Ayush Shukla | Founder of the content agency FINNET MEDIA

Ayush Shukla is a 22-year-old entrepreneur, creator and podcast host. Since January 2021, when he founded his company finnet media, his life has been amazingly adventurous.
Now we’re gonna talk about how he ended up here, in this big company called Finnet Media, managing a team of merely 8-10 people and making over 13 crores per year.

Early Life

All of us as kids were impatient and curious, and So was Ayush shukla. He wanted everything as soon as he demanded and it required to be the best. While stating an incident, Ayush says “In 9th standard, I wanted to go to a boot camp at a college outside Odisha. I went to my dad and asked if I can go. My dad politely refused and said ‘ I can’t randomly spend money anywhere and everywhere”. That was when it hit him badly. He realised how much importance money holds. He needed money as all of us do. At that particular time, Ayush assumed Money was a success and you need that to be called successful and impact lives.

School Life

Ayush Shukla has a typical small-town story. He belongs to Talchar, a small town in Odisha. As a kid, he was a shy and ambivert, but well aware of where he was. And also Ayush knew what he wanted. He wanted to leave this small town, get out, get exposed to a big city and explore as much as possible. As an escape, He found the great SRCC of Delhi University. For entering a big college like that, he needed to get a high percentage. Consequently, Ayush began putting his tip-to-toe efforts into that. All he did afterwards was just study.

As a result of his hard work, he secured 97% in 12th boards and topped the district. But unfortunately, he could not make it to SRCC. It hit him hard and began to think of himself as a big loser. But something is better than nothing, So Ayush took admission to Delhi University to pursue BA in Economics honours. That was when he realised that everyone around him was way smarter than him. All of them were doing languages and different courses and stuff. But Ayush had no experience in non-academic stuff because for past years his complete focus was on academic skills.

College Years

That was when Ayush met the transition, he switched to learning unacademic skills. He joined all sorts of societies and teams in his college, completed all the tasks timely and outshined everyone else. As a result, By the end of the first year, Ayush was given a leadership position. So he realised that he is not as bad as he thought. It helped him to build up the confidence to organise events. He applied for TEDx, got the license and organised two shows in his college. It gave him exposure to a lot of smarter people. And this journey from looking at those smart people and being amazed to being one of them and speaking on the stage felt wonderful to him. Through this, he started meeting successful people and getting to know everything and everyone around him.

Beginning of Career

This made him take this thing to the next level. That was when Ayush Shukla started his podcast mini adult troubles. It was nothing but just an excuse to meet greater level people and interact with them confidently. Slowly and steadily that podcast gained attraction that was when it hit him that he also needs to feed himself. The second-year was almost ending and he had no source of income. Consequently, Ayush got into digital marketing, he learnt e-commerce, drop shipping, and digital media and then eventually began his dropshipping store.

Three months down the line Ayush made over 10 lakhs in revenue and thought that he was profitable. But it was all on paper. Ayush realised that money is bleeding out, 2 lakh every month and he immediately stopped the operations. But the good part of that was, he got a lot of experience.

With over 71K+ Instagram followers worldwide.  He has earned an immense reputation that has made him a brand powerhouse. Worked with different expert photo artists and also served as an expert model. His content is extraordinary from the rest of the Influencer, making him stand out from the rest. He continues to post his amazing photos on Instagram; check out the recent image below.

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A post shared by Ayush Shukla (@ayushshukl.a)

Freelancing

Following this, Ayush started freelancing as a marketing associate with different companies. After freelancing with 3-4 companies, He began making 20-25k per month. College was almost over and he knew that job was not something he is made for. After which, He got three job offers, he tried three of them but none of them worked for him.
The first one said that he was asking for too much.
The second one did not fulfil its commitment. And the third one said that He is arrogant.
That probably was the darkest phase of his life. Ayush couldn’t face this setback. Consequently, he was forced to shift back to his parent’s house from Delhi to Bhopal. Cause he thought his ends can’t be met with just freelancing.

Finnet Media

After moving to Bhopal, Ayush thought to give it a last shot. He asked some of his friends and got a job in an ed-tech company via a reference. Simultaneously he began working on his agency.

Find media is an influencer marketing and creator management agency. They believe in enabling and enhancing creators. One of the influencers he signed with was Anushka Rathore. Back then she had merely 2000 followers and today she has a fanbase of 450 thousand followers. Some numerous influencers and creators have provided resources and support.

The initial days were crazy like every startup but it was not as smooth as it sounds. Everyone was questioning him about leaving a stable source of income for this unconventional thing. But Ayush’s determination and hard work made all of it work. Finnet media collected 13cr in the last 10 months of operation.

Message from him

“To all those who want to do something in the content industry, this is a difficult field to enter but this will go massively year by year. This is getting a lot of technological revolution. If you believe in the Digital revolution then you LEARN, EARN and GROW here” he says

Also Read: Ishaan Arora | Founder of the great ed-tech company FinLadder