What It Really Takes to Hit 10 Million Followers - and Stay There India's leading digital creators - Madan Gowri, Neha Nagar, and Yamini Jain open up on breaking plateaus, building brands, and surviving the pressures of the influencer economy.

In the ever-expanding universe of digital influence, where creators chase algorithms, engagement, and elusive virality, only a few truly break through the glass ceiling. At Entrepreneur India's event for founders, funders, and creators, panel titled "The Journey Towards 10M, 20M, 30M Followers and More," three of India's most successful digital creators - Madan Gowri, Neha Nagar, and Yamini Jain decoded what it really takes to sustain growth beyond the numbers. The session was moderated by Anirudh Sridharan, Co-Founder, HashFame.

Their stories, rooted in passion and purpose rather than metrics and monetisation, revealed a common truth: that influence, when driven by authenticity, eventually turns into impact.

From Passion to Profession

"When I started six or seven years ago," said Madan Gowri, "I didn't know this was a platform where we could make money. The prime drive was not money, it was the attention, the fame we were getting along with it. And when you chase something beyond the monetary aspect, there's a passion attached to it. You'd do whatever has to be done, irrespective of you getting paid or not."

He added that today, content creation has become a business from the get-go. "When someone starts now and says they want to become an influencer or creator, they come with the idea of looking at it as a business. But passion versus business - passion is always going to win." Drawing a parallel with cricket, he explained, "If someone wants to become a cricketer to represent India in blue, the probability of them being there is higher than someone whose goal is to make money and sees cricket as a way to it. That's the difference."

Yamini Jain agreed: "Anything that is driven by passion will always reach higher numbers. Even in monetary terms, that is going to achieve more success."

She reflected on how her approach evolved after reaching the first 100K mark. "After that, we learned to add more professionalism to the kind of content we were making. Before that, we were experimenting. But eventually, we realised this could be taken up as a profession, now we invest more time, write proper scripts, and follow a protocol for each piece of content."

Reinvention and Resilience

For Neha Nagar, the rise came from spotting an empty niche. "I started content creation in a niche that was not there earlier, personal finance and taxation, during the 2020 lockdown," she recalled. "There were a lot of videos on YouTube, but not on short-video platforms. So it was pretty easy for me to start because there was no one to judge or compare."

Her first 100K followers came quickly, but once the space became crowded, sustaining growth became harder. "People who were more talented, more knowledgeable, more good-looking, who had actually done something valuable in life, started coming onto social media. So I tried to evolve, to adapt. I started changing my life, my discipline, my routine and here I am at two million followers now."

Numbers, she said, became her compass. "I showed interest in numbers from the beginning. I saw where my views were dropping, why they were dropping, and used that analytic to improve my next video. So for me, number one thing was adapting to everything changing around me, and number two, focusing on numbers so I could continuously improve."

But for Nagar, staying true to her niche mattered more than chasing mass appeal. "If you are selling in a particular niche, there are more chances to sell well than if you're selling everything. I don't want to target everyone, I'm happy in finance. Even if I'm getting one million average views, that's huge in the finance space."

The Language of Scale

Madan Gowri, who commands a cumulative following of over 10 million, said he has reached a point of saturation within his linguistic audience. "The globally Tamil-speaking diaspora is about 80 million, and I am at 10 million, one in every eight people who speak my language follow me in some scale. That's the threshold. I can't go beyond that."

Now, he's setting his sights global. "I'm starting my English channel next week," he shared, while also emphasising the untapped potential of regional content. "Regional language is an unexplored market. This is true not just for Tamil but also for Malayalam, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, and I think it applies in the north too. No one has touched it to the extent it can be explored."

Turning Followers into a Future

For creators, the most pressing challenge beyond scale is sustainability. With brand collaborations accounting for nearly 80–90% of influencer income, what happens if the brand money stops flowing?

Neha Nagar believes in diversifying early. "Most creators depend 100% on brand collaborations because it's quick money. But you should start courses, write books, do webinars, workshops and build something of your own. You also shouldn't depend on just one platform. We've seen what happened with TikTok. So build on YouTube, Instagram, wherever possible."

Her own backup plan is an influencer marketing agency called DigiWhistle. "Even if someday I feel I don't want to create content daily, I'll have something to fall back on. And honestly, when you have a backup, your videos perform better because you're tension-free, more at peace, and more creative."

Yamini Jain, who co-founded Snowberry, a dessert brand born from her own home kitchen, agreed that having an alternate business stream is crucial, but challenging. "People think starting a business is as easy as creating content. It's not. We started Snowberry from our homes, doing everything - making, serving, cleaning ourselves. It's not an easy thing to do," she said.

At the same time, she acknowledged that influencer-driven businesses are reshaping markets. "Right now, a lot of brands are giving priority to influencers over Bollywood. They're happily paying top creators for attending events or inaugurations. So yes, there are many income streams, you just have to be open to experimenting."

Madan Gowri offered a contrasting regional perspective: "Unlike in the north, if I have more avenues where I'm making money, my audience will dump me. In the south, people want you to focus on what you do. There's judgment if you monetise beyond a limit, it's a cultural thing."

The Cost of Going Public

Success brings visibility, but also vulnerability. The panelists agreed that criticism and trolling are inevitable, but learning to rise above them is part of the journey.

"First, I have to give my biggest respect to both these women for being creators and facing the Indian audience," said Madan Gowri. "It's crazy. The moment a woman is in public, even at a bus stand, she faces problems. To do the same on the internet takes nerves of steel. But as you grow, you develop thick skin. It's like a sapling becoming a tree, the older it grows, the thicker the skin gets."

For Yamini Jain, the turning point came after becoming a mother. "The maximum hate I got was when my daughter was born, and I resumed work quickly after that," she shared. "At one point, I told my husband maybe I should take a break. But he said, if it's just a faceless person commenting, why give up everything you've built? Eventually, I learned to let it pass. The more hate comments we get, the better the engagement, so now I'm happy."

Neha Nagar concluded with a simple perspective: "Negative comments are just 1% of the total, but we focus on them more. Why not focus on the 99% who support and learn from us? Of course, I still read criticism, if there's something I can improve, I will. If not, I let it go."

As the discussion came to an end, one thing was clear: followers are only the surface. The ability to adapt, remain true to themselves, and find meaning in the process is what keeps creators like Madan Gowri, Neha Nagar, and Yamini Jain going rather than fame or virality. In a landscape obsessed with metrics, their journeys remind us that real influence isn't counted in millions, it's built, one story at a time.