Opinion
Ishan Sharma: IIT and BITS value is declining due to seat expansion
“I think it has gone down. It's not as glamorous as it used to be. Number one, also because there are a lot more seats created. There are new IITs coming. There was this very new IITs, right? So the value of IITs are going down. Same is the case with BITs.”
Opinion
Ishan Sharma: Indian youth excel at rote memorization but lack creativity
“I think that, ah, the Indian youth is great at, ah, memorizing things, the rote memorization. But they're also not that great at, like, having, look at a problem from a general perspective. Right? Like, there are a lot of children who go to IITs who study, rig…”
Insight
Ishan Sharma: In-person networking accelerates career growth faster than Zoom
“In person is always way better than doing, like, Zoom calls. It works. Zoom also works. I've been doing it for the last two years, but I think this will accelerate your learning for the audience if they want to come here and accelerate their growth in their ca…”
Insight
Ishan Sharma: Early-career professionals should relocate to opportunity hubs before going remote
“So you can travel to the city that has the most opportunities, work over here in the initial part of your career, hustle, and then you can decide wherever you want to go. You can work remotely later on.”
Insight
Sharma: Creator wealth requires reaching the top one percent of engagement
“Like any content creator, for them to be making that much money, they have to be in the top one percent most engaging creators out there, right? And that is a very tough thing to get to.”
Insight
Sharma: Creators must hook viewers with popular topics before pivoting content
“So you have to get people hooked in with what they think is right. And then you start off sort of start sharing what you think is important to them. And because they have gained trust on you, then they will start consuming content that you think is important. …”
Disclosure
Sharma: Unlisted sponsored Unacademy video and rejected payment after high dislike ratio
“The like to dislike ratio was about, like 68%. 65, 68%, and that is when I knew that this is not a good thing to go ahead with. So I was like, you know, on Academy, I don't want to get paid. I'm so sorry. I will have to unlist this video, and we can't you know…”
Disclosure
Sharma: I will not promote betting apps or loan products
“I have a very clear boundary that, you know, I will not promote betting apps. I will not promote loan products, even though that might be helpful for some people. I would never Use it, and hence I would not want my audience to do the same.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sharma: Under 5% of Indian students earn early via high-income skills
“I think, yeah, not more than five percent, but it is a huge rise from like, you know.1 or .2%, which was back in my time.”
Assertion Contradicted
Sharma: Audi and BMW achieved their 2023 India sales targets in Q1
“There was a stat which says that the number of units that Audi and BMW thought they will sell in the whole year of 23, they sold in the first quarter itself.”
Disclosure
Sharma generated zero ROI from a $500 viral creator sponsorship at Codedamn
“So, I was working in the influencer marketing segment in Codem. So, I thought, let me experiment with this. So, we did one integration on his channel. We got zero ROI on that. Right? We paid him, like, 500 dollars and did not get a single rupee or dollar back.”
Insight
Content creation is a temporary opportunity requiring continuous reinvention
“I also learned about how creators have a lifespan, right? Either you keep reinventing yourself, or you know that it's not exactly a career, it's an opportunity that you have as a creator. You can either go into the entrepreneurial way, you can launch your app,…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sharma's dropout income was 10x the highest college placement package
“Yeah, so it was actually 10 times the highest package in my own college. What I was making in that month, if you multiply that by 12.”
Opinion
Sharma believes manifestation is a placebo effect; execution drives results
“Manifestation is more like a placebo effect.
There are a lot of people who say that it works.
I saw that one video by James Jani in which he was talking about how this is completely pseudoscience.
So he proved that with a lot of different case studies.
I perso…”
Insight
Ishan Sharma: Short-form video requires tight scripting to maximize viewer retention
“Script is great when you're writing a, when you're making a short. So in a short, you have a time constraint of one minute, and you have to make sure that the audience gets the most value in the least amount of time possible. The hook matters, the 1:03 seconds…”
Insight
Sharma: Growing to 1M YouTube subscribers typically takes three to four years
“Three, four years is what it normally takes to go from zero to like a million to about a million in some time.”
Disclosure
Sharma: Taking a gap year for IIT-JEE is poor time utilization
“I was clear that I will not do that because that's just not the best way to utilize my age, this age that I have right now.”
Insight
Ishan Sharma: Showing proven channel growth eliminates sales friction for agencies
“My learning from all of that was that if you have the results, if you can actually show that, hey, here is a list of
channels that we've grown, then it's a lot easier to convince the person in front of you. They're already convinced. They just want to see how…”
Disclosure
Sharma's agency MarkitUp has 14 clients and 25 remote employees
“We have 14 clients, and we have 25 people working remotely”
Disclosure
Sharma's agency MarkitUp generated 12 lakh INR in May 2022
“MarketUp made, like, around 12 lakhs in the last month”
Disclosure
Sharma earned 17 to 18 lakh INR from YouTube in May 2022
“I made, like, around 17 to 18 lakhs on my YouTube channel, so that was pretty much it. It's about three lakhs on YouTube AdSense, and the rest is brand deals.”
Disclosure
Sharma converted channel sponsorship inquiries into agency clients for MarkitUp
“The trick that worked with the marketer was that because I was getting a lot of brands on my own YouTube channel, I used to divert them and offer them another deal saying that, yes, I'll integrate you on my, in my videos, but we can also help you grow your own…”
Disclosure
Sharma pays some MarkitUp video editors 70k to 80k rupees monthly
“There are editors in MarketUp who make, like, 70 to 80,000 per month as well.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
A designer trained in Sharma's cohort landed a 15 LPA offer
“So there was this one guy who we trained in our cohort, and he got a full-time offer of, like, 15 LPA to work as a designer in Code Dam.”
