Madan Gowri: A South Sensation The influencer's YouTube channel has over 1700 distinct videos, more than 700 million views and over 8 million subscribers.

Madan Gowri's ability to explain intricate subjects in simple words has gained him a massive following across all age groups. He is today a household name in Tamilnadu. His YouTube channel has over 1700 distinct videos, more than 700 million views and over 8 million subscribers.

"I never thought I would become a household name, but I knew I wanted to be popular, one way or the other. Even as a child, I used to tell my mom that someday I'm would become famous. I didn't know how, but I just knew I would be. And, I needed to figure out a way to do that. Being famous brings a good lifestyle. But, I never really thought that internet would be the path for me because I was trying to get into television for quite some time, which never happened," says Madan.

When asked about why he chose the genre of infotainment, he says, "I didn't know to dance, sing or act. I knew to talk. But everyone knows to talk, so I needed to be different. And, information and analysis were something I was always interested in. Even as a child I would like to read the last page of my class notebook, which had the facts. I liked knowing things even if they didn't have real-world applications. I always like doing new things. And of course, when you can flex it to a lot of people, it's fun, right?"

Madan became an influencer before influencer was even a term. So, what he feels worked for him was that he was true to his audience. And, that is the advice he would like to give budding influencers. "Put yourself in your audience's place and analyze if you will be watching what you are putting out. Because your audience's time is precious, just like yours," he says.

Madan keeps accumulating knowledge about a subject and when this topic is a point of discussion, all this accumulated knowledge is shared along with that extra research. Also, Madan's content is a one-man's show. From ideating, and shooting to editing, and every aspect that comes with content creation, Madan does it on his own. "Actually the whole influencer thing is designed for a single person. If you see the biggest influencers in the world, all of them have been single-person creators. The tools are very sophisticated today and one can surely manage them. But, beyond a point, when you spread into other things, you would need a team to focus on those things," he says.

Currently, Madan is in that stage of his career when he has stepped into multiple projects beyond YouTube. Thus, he plans to set up a whole team. For instance, in 2021, Madan launched his new venture, a news app called Kokru; Soon, he will be getting into web series; he is also running a hotel and many other things. To manage these, he will be hiring some members this year. When asked about what kind of people he is looking to hire, he says, "someone who understands and believes in the content I do."

Besides the endeavors mentioned above, he also plans to do social media marketing as a business. "Along with the content I'm doing, I want to get into new things so that I can continue to have the excitement of a beginner," he says.

Factsheet

• Number of followers on Insta: 2Mn
• Number of subscribers on YT: 6.65 Mn
• Genre: Infotainment
• Brand partnerships: 15 (approx) including Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Skillshare, Policy Bazaar, CRED