E152 - Building India's Largest Influencer Marketing Agency w/Monk-E's Viraj Seth

Indian Silicon Valley with Jivraj Singh Sachar

Viraj Seth is the Co-Founder and CEO of Monk Entertainment, India’s largest influencer marketing agency. He sits at the intersection of the Creator Economy and Tech Startups, which is exactly what we decode in this episode. We speak at length on the creator business models, the dark sides of being a creator, how agencies succeed and what really works when Tech Solutions are being built for creators. This is one of our best episodes, watch till the end! 00:00 - Coming Up 01:16 - Introduction 01:45 - Where do Startups get Influencer Marketing WRONG? 04:16 - Large Brands vs Startups using Influence Marketing 07:03 - RoI for Influencer Spend? 09:58 - Conversion Ratios for Startups on Influencer Spend 11:42 - How does Monk-E make money? 13:25 - Identifying Breakout Creators 19:35 - What led to the mammoth growth of BeerBiceps (Ranveer Allahbadia)? 23:11 - What should Creators Create? 33:49 - How are local social media apps (Moj, JOSH) doing? 37:35 - How much money do Creators make? 41:25 - The Dark Side of the Creator Life! 45:55 - Global Creators from India 49:40 - How do Creators understand what Brands want? 52:19 - Creators & Brand being directly in touch 54:08 - How did Monk-E get initial clients? 58:26 - The first INR 7,000 Influencer Deal 1:00:25 - Relationships Management 1:03:13 - What is "New Media"? 1:11:01 - Founders becoming Celebrities 1:14:30 - Where did Creator Economy Startups go wrong? 1:20:03 - Which Tech Startups work in this space? 1:21:15 - Creators Investing in Startups! 1:26:29 - Cracking Distribution 1:30:11 - How luck played out in Viraj's life? 1:32:44 - How can we get LUCKIER? 1:38:10 - The business of Dopamine Creation 1:41:55 - Profitability vs Growth in building Businesses 1:47:18 - Any other job in the world except Monk-E (RF) 1:47:39 - One wish to grant everyone (RF) 1:47:58 - One social cause (RF) 1:49:08 - Best Creators out there! (RF) 1:50:08 - Money vs Fame (RF) 1:50:52 - The Social Persona of Viraj (RF) 1:53:39 - Final Learnings!