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Mint
04-08-2025
- Business
- Mint
Influencers log out—when the likes don't pay for the rent
After nine years of writing comedy scripts, shooting sketches, and chasing YouTube views, Om Suri hit pause. His channel 'Oye Omi' had nearly 73,000 subscribers, but not enough to pay his bills. Two months ago, he quit full-time content creation and is scouting for a regular job. Suri is not alone. As India's 8-million-strong creator economy gets overcrowded and unpredictable, many influencers, especially those with smaller followings, are quietly walking away from the spotlight. Shrinking advertisement revenue, inconsistent brand deals, and rising financial strain are driving creators back to the stability of traditional employment. Influencers, those who have built a dedicated following on digital platforms, are known to quit their regular jobs and pursue full-time content creation. But lately, this trend is reversing. With the millions of content creators competing for your attention and brand deals, the earnings are dwindling, and survival is becoming difficult by the day, especially for those with smaller followings or limited network to pull in regular brand work. The middle rung of influencers is the worst hit. Advertisement revenue on popular platforms like YouTube is often meagre, which influencers say ranges from $0.4 to $3 per thousand views. This financial crunch is making many creators abandon their influencer careers to return to traditional jobs. According to Suri, YouTube's financial sustainability is a challenge for many creators. "To make a living, you have to post consistently and get regular brand deals," he says. "Due to overcrowding, this has become a rat race, where all of us are competing for the same brand deals. However, brands only pick the top creators with the most followers." Suri also highlights the issues with brand collaborations. "Many brands that pay well also require the promotion of risky things such as betting or trading, which I personally rejected as a creator," he says. "Besides, larger creators are sought after, while smaller creators are mostly offered barter collaborations on Instagram, where you're only given products to promote for free; you don't earn." Indian influencers' advertisement revenues are paltry compared with their global peers. "Advertisers in India don't pay as much, so the AdSense revenue on YouTube is as low as $1 per thousand views – over 10 times lower than what is given globally," Suri says. "It is also difficult to compete against corporate giants who have created YouTube channels and creators who have a talent management agency and a team to produce content." Suri has applied to various companies and agencies for roles in creative fields such as writing, editing, or anchoring, leveraging the skills he picked up during content creation. The commerce graduate's goal now is to find a stable job that pays regularly. Aashish Gupta, another creator who zoomed out of his content journey to settle in as the talent manager of a more popular content creator, Elvish Yadav, points to a generational phenomenon of job security. 'While obviously, money is the primary factor for most creators who quit content like me, it is also the circumstances," he said. Gupta started creating content in 2018 while he was in college, and balanced it with other pursuits, including film and music production and corporate jobs. He, however, realized that content monetization has a short shelf-life. "The thing with content monetization is that it is a risky job, which one can do in their early 20s, wherein there are no responsibilities. But one can't sustain in it close to their 30s," he said. Gupta, who says he had financial commitments at home, highlights the challenges of inconsistent income and the favouring of top influencers. "This industry favours the top influencers with more followers and the ones who have a good network to get regular brand deals," he says. 'Otherwise, it is difficult to continue in this field because one month when we get a deal, we would earn around ₹10,000-20,000. But after that, we would struggle to make any money for a few months that followed... the inconsistency made it difficult to survive." Industry watchers believe that while the outflow of content creators is not alarming just yet, it reflects a deeper industry problem. "Over 2 lakh content creators have stopped producing content since 2024... This may look like a big number, but it is not alarming just yet if compared to the influx of new creators in the industry," says Anirudh Sridharan, co-founder of creator network Hashfame. Sridharan explains that the industry's growth is not likely to be hampered by this outflow, given the large number of active creators. "Against that, the outflow of 2-3% people is normal in any industry that is operating at such a scale, and it cannot hamper the growth of the industry," he says. He, however, warns this could become a bigger issue in future if the core problems are not addressed. According to Sridharan, the three primary reasons for creators quitting are mental strain, lack of monetization opportunities, and loss of relevance. "For tackling the monetization problem, we have to consider the content economy as a large army of GenZ workforce catering to their need, rather than looking at them just like a bunch of youngsters using their phones to make videos for social media," he says. Sridharan also highlights the need for more conscious investment from brands. "Brands have to invest more consciously, as currently this industry is very unorganized and operated on a manual model, where rarely do brands go beyond the creators that come on the top of their mind or are a part of their network to discover more creators," he said. This lack of discoverability leads to inconsistent income distribution, where the top 1% creators earn the largest portion of the ₹3,500 crore creator economy. He also noted that only a small percentage of creators can make a decent income. "Only 5-10% beyond that are able to make a decent income of say ₹50,000 per month," he said. The rest are either doing this part-time or struggling financially, and eventually, they may lose cultural relevance and be forced out of the business unless they constantly reinvent their content. Sandwich issue Brands say they prefer more established creators, who are more relevant because of the better return on investment (ROI) they provide with their solid metrics. However, they also say nano influencers, with sub-10,000 followers, charge incredibly low fees and even work on a barter basis in most cases, making them the second-best choice. Thus, brands mostly tap into these two categories, while leaving the rest of the influencers scrambling for deals. 'Purely from the lens of an ROI, celebrity influencers might command a premium fee, but they deliver unmatched top-of-funnel impact, typically driving a 3x–5x spike in brand searches and recall within days of a campaign. Their scale compresses the awareness curve, making them a solid financial bet when the objective is mass reach," said Murali Krishnan, chief marketing officer of food chain Wow! Momo. 'On the other end, nano influencers, consistently deliver 6–10% engagement rates, which is nearly 2–3x higher than mid-tier creators, and they do it at a fraction of the cost," Krishnan adds. "The challenge lies with mid-size micro- and macro-influencers, where their ability to deliver either deep influence or wide reach is getting diluted." The marketing chief said his brand is increasingly adopting a barbell strategy, putting major investments in celeb influencers for impact, and scaling up nano collaborations for frequency and grassroot authenticity, while being extremely selective with the middle-tier influencers, who are sandwiched between these two. Side hustles Instead of completely logging out, some content creators are creating content on the side, while focussing on their regular job. Take Macedon D'mello, who earlier created comedy-related content but has now pivoted to dance-related material on Instagram. He works full time in a digital marketing agency, while also taking up freelance choreography, acting and voice-over gigs. "One does not have to necessarily give up on content creation. I have a regular job but I continue to pursue content, create for brands and also freelance on the side," D'mello tells Mint. 'Content audience was at peak during covid, and at that time it made sense for creators to rely on it for their income completely. But if they didn't make it big, it is best for them to do it as a side hustle, while earning from other sources to balance their passion with their profession," D'mello adds. "These small creators, with 5,000-10,000 followers, who are also doing a 9-5 job with a stable income charge a basic amount… And for that, they deliver videos that are as aesthetic and polished as someone with 4–5 lakh followers. And brands get usage rights too, said Kunal Chhabhria, partner at CollabX Entertainment. Echoing Chhabhria's view, Zil Shah, a talent agent at the same firm says: 'Stability of income has become more important now. Some creators manage both, they shoot over weekends, edit at night, and work a 9-5 during the day. Others have taken a break from content completely. And this isn't a one-off case it's becoming quite common."
Time of India
23-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
AdTech Explainer: The MarTech Glossary
The year was 1994. The First Banner Ad widely considered the true beginning of online advertising and the invention of cookies (digital cookies) both happened in this year. It's widely believed that AT&T displayed the first recorded banner ad on HotWired (now It showed the world the potential of the internet as a new advertising medium. In the same year, at Netscape (remember that), two individuals, Lou Montulli and John Giannandrea invented cookies, which would become fundamental for tracking user behavior and personalising ads online. The following year saw the launch of the first Ad Server (explained last week). In 1996, the rise of Ad Networks like DoubleClick gave advertisers a centralised way to buy ad space across multiple publishers, using cookies to track users and serve relevant ads. Yahoo also started displaying search ads around this time. In the 2000s Google launched AdWords, revolutionising online advertising with its pay-per-click (PPC) model, allowing advertisers to bid on keywords. This was followed by AdSense that enabled publishers to monetise their content with PPC ads, significantly expanding the digital advertising ecosystem. In the mid-2000s the emergence of Ad Exchanges facilitated the buying and selling of ad inventory through real-time auctions. Mobile Ad Networks (mobile-specific ad networks) emerged to sell advertising space on these devices appeared in the same period. By 2007-2008, Real-Time Bidding (RTB) and DSPs/SSPs made an appearance. Many consider this as a game-changer. RTB allowed advertisers to bid on individual ad impressions in real-time. Adtech began as a way to automate and manage simple banner ads online and has evolved into a complex ecosystem of platforms and technologies that enable highly targeted, real-time, and data-driven advertising across a multitude of digital channels. Advertising Technology (AdTech): The umbrella term for technologies that facilitate the buying and selling of digital advertising, including ad servers, demand-side platforms (DSPs), and supply-side platforms (SSPs). Demand-Side Platform (DSP): A system that allows advertisers to buy ad impressions across various ad exchanges, a range of publisher sites and apps in real-time. Supply-Side Platform (SSP): A technology platform used by publishers to manage, sell, and optimise their ad inventory.
Business Insider
06-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A millennial who retired early says she 'got bored' 6 months in and shares her top takeaway from hitting FIRE
Early retirement was everything Rose Han wanted — until it wasn't. "I thought FIRE was the goal for a really long time," she told Business Insider, referring to the financial independence, retire early movement. "And, at 32, I basically achieved a version of FIRE — living in my camper van and having freedom — and it was fun for like the first six months." But less than a year into early retirement, "I found that I got bored and didn't feel all that fulfilled." Han's financial independence journey began with a lot of debt: about $100,000 worth of student loans and credit cards. It forced her to increase her income, rein in her spending, and save aggressively, habits that she maintained after becoming debt-free and helped her achieve a seven-figure net worth. Only after quitting her Wall Street job did she realize she was chasing the wrong thing all along. "The question shouldn't be: How can I retire early and finally live my life? The question should be: How can I build a life I don't want to retire from?" she said. At least for her, she'd rather spend her time working on something that lights her up than sit around doing nothing. "It might sound a little idealistic, but I really think that it's possible. It just takes maybe a different way of thinking and some effort." Building a life you don't want to retire from The way Han sees it, there are two main paths to building a life that you don't want to retire from. "The ideal would be: What you love to do is what also makes you money, so you never have to retire, and it never feels like work," she said. "That's one possibility, and that's a sweet spot that I have more or less found, where the work that I do is what I love." Han runs a financial literacy business that began as a passion project. She hosted free personal finance meet-ups and started a YouTube channel to share her own experience with money, which evolved into a profitable business with multiple revenue streams: online courses, brand deals, affiliate links, book sales, and AdSense for YouTube. "It doesn't feel like work, and it makes you money. That's the whole package," said Han. The second main path — establishing a reliable income stream that will pay the bills while pursuing your passion on the side — may be more practical. "Elizabeth Gilbert talked about this in her book 'Big Magic.' She decided waitressing would be the thing that pays the bills so that writing would not need to have that pressure, and she could maintain her passion for writing," said Han. With this path, "you have a cash cow and you also have your passions. They don't have to be the same thing. It's like being the lawyer who has a rock band on the weekends." If, over time, your rock band starts making enough money to sustain your lifestyle, that's when you could decide whether to quit your corporate job and pursue music full-time. "I don't think you should just starve and pursue your passion. You also need to think about your cash cow," she added. "If you can make both one and the same, great. But if not, there are other ways to do it." Changing her mindset from accumulating money to accumulating experiences For years, Han poured much of her energy into making money and investing aggressively, but her single-minded pursuit of FIRE came at the cost of connection and deeper life experiences. "The overall emphasis on money and the accumulation of money has just gotten out of hand, because capitalism has gotten out of hand," she said. "It's taken us away from what really, really matters, which is time with our loved ones and relationships." Once she hit a $1 million net worth, one of her first thoughts was, "OK, well, now why don't I get to $10 million?" she said, a mindset she has since started to question. How much is enough, and at what point do you stop chasing more to enjoy what you already have? "I feel like that's one outdated piece of advice: Overemphasis on accumulating money and dollars versus accumulating moments and core memories that you can never replace," she said. She's not the only one waking up to this idea. She pointed to the "great resignation" of 2021 and 2022: "People were quitting their jobs because they were realizing, 'Oh, being away from home and working for somebody else who doesn't even really value me is not worth it anymore. I'd rather just have less money, but actually be able to do what I want with my time.'" For Han, her happiest moments have come since moving to the same city as her boyfriend. "The moments where we're just camping in our camper van, making a little fire, and my dog's running around the campsite, and it's just the three of us," she said. "Super simple moments that cost very little. That's what I live for."
Time of India
25-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Walmart Layoffs: Who is Suresh Kumar, the Indian-origin CTO in news amid latest job cuts
ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Earlier this week, Walmart announced plans to lay off 1,500 employees at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as it looks to cut costs and weather economic uncertainties, affecting the global technology team, ecommerce fulfillment in US stores and advertising business, Walmart job cuts are meant to accelerate decision-making and reduce complexities, a memo by chief technology officer (CTO) Suresh Kumar and Walmart US chief executive officer (CEO) John Furner read, as reviewed by Bloomberg News. While eliminating some roles, Walmart is also creating new positions, they latest round of layoffs has drawn criticism from US tech workers. One user on X claimed the vacancies in the Walmart tech team will be filled by H-1B visa holders. One post with Kumar's image claimed without proof that 40% of Walmart's IT department comprises H-1B visa holders from three decades of his experience, Bengaluru-born Kumar has worked with Microsoft Google and Amazon in various leading capacities. He has been working with Walmart for nearly six years, currently serving as global CTO and chief development officer. In this role, he leads Walmart's technologists across its global businesses, including Walmart US, Sam's Club, and Walmart International. He also oversees global shared services, data, cloud, infrastructure, and information security organisations for the retail joining Walmart, Kumar was the vice president and general manager at Google. In this role, he oversaw display, video, app advertising, and analytics, managing the advertising revenue and bottomline across platforms like the Google Play Store, Gmail, and YouTube. He led product and engineering teams for key advertising and analytics products including AdSense, AdMob, DV360, AdManager, and Google Analytics (both standard and 360). During his tenure, he drove business growth, introduced new product features, and significantly cut infrastructure and traffic acquisition joining Google, Kumar held a senior role at Microsoft as corporate vice president of cloud infrastructure and operations. He led the global planning, delivery, and management of Microsoft's physical cloud infrastructure, including data centres, networks, servers, supply chains, and automation systems. Under his leadership, Microsoft doubled its global cloud footprint and tripled capacity. He also transformed the company's cloud supply chain and operations to enhance scalability, agility, and safety through to Microsoft, Kumar spent 15 years at Amazon in multiple leadership roles. As vice president of technology for retail systems and operations, he played a key role in scaling Amazon's retail business tenfold by automating functions like forecasting, pricing, merchandising, and vendor management. He also oversaw Amazon's retail operations, catalog management, and competitive analysis. Earlier, he led Amazon's retail supply chain and inventory began his career at IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center, where he worked on collaborative supply chain planning and shock protection technologies for portable hard holds a PhD in engineering from Princeton University. He completed his BTech in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in earned $15.98 million last year at Walmart, according to a regulatory filing. This included base salary of $1.1 million and stock awards worth $12 this month, US President Donald Trump lashed out at Walmart , accusing the retail giant of using tariffs as an excuse to raise prices and urging the company to absorb the cost increases instead of passing them on to American consumers.'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Time of India
25-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Who is Suresh Kumar, the Indian-origin Walmart CTO in news amid latest job cuts
Earlier this week, Walmart announced plans to lay off 1,500 employees at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as it looks to cut costs and weather economic uncertainties, affecting the global technology team, ecommerce fulfillment in US stores and advertising business, Walmart Connect. The job cuts are meant to accelerate decision-making and reduce complexities, a memo by chief technology officer (CTO) Suresh Kumar and Walmart US chief executive officer (CEO) John Furner read, as reviewed by Bloomberg News. While eliminating some roles, Walmart is also creating new positions, they said. The latest round of layoffs has drawn criticism from US tech workers. One user on X claimed the vacancies in the Walmart tech team will be filled by H-1B visa holders. One post with Kumar's image claimed without proof that 40% of Walmart's IT department comprises H-1B visa holders from India. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Who is Suresh Kumar Over three decades of his experience, Bengaluru-born Kumar has worked with Microsoft , Google and Amazon in various leading capacities. He has been working with Walmart for nearly six years, currently serving as global CTO and chief development officer. In this role, he leads Walmart's technologists across its global businesses, including Walmart US, Sam's Club, and Walmart International. He also oversees global shared services, data, cloud, infrastructure, and information security organisations for the retail major. Before joining Walmart, Kumar was the vice president and general manager at Google. In this role, he oversaw display, video, app advertising, and analytics, managing the advertising revenue and bottomline across platforms like the Google Play Store, Gmail, and YouTube. He led product and engineering teams for key advertising and analytics products including AdSense, AdMob, DV360, AdManager, and Google Analytics (both standard and 360). During his tenure, he drove business growth, introduced new product features, and significantly cut infrastructure and traffic acquisition costs. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories Before joining Google, Kumar held a senior role at Microsoft as corporate vice president of cloud infrastructure and operations. He led the global planning, delivery, and management of Microsoft's physical cloud infrastructure, including data centres, networks, servers, supply chains, and automation systems. Under his leadership, Microsoft doubled its global cloud footprint and tripled capacity. He also transformed the company's cloud supply chain and operations to enhance scalability, agility, and safety through automation. Prior to Microsoft, Kumar spent 15 years at Amazon in multiple leadership roles. As vice president of technology for retail systems and operations, he played a key role in scaling Amazon's retail business tenfold by automating functions like forecasting, pricing, merchandising, and vendor management. He also oversaw Amazon's retail operations, catalog management, and competitive analysis. Earlier, he led Amazon's retail supply chain and inventory systems. Kumar began his career at IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center, where he worked on collaborative supply chain planning and shock protection technologies for portable hard drives. Kumar holds a PhD in engineering from Princeton University. He completed his BTech in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1987. Suresh Kumar salary Kumar earned $15.98 million last year at Walmart, according to a regulatory filing. This included base salary of $1.1 million and stock awards worth $12 million. Walmart's tariff troubles Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump lashed out at Walmart , accusing the retail giant of using tariffs as an excuse to raise prices and urging the company to absorb the cost increases instead of passing them on to American consumers. 'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
