Nisha Madhulika
Subscriber count: 7 million
What prompted your YouTube debut at age 51 (she is now 60)?
In all honesty, it was the readers of my blog. My blog was all text, and the readers used to tell me, I should make videos for them to see the recipes clearly. I decided to do that because people asked for it so many times. Listening to my audience got me here.
How do you involve your two children?
Both of them have their own work to look out for. However, they have helped me a lot in the past by taking care of the technical work that I am not able to do. I don’t need them to do much for me. I have my own team and people who can assist me.
Your advice for those wanting to start a food-focussed YouTube channel.
It’s definitely a lot more competitive today than when I started but there are more viewers too. My advice would be, do your work with the intention of helping people and making a difference. Don’t focus on the money too much. Profits and money will come with time. It takes a while. It took time for me too. Do your work with dedication and honesty, and try to create something new and interesting; audience will grow little by little.
Ritu Gupta From her YouTube channel
Ritu’s Dance Studio
Subscriber count: 1 million
What distinguishes your channel from the many others out there?
My dance channel is not mere eye candy; it has usable stuff. We try to create moves that a larger audience can identify with. The level of choreography targets 80-90 per cent of the general public who wish to learn quickly from videos and turn in a graceful, decent performance.
Being a mom and a successful YouTuber?
Many don’t believe that I am a mother of two grown-up boys and I am proud to be dancing my way through life. My sons are now grown up and they do not need my attention as much as before.
What do you use to record and edit videos?
I use a Canon EOS 600D to shoot videos and the catch is that I haven’t spent a penny on a videographer till date, even after 220-plus videos on YouTube. I edit videos myself using Wondershare Filmora on my Asus which runs on Windows 10. I use Audacity for audio editing.
Mansi Payet From her YouTube channel
Mom Com India
Subscriber base: 798K
What’s the story behind your channel?
I started my YouTube channel in Jan 2017 when I was in my third trimester (my son was born on February 22). I wanted to be an informed and a hands-on mother right from the start and so I started finding out about pregnancy care, baby care, development milestones, food and health-related information and so on. While doing my research I realised that YouTube lacks content on this front for an Indian audience.
Do you involve your family and son in the YouTube channel?
During the course of running the channel I realised that it’s almost impossible for a mother to share real-time experiences as raising a child takes one’s time and effort. One needs a strong support system, which I found in my husband who is creative and helps with video shoots and edits. Most importantly, he is a hands-on father himself who loves putting forward his experiences and observations which I incorporate and present in videos giving the audience “parents’ view” and not just a “mother’s view”. For my son, we have started a separate channel (Kabir Payet) where we log his journey through videos.
Satya Raghavan A Telegraph picture
YouTube has become a place for everyone to succeed, no matter the gender, native language, age or where they come from. We are extremely delighted to see an outsized impact on the expanding community of mothers on YouTube. Be it dance, beauty, travel or cooking, creators are not only getting global recognition but are setting some major benchmarks for millions.
— Satya Raghavan, director of YouTube partnerships, India
