In this motivational Hall‑of‑Fame style talk at an iLedge event, YouTube creator Sriram Benur shares his life‑story and the concrete tactics that turned a farmer‑family background into a multi‑crore YouTube empire. He recounts growing up in a North Karnataka cowshed, the financial struggles of his parents, and his early resolve to give them a better life. After a stable IT job at Accenture, he realized a salaried job could only sustain, not fulfill, his dreams, and pivoted to YouTube with a modest goal of earning ₹3,000‑₹5,000 per month. The first seven months yielded no results; the breakthrough came when he earned his first dollar in January 2013, which cemented his belief that the platform could be a viable income source. Over the next seven years he refined his approach through trial‑and‑error, learning that mere consistency is insufficient – consistency executed correctly is the key to massive growth. He now runs ten monetized channels with 5.9 million subscribers, 1.65 billion views, 4,360 videos, three Gold Play Buttons, six Silver Play Buttons, and has generated over ₹4 crore in revenue. He attributes this success to a set of repeatable strategies: (1) Passion – create content you love; (2) Niche focus – serve a specific audience; (3) Long‑form videos (8‑30 minutes) to boost watch time; (4) Target beginners and regional‑language audiences; (5) 80/20 rule – 80 % pure value, 20 % promotional/testimonial content; (6) Audience engagement – research top‑performing videos, craft compelling hooks, ask open‑ended questions; (7) Thumbnail design – make it stand out to increase click‑through; (8) Consistent publishing schedule (3 videos/week). He also highlights the power of a single viral video (16,000 subscribers) and shares personal milestones (first 100k subscribers in 14 months, subsequent milestones in faster time). The talk concludes with encouragement that anyone, regardless of background, can replicate his path, supported by his coaching experience (3,000+ paid students, a family of YouTubers with 55 lakh total subscribers).
Chapters
I come from a North Karnataka farmer's family, and there has been time in my family where for 2 years we have stayed in a cowshed. I could feel the kind of struggle my dad was going through. So I decided, once I get into a job, I'm going to give the best life to my parents where they will never ever struggle in life. That's when I understood a job can just help us to lead a life. It can never help us to live a dream life. Because I got the belief that I could earn money from YouTube. Now that I knew I could earn money, I started creating more and more videos, more and more videos with the expectation of getting more views and more earnings. Here is one most important thing that I learned. Consistency can never give great results. It's only consistency and doing it right can give massive results.
How many of you believe that the coolest thing on the planet Earth is YouTube? Yeah? Not everybody believes that, but hey, it's okay. The coolest thing about YouTube is not that it is YouTube. The coolest thing about YouTube is that Anybody today can be a biggie on YouTube. Yes, absolutely. But well, can everybody take their subscribership from 0 to 100,000? Probably, probably not. But with our next speaker coaching you, guiding you, showing you your every next step, Believe me when I say this, 0 to 100,000 subscribers will be your reality. Yeah. So this person is a YouTube coach who's gonna come up next. He's been with ILH for 3 years now, impacted 3,000+ paid students, has 2 lakh followers on Facebook, 1.5 lakh leads, over 10 lakh subscribers to his different channels. Wow, that's really amazing. But more than this is he belongs to a family of YouTubers, and between themselves they have 9 YouTube awards, 3 Golden Button, and 6, 6 Silver Play Buttons. Can you give it up for this gentleman? Wow! He has earned close to about 2 crores. 2 crores, guys, come on, some amount of applause! Yeah, he's earned more than 2 crores once he's come to the iLedge family, and he says that his top 3 accomplishments are the fact that he hit the crore club, that he has 3,000 paid students and of course the 9 YouTube awards. Well, I have to tell you, amongst themselves as a family, they have altogether about 55 lakh subscribers on all their channels. That's awesome! Come on, let's once again give it up for them. Amazing! Okay, we love this about this gentleman. He loves doing short films and skits. And yes, I know for a fact that his superpower is his awesome smile and his never-say-die, always-learning, lifelong-learning attitude. He learns from anybody and everybody. Please help me welcome your very own YouTube coach, Shriram Benur! Yeah!
Woo!
Hello, hello, Rocket!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Pallavi, for that wonderful introduction. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Did you all know that a 10-year-old kid has generated more than 200 crores in 2021 by just creating videos and uploading on YouTube? That's because YouTube pays 55% total revenue to creators. You all sitting in this room can certainly generate that kind of revenue. That's the kind of potential what creating videos has. How many of you in this room want to achieve 1 lakh subscribers in 1 year? Yes. Fantastic. So let's make it happen. And oh, I'm Sriram Benur, content creator of channel A2C with over 1 million subscribers. And within our family, we have built around 10 YouTube channels which are monetized and having more than 59 lakh plus subscribers. But why did I start with YouTube? The story comes here. I come from a North Karnataka farmer's family, and there has been time in my family where for 2 years we have stayed in a cowshed. That's 2 of my brothers, dad, mom, and sister. I was probably around 10 years old. It was time for my dad to pay my school fees. He didn't have money, so he went to a neighbor's home, and he made a request, "Can you please lend money so that I can pay for my kids' education?" And he said, "Once the crops are going to come, I am going to repay you the money." The gentleman just looked into my dad's eye, and he said, "Why do you want to waste money on your kids' education? Instead, make them work in the farm, you are going to earn money." I'm truly grateful to my dad that he did not listen to him. That's the only reason why I'm in front of you all today. On that day, he said something very powerful. Do not struggle like me in life. Get good education, get a good job, and lead a fantastic life is what he said. Even at the age of 10, I could feel the kind of struggle my dad was going through. So I decided, once I get into a job, I'm going to give the best life to my parents where they will never ever struggle in life. That's the kind of dream that I had as a 10-year-old boy. And thank you. Guess what? I made it happen. I got placed in one of the well-known IT companies, Accenture. Decent salary, started traveling around the globe. My friends start saying, wow, what a life Sriram is having. But only I knew that by the 5th of every month, my pockets were empty, right? So that's when I understood a job can just help us to lead a life. It can never help us to live a dream life. So that's when I started exploring other opportunities, and I landed with YouTube just with a single dream of generating ₹3,000 to ₹5,000 per month. For the first 7 months, I did not see any results. In fact, I still remember those days where I used to comment on all the famous YouTubers asking them just one thing: please tell me some strategies to grow my channel. Some of them used to be generous and some of them used to answer. And after some month, there was a magic that happened in my channel. The magic was Jan 13, 2013. I saw the first $1 that was reflected in my YouTube dashboard. Thank you. It made me feel so happy, not because I earned $1. Because I got the belief that I could earn money from YouTube. Now here is next. Now that I knew I could earn money, I started creating more and more videos, more and more videos, with the expectation of getting more views and more earnings. Challenges started here. Neither I was getting views nor I was getting earnings. The reason was I was like a horse with the blinders, focused only on views, subscribers, and earnings. I totally forgot one of the most important things to succeed in YouTube was adding a great value. That's when again the learning curve started. Did a lot of trial and errors, mistakes, learned how to do it in the right way. And again, things start changing. Here is one most important thing that I learned. Consistency can never give great results. It's only consistency and doing it right can give massive results. So this is how it started. And here's the results. 3 years of trial and error, 7 years of implementation in the right way. 10 monetized channels, 5.9 million subscribers, 1,650 million views, 4,360 videos that we uploaded consistently in the right way, and the best gift was we received these awards. Thank you. 3 gold play buttons and 6 silver play buttons. Do you want to learn the strategies that I implemented which can help you to get great results? Yes, yes, fantastic. So again, it can certainly help you to get great views, and also it can help you to get quality leads for your business as well. The first most important thing was Passion. Start a channel on a topic that you really love the most, so that when you create the content, you give your best in the simplified creative way. My passion— I was a mechanical engineer, so my passion is towards that. So I started creating science projects. That's how I built A2C, right? So that's the first thing. And when you create content with with passion, great energy, with happiness, and with a clear intention to add value, audience can feel it. When they feel it, they become your true subscribers for lifetime who are waiting to watch each and every video that you upload. That's the first thing. Next, right audience. How do we really get the right audience who are going to watch our videos? Who are connected to our videos channel. It happens when we focus on one particular niche. So identify one niche and start creating videos on that. That is something which helps YouTube to understand your niche, which is going to rank you, rank your channel for those particular keywords. That's how your videos start performing better. Long videos. This is actually the true magic. Start creating videos which are more than 8 minutes. It can go to 15 minutes, 30 minutes as well, and create 3 videos in a week. Now, why long videos? Because it has higher audience engagement as well. Now here is what happens, right? We all land on YouTube videos, right? The moment somebody lands on a YouTube video, YouTube understands how long they stayed on your video. How long they stayed on your channel, how long they stayed on YouTube itself. Based on those things, the videos are going to be ranked. So for that, make sure you're not redirecting your audience from your YouTube video to external links. So 3 things to consider: target creating content for beginners. It will certainly get you higher views. Next, Regional languages have seen 5 times higher growth in the recent times. If your channel suits for that, create channel in the regional language and follow 80/20 rule. As all coaches here, you all get the testimonials, right? Yes. And we are always in high just to post it on YouTube. So the thing that you can follow is 80% of your videos should be clear value addition only. There is no external links. 20% of your videos can have testimonials or where you are directing them to the landing pages. Okay, so that's something to follow. Audience engagement. This one thing can certainly create a magic. How many of you want to know this? This in fact has helped my entire channel to scale up. Okay, so before Creating any video on any topic, right? The first thing that I do is I'll quickly search on YouTube on the same topic, the top 3 videos that have got the highest views. Once I do that, I see how they started, what information they shared, right? What hook they used, right? What was the value addition they did? Now once I understand all this information, then I plan my video. Which is more simple, creative, and engaging. And always ask one open-ended question, which is going to increase the engagement on the videos. When this happens, that's when YouTube recognizes and starts showing your video to more and more people. And the last one, presenting. If I ask you, to choose one among these three. How many would choose blue? Okay. How many for white? And how many for red?
Woohoo!
Great. Do you know what is inside those packages? Don't know, right? All the three packages have the same Dairy Milk chocolate. But why am I giving this example? Whatever video that we are going to create There are already hundreds of people who have created that. But the person who creates a thumbnail which is going to stand out is the one who is going to get the maximum number of clicks in the beginning. Always plan and create thumbnail that really stands out. So once you start applying the strategies, that's when the magic happens, where one of your videos starts going viral, which can help you to get hundreds and thousands of subscribers. And get your channel monetized as well. Just to mention, one video has got 16,000 subscribers for me. That's the power of one video. So this is how I started back in 2015. Not confident, confused, and for recording one sentence, I used to take 15 to 20 shots. You all sitting here, I am 100% sure you can do a lot more better in your first video. Now, is really 1 lakh subscribers possible in a year? Do you have this question? Yes? Okay. I took 14 months to achieve my first 1 lakh subscribers, next 4 months to achieve my second 1 lakh subscribers. My brother did it in 8 months, and one of my recent students just did it in 2.5 months. So if they can do it, certainly you can also do it. So how many of you are curious to know how much we really generated income from YouTube? Yes? Okay, great. Just by investing our time and being a little bit creative, we have generated over 4 crores purely from YouTube videos. Just from YouTube videos. From a family that was living a life of loans for 40+ years to a loan-free life right now. That happened because of YouTube for me. And the best thing for me has been the great smile that I see in my parents' face. This was a dream. So how many of you are curious to know how much we really generated income from YouTube? Yes. Okay. Great. Just by investing our time and being little bit creative, we have generated over 4 crores purely from YouTube videos. Just from YouTube videos. Thank you, thank you, Sid. And I truly want to thank Sid for this wonderful, Jerry said, you are a true blessing in my life, for connecting to so many wonderful people whom I am connected here. So I can't express how grateful I am for that. So thank you, thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Check, check. Okay, I want to add something about Sriram. When I did this first Hall of Fame interview, I was totally blown away. Like, I'm sure many of you are blown away, right? Like, from farmer background to what is, you know, the possibility of building a full-time revenue through YouTube. And what I liked about Sriram is his simplicity, his authenticity, his— like somebody, like Vijay, you had mentioned the innocence, right? The innocence of just being real and doing it is what has got him over here. So all of you here believe that if a family like this can do it, each one of you can actually get on YouTube, yes? So turn to the person next to you, give them a high five and say, let's get started on YouTube.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
And let's give another standing ovation for Shriram Benu.
