator management agency, and Srivastava, a tech influencer, realised that both fields depend on service-led revenue streams, which could dry up.

They checked out a slew of tech products and decided to make protective skins for every gadget from smartphones to PCs. ‘Layers’ was born. They followed this up with ANARC, a consumer electronics brand, which sold smartwatches worth `3.5 crore of just one iteration within 24 hours of its launch on November 15, 2024. The watches were priced well above the mass-premium market standards (originally priced at `8,999 and now being sold at `5,499). Up next: the second iteration of their smartwatch, and their second round of investments.

Social currency matters more than ever. The Srivastava-Gogia story is just one among the many on how ‘digital creators’, as they like to call themselves, who were once known just for the content they created, are building businesses. The creator economy, according to the EY-Ficci 2025 report, was valued at around `3,465 crore as of FY24 and is growing at more than 25% CAGR.

Why venture in businesses?

From Kusha Kapila’s fitness journey to Alicia Souza’s passion for illustration, digital creators who run businesses are often driven by their interests and passions. Many are making a mark across diverse categories, with beauty, personal care, and clothing among the most popular.

Says Vimarsh Razdan, co-founder and CEO, UnderNeat, which makes shapewear—underwear designed to give the wearer’s body a desired silhouette, “Kusha has had this problem for years that she could never find good shapewear, and that led her to build this brand.”

Although the strong intent and passion support the case for individual startups, for most creators, however, this seems a necessary pivot these days amid an increasingly crowded creator market, where each individual is fighting for brand partnerships. According to a Kofluence Influencer marketing report, 450,000–600,000 content creators are monetising their content. That’s just 13% of the estimated 3.5–4.5 million influencers in India.

Bhuvan Bam, founder of BB Ki Vines Production and one of India’s first digital creators, launched his merchandise startup Youthiapa back in 2014 with his college friends. Later, Bam and his manager Rohit Raj founded Peppyforall, a male sexual health brand. Raj says both launches harvested the creator’s followers.

“Initially, for any creator to monetise their content beyond brands and ad revenue was to sell their merchandise. Since all of Bhuvan’s dialogues are so popular, merchandising seemed like a natural extension; YouTube also always propagated the idea of merchandising,” says Raj.

“[Bam] did Youthiapa, and beyond that, he started doing endorsements and ambassadorships. Yes, the brands invested in Bhuvan’s journey, his imagery and videos, but it still seemed like a one-way street where we are providing our services and propagating something, and we still didn’t own any piece of the pie,” he adds.

However, they then began angel investing and discovered that some categories would align well with their content, with Peppy being one of them. “[Because] we have a voice that resonates with the millennials and the Gen Z, we can tell [the audience] their problems, their way, in the simplest manner. [Thus, Peppy] became like one of Bhuvan’s first investments where he [entered as] a co-founder,” says Raj.

The Kofluence Influencer report says nine in 10 creators cannot rely on social media as a full-time income source. A staggering 88% of creators earn less than 75% of their income from social media, with over half of them making under 25%.

“During the second wave of Covid, when everyone was back home, we had a chat about why don’t we explore something in product since we want to keep building new things...He [Srivastava] is creating some 10-plus videos. But there is saturation, and we felt that, as a service-based business, scalability might be an issue.... I knew that as co-founder of Iplex, I would have the mode of distribution,” says Gogia, referring to his `100-crore creator management agency.

So, is every influencer getting into the product business? Not necessarily.

“There are milestones, at least in our universe, after which one thinks of another milestone of creating a business. But today, every third creator and every second top creator thinks of starting a business,” says Raj of Peppyforall.

While aspirations of creators have led them to build their startups, their approach differs starkly from that of typical startups, and this, in turn, determines their profitability.

Influencer vs non- creator startups

Before Souza, an illustrator and journal planner, started her online store in earnest to capitalise on her popularity on Facebook, she always assumed freelancing, and not the store, would be her main gig. Today, business from her store accounts for more than half of her revenue stream on some days!

But Souza wants to continue freelancing despite the online store product business being good. “One of the big differences is I call myself an illustrator, because I pick and choose. I actively don’t do a lot of work that comes my way because a lot of it is influencer-led, so they'll be like, can you promote a washing machine, and I'd be like, no!”

Souza says she only does illustrations. “So even if it’s a deal, but it involves illustration in some way, I would do it. But if it doesn’t, I do not take it... For the online store, I can pick and choose what I want to do…my only challenge would be figuring out a budget, and working within it,” she adds.

Archana Jagirdar, MD and CEO of Rukam Capital, explains how influencer-led ventures differ from startups, and why this makes investors cautious. “Look, the concern every VC has when a creator starts a startup or a business is, will they give it their all, because being a content creator itself is more than a full-time job.”

“When your lifestyle choices are being fulfilled because of your content creation, then do you have enough hunger?... If a person has nothing left to prove from, how many big cars can you buy, how many houses can you buy, and how much recognition and respect can you get…  maybe that’s not enough of a driver for a lot of content creators,” Jagirdar says.

It’s true at times they [influencers] become picky, and run the risk of losing interest. Besides, given that their criticism from the audience is direct, their brand value is also at stake. But despite all these, there is something much more valuable that these digital creators bring to the table with their startups.

One, they already have a face; not all have a definite problem to solve, and their marketing strategy is already sorted. Influencers are leveraging their digital presence into D2C models that many traditional startups would envy. With instant feedback loops, organic brand recall, and a loyal community, digital creators can create buzz and gain traction early. It’s not just about monetising reach; it is about co-creating with their audiences.

Prayag Mohanty, principal, Fireside Ventures, says it does help for a new brand to get eyeballs when it is led by an influencer, and it helps convince the consumer to try the product for the first time. The repeats, of course, come because of the product quality.

“Marketing costs are very low for a new brand, because, typically in early days you would be spending a significant amount on brand visibility, whether you call it, whether through performance marketing or brand marketing, but in this case it’s minimal because Kusha [Kapila] is there. While benchmarks would vary by category, they would be at least 70-80% lower,” says Mohanty.

Roma Priya, founder, Burgeon Law, a full-service law firm, says, “The initial traction might come from the influencer’s credibility, but for a brand to last, it needs more than just visibility; it needs strong fundamentals.”

Building a following is one thing; building a strong community is a different ball game. Saransh Goila, co-founder and owner of Goila Butter Chicken, thinks it is tough. “If you have built a strong community that genuinely believes in you, they will buy what you have to sell because it has to be genuine love.”

Some artists, creators, or influencers will always have an edge in building brands, Goila says. “Building brands also makes you do many other things. You need to be able to do marketing and finances, and have a solid team backing you. For me, it really helped me build this brand,” says Goila.

For creators, it is easy to attract the first consumers and early adopters, who form a significantly larger base; yet, in the long run, it is the product that wins. However, some creators face a challenge: they have a vision, but it is not accompanied by equal clarity and a well-defined plan of action. This entails a lot of learning along the way.

Some creators end up with a superficial startup that is more akin to a trophy creation, which affects profitability.

The co-founders are also important. Much like a mom-and-pop startup, co-founders are not always chosen with the thought of who will handle what, but rather who is closer to the influencer. Most of the time, the managers of these creators are also involved in building the brand.

Many of the startups Fortune India spoke to, including UnderNeat and Peppyforall, have a trajectory for profitability in mind, but no great aspirations to raise equity. Their focus is on bootstrapped profitability, a trend that differs starkly from the Bollywood celebrity-led ventures, including Kay Beauty, Hyphen, Ed-a-mamma, and 82°E, which are either being acquired or funded.

“We entered when it was profitable, and it’s still profitable. We can’t run a business with losses. At least we don’t know that way of doing it. Because Bhuvan is very traditional, he has to prove a point and do things right. We, as a team running the show for him, have to keep the books in the green,” says Raj.

While Kapila’s UnderNeat is Ebitda positive, Srivastava’s Layers is expected to reach break-even soon. Meanwhile, Goila, Bam, and Souza’s businesses are running profitably. In fact, Goila’s brand recently joined a much larger family of brands under Devyani International.

When does a startup give up?

While starting up seems lucrative, sustaining and scaling is the difficult bit. When Srivastava and Gogia revealed they were burning money until April this year, the intuitive question was whether the duo would give up on the brand. “No, not at all, we are building this brand for the next 10 years,” says Srivastava.

Gogia says the moment a digital creator launches a startup in the same niche where they have partnerships, they see a decline in their partnerships, making this a much tougher fight.

Rukam’s Jagirdar says that, even in the U.S., very few creators have truly succeeded. “Being an entrepreneur is almost like a 30-year journey. And it takes everything out of you, including the fact that you can’t spend time on how you look or be camera-friendly,” Jagirdar says.

Will this marketing-first strategy work? “It can, but it may not also succeed. I don’t think we can take a one-size-fits-all view on creators turning into founders,” says Jagirdar.

From an investment perspective, Mohanty says, the main attraction is that the brand is in place. Yet, the yardstick remains the same as for other D2C startups, including product fit and passion. Mohanty says the phenomenon of influencer-led brands is relatively new in India compared with the U.S. However, more success stories are emerging, and the sector is attracting increasing interest from investors.

“Not every startup scales up, so there will be some failures along the way, which is a natural path for any ecosystem. I'm sure we’ll keep seeing a lot more of them in the future,” says Mohanty.

For now, Kapila and Razdan are focussing on introducing more SKUs (stock-keeping units), while Gogia and Srivastava are betting on a longer run in the consumer electronics space. Bam and Raj, Goila and Souza are scaling their brands.