We were lucky to catch up with Rajas Nikumbh recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rajas , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?

So I started my personal brand on Instagram 3 years back and I only had this motive of sharing the value and knowledge that I had in digital niche, also I knew while doing this I’m gonna learn lot of new things and ultimately it’ll make me become a better learner and also a good explainer or knowledge sharer. But, honestly in the beginning there was no such expectation or rather intention of getting it monetised or earn money through it, the only purpose was to share knowledge and let the world apart from my own city or my own contacts know more about my digital expertise and that’s how I started it.
But I remain very constant and consistent in researching and regularly posting content on my profile feed but yet it has been a huge roller coaster ride and had to face many many things as a solo content creator and starting from scratch without no one to guide and assist as a team
During this journey of being consistent value provider almost after 1 and half or 2 years I got a paid sponsorship for some cryptocurrency trading app and then I had some 12-14k followers probably then
Where they paid me some 12-30$ but that was a huge thing then because I got some new hopes regarding scaling this personal brand with certain updates and strategies in mind, hence, I believe that money is a great motivation in the journey of struggle and hustle to move ahead positively.
I still remember I used to leave Ina small 1 room kitchen space alone then and I used to create videos there and sleep at the same place, but that was all worthy if i see today, I used to get frustrated and the struggle was real to shoot the perfect videos but I did shot the sponsorship reel or story for them and further kept working on my dream and today I get paid around $400-500 per sponsored reel by the biggest brands in the ai, tech and digital niche
I still look forward to build more authority and scale it

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

So I was a BCA student back then in 2019-20 and I had this subject called digital marketing for one of my semesters of second year of degree of graduation and that really fascinated me, I absolutely love how the parameters of marketing the services and products or businesses online are so humongous compared to the traditional marketing practices that we all have had been seeing and watching since childhood,
Since I was a child I had huge interest in tech and now when I came into the college I got more interest into making money and marketing the product and reaching out to the people with digital means.
Before I was having some good knowledge of digital marketing but now it being part of my academics I started to intensify my interest naturally and I just loved it
Now honestly digital marketing has so much potential and so many streams in itself
But social media was something which took my attention quickly because I was able to see the potential that was hidden behind social media to reach out to maximum audience and that too wordwide without any limit or boundaries
So I started to learn more particularly about Instagram, when I started my page there were no videos popular then
We used to post photo content but yet the competition was huge and lots of existing creators were sharing great value in many different niches based on there expertise in infographic way or carousel form available on Instagram
So that again made my creative side alive and I observed so many pieces of content every single day before I started
I think observation is such a delicate and essential skill to grow and to start wisely
So I did nothing but just observed few months and thought on it
But one question always used to hit my mind was “there’s a much competition- How do I stand apart from others?” If i donsame as all others are doing ill be lost in the huge digital crowd
So based on observations I made a unique branding considering lots of branding aspects like typography, color theory and alignment, looks, safe zones and audience psychology and got ready with the final brand templates for my brand and kept it very attractive and unique with so much thought into it that, for last 3 years I would have been using same without any major change to the fundamentals
I think initial steps are chosen wisely we can go for sustainable run without making so many changes which is again a part of journey but we can avoid them if we concentrate on the initial fundamentals
Then I kept going with sharing what I learnt and researched and people used engage and give feedback which somehow motivated and today I stand at 151k+ followed in 2 and half years
And the best part in this journey is you never know what shall work when and I believed into this
And hence in last 1 month only I got around new 65-70k new followers
So keep going, have bigger goals, don’t get distracted by smaller failures and you’ll see things happening

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

At this moment I see that we’re literally living in such a era of advanced tech and artificial intelligence which hardly any of our ancestors would have ever thought of, were so fortunate to see the most innovative technologies and that too advancing with such a great pace
Ai being a great trend I believe it’s still in the beginning phase and in the coming time it’s gonna show you wonders, it’s already making wonders but unbelievable creative wonders with innovations in generative ai would be visible to human society in coming few years
The potential is so huge that all the things we used to imagine earlier can be easily created and generated in media terms which literally reduces the tremendous amount of time spent earlier and also the efforts
So that’s why I see that’s our future and hence I intensively create major content on ai and generative ai tools that can help people in there personal, professional and creative life to minimise the efforts and reduce the turnaround time
If we use technology in right way it’s the greatest boom any generation would have ever received but if we don’t then we’re useless
So that’s my major goal to make people aware of using ai in day to day life and reduce efforts and hence I keep having live workshops as various colleges and institutes in my state keep inviting me for it

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding and fortunate part of being a content creator and now having a great authority and voice in ai and tech niche is you get accessible to connect with some of the best folks in the industry, sometimes them come as a brand managers or brand owners or may be colleague creators and also subject matter expertise whom we’ve been admiring since a long
So it makes you connect with like mixed and best folks and also gives you chance to make valuable communication due to brand authority
The second part is once you build a good value providing brand you win people’s trust and hence now you own there trust which gives you more chance to sustain in a long run
The third thing I believe is biggest brands approach us to promote and market there services and products from you and your brand which also make you earn plenty dollars and also allow to collaborate with them

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/digitalrajas?igsh=MmE2aTBpMnEyMm5m
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digital-rajas-261991213?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@digitalrajas?si=3WvMvi0gS1Kge2nS