As part of our relentless efforts to identify and share some of the meaningful stories from India and around the world, this week we invited Passionate Youtuber and Online Entrepreneur Rohan Sawant for an interview with us. Rohan is a Content Creator, Change Enabler, Influencer, and Purpose-driven Internet Entrepreneur. He is the Founder & Creator of Mr Random. Let’s read more about his inspiring journey so far and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Rohan:
Talk us through your background and your journey, please.
Professionally, I am a data engineer, currently working in Amazon, I’ve done my engineering and my masters from the US. I have previously worked in many software and game-based companies, including active vision, and finally in Amazon with almost 9 years of experience in IT.
Hence, if you see, my background is completely IT-based. The story of a YouTuber and the name of “Mr Random” (which Mr Beast mentioned in one of the interviews that he wanted to name himself this) started when I started watching Mr Beast, in around 2016-17. His content of giving away help to the needy was inspiring for me.”
I used to think that this guy is really rich and has a lot of money to give away like this. But in reality, when I dug a little deeper into his background, I got to know that he started his journey as a small YouTuber where, in an interview he mentioned, if my memory helps me well, he got a sponsorship where he promised the sponsor that the video will get viral and asked for $10,000, but received only $5000 for the same.
That video went viral where he gave the amount to a beggar outside. That video inspired me and persuaded me to do something of this sort in India as well. As at that time, there was no one like Mr Beast, he was doing something different like helping the needy through social media platforms like YouTube. But, as mentioned Mr Beast himself started from rock bottom, I had to build myself to a level where I can as well help people in the same manner.
Hence, I started working a little extra as I had some other liabilities to be handled as well. I worked many nights overtime and stayed in the office, as the only goal in my mind was to help people and let this out in the world as a helping hand to the needy. For me, YouTube was my way to do something which makes a difference in society.
There were times where I worked, and my colleagues would like to agree with me on this as well, more than 17 hours in the office, with just one aim pushing me towards it, that I want to get to that level where I can freely give away big amounts of help to people. Starting at amazon, I finished off with all my loans, and hence in 2020, when the YouTube V/S Tik-Tok was trending on every screen of an Indian, I found my will to go out. Finally, when everything felt like it was in place, I went ahead with my wish.”
My friends also pushed me to go out to the world and do whatever made me happy. I am where I am today, just reaching out to that wish to help and get happiness from the smiles of others. There were times when I was told, “you’re a good engineer, earning well enough, why are you spending time on YouTube”, but I just went ahead with my heart and soul, and now love the family of more than 8,72,000 members keeps me going to take a step ahead.
I’ve spent more on my videos than my earnings, but I think that just keeps me going with the job I have as I continuously strive more to get projects and freelance work to sustain my work on YouTube and continuously grow.
How did you discover your passion?
As I mentioned previously as well, my inspiration was Mr Beast, his content and work, where he has helped a lot of people and made a remarkable difference in their lives. I think I always believed in one thing, that I want to give back to society.
I have grown through many phases, and have seen everything anyone can think of. I think Mr Beast’s videos and his work was just one thing I was waiting for subconsciously, and when everything felt right to me, I dipped myself in this ocean. My friends and colleagues have helped me throughout and I am forever grateful for them.
I discovered my passion through a series of continuous hard work, always being aware of my surroundings and the people who are growing around me. My passion for working for society, giving back and hence, growing to be a better man.”
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I think my biggest strength is the kind of people I’m surrounded with, who constantly push me through and through, and make me do whatever I am doing today. My team is always there for me as my critic, as an advisor, a support system or motivational power booster.
Through your platform I would like to say out to the public and especially give large credit to Mr Manager because of whom, Mr Random is what it is today. It was because of him, I was able to launch my first ever video. He always stands by, expects the best out of me, and motivates me to do everything with all my heart.”
My team kept growing with time and today, because of them I get love from an uncountable number of people. After I started with such donations through my channel, a chain of ripple effects commenced, and many people started doing the same thing. This made me feel much better and prouder about my own work. My driving force is the people who I help through my content, and the emotions attached to every single smile and every single “god bless you” is worth the endless nights of planning and strategizing.
I still get calls from the family I helped in my recent video of around INR 2 Lakhs, inviting me for dinner someday, this “Yeh feeling se goosebumps nahi aayega toh kya aayega”, drives me always. Lastly, it has been my goal from the very start that in this short life of mine, I have to do something and make a difference in society. When I am on my deathbed, I shall not be a person with just another life which circles around a job, family and end. I want a journey full of happiness, contentment, and joy.”
My entertainment video with a dash of social service makes me feel contented. My mother’s tailor said in a video that he’s proud to be her tailor because her son is Mr Random. This feeling of making my parents proud, my team proud and spreading smiles in society is something that drives me and I am sure it is going to be worth working forever ahead as well.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
I think the biggest source of my motivation is my own family and the way my parents have grown to so much of a better place after facing all the hardships in life. They helped me as well to be with all their heart with education, with wellbeing and everything I asked for.
There were many circumstances where I have seen how hard it was to earn a single penny and to satisfy small needs. I have, to be very honest, seen the hardest of my days as a child as well. The motivation lies in that one single thought, “if I want it, why can’t I have it”. I was not this as a child or were my parents, but now I am. And having said that now I am, I want to spread the same feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction, with the efficacy to get every basic need of a human fulfilled.
I spread that thought through my content, by, as mentioned previously, smiles and laughs. None of the videos I post is something where I am making fun of or demeaning someone, rather are videos of jokes on myself, and spreading happiness with a helping hand. My motivation comes just from what I didn’t have. That’s all. I might not buy my own luxuries, I just simply live by what I have, rather the happiness you get by giving away is more satisfactory.
For me, a “god bless you”, is more important to me than any “wow, what a beautiful car”.”
What are some of the strategies that you believe has helped you grow as a person?
There is a video of mine, called “I am a scammer” where I explained how I made my first video. When I was going to post my first video, I was expecting around 50-60k subscribers, but my team, especially Mr Manager, were expecting more than 150k subscribers.
They genuinely have more confidence in me than I have in myself, which is on the basis of my hard work and planning which I did much prior to posting the video. My strategies to make my videos can be divided into 5 pointers, which is hype, Big Faces, Watch Time, Other people making videos on mine, and lastly blessings.
Making a hype is very important for any social media post especially on YouTube. It’s like the bedrock of making any YouTube video successful. I carefully made sure that the hype of the video is maintained, and I do so today as well. To do so, I gave a pretty good amount of super chats to Mythpat and Triggered, as whenever they were posting anything, the videos were trending. I also got to know that they’re going forward with live streams as well, hence I was consistent in my interaction with them and hence, I created a chunk of the audience for myself as well.”
My aim was not to become the person who is searched as “the person who gave INR 25,000 to Mythpat on stream” or “who gave super chat of INR 30,000 to Triggered” because that’s just promotion of Mythpat, not me, my aim was to be searched as me who I am, as “Mr Random”. For that, I started giving such sorts of amounts to small streamers as well. By and by, such super chats got me amazing reactions.
Hence I posted my first-ever video, as Mr Random, with faces of Mythpat and Triggered while getting the super chats and many other best reactions, making my first video after 6 months was really successful. I show myself as what I am, a simple sober guy, with nothing lavish and extra. I come to my audience completely real, with me, my dog and sometimes leakages in my walls, Haha.
Big faces in the YouTube community help you grow a lot. It’s because of many big faces with whom I interacted in my initial times, like Mythpat and Triggered, whose reaction I used for my first video, made the video go viral. I embarked on my journey as a YouTuber in India.
Similarly, people loved the video content and watched the videos till the end to know what happened. I believe that made the channel grow furthermore as well. Good editing and content quality is something that makes the video viral.
I think you can say you’re doing good when people start talking about you as well. That’s the same which happened with me when many roasters and content curators started making videos on me. “Tu toh bade logo superchat deta hai”, “Tu bas fame ke liye kar raha hai”, all such were very basic and regular comments I was getting from these curators. But at the same time, I was getting really famous because of these videos.
Viewers were intrigued by the fact that why someone is roasting the other guy. He/she would visit my channel, like a video, subscribe to me and that’s how the channel grew even further. I think these roasters made Mr Random who Mr Random is today.
On the first day, there was no appreciable change in the subscriber count but lowly and slowly, I got 25,000 views on the third day, but surprisingly, got around 70,000 subscribers on the 8th day, and crossed 100,000 subscribers on the next day itself. So I think, Mythpat’s and Trigger’s comments, and other content curators who made videos on me, helped me become a YouTuber overnight.”
Lastly, during the time I was in and around posting my first ever video, my grandmother passed away. She loved me dearly and always filled me up with the best of wishes and positivity, being always there for me. I think it was all because of her blessings that I got recognized and got love from so many people, a family of around 400,000 subscribers.
So I think, there were some strategies that helped me grow as a person and my channel, and this is my recipe for a successful video.
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
What keeps me motivated and positive is that “The Mr Random’s Urge to post Premium Content”. I am very particular about the kind of posting I do, as I am inspired by Mr Beast. I have a choice to post any random vlog, any random stream or anything, but I don’t divert from my aim and vision ever in lieu of content posting. The kind of content I have been posting, cannot be found on Indian YouTube.
I do get sad a lot of times when the video does not do as well as expected, or something doesn’t turn out to be good. Because, if one video of mine doesn’t go well, there is around 1 LAKH at stake, hence I’ll have to work even harder, spend hours and hours in the office, to suffice to that loss, which does demotivate me. But whenever I get demotivated or feel negative, my team always brings me up. They’ll do something or the other, give me pep talks, will push me more and more, everyone comes as one and keeps me going.
In the video of mine, “I am a scammer”, my video editors added a small part as to how my entry into their lives makes a difference, but I think, via this interview, I would like to say out, that because of my team’s entry to my life has influenced me to never give up, to keep going and always aim high. I am nothing without my team. My team’s dedication fills me up with pride and honour.”
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
I am not a successful YouTuber yet! Haha, so if you find that key to success, please do send me as well. But yes, I think, success is a derivative of happiness. If you feel you’re happy, you are successful.
I am in a position right now, even if my YouTube channel doesn’t work ahead, or something or the same happens, I am still in the position that I can live life, feed my family and chill. But I think that won’t run parallel to my aim in life. I don’t want to have just another ordinary life.
About success, I think it is built with hard work as well as luck as well. Many people don’t consider luck as the reason for their success, but it does play a huge role in being successful.”
I would like to take an example. I once read in a book that in football, most of the players that are around 50% of the footballers (according to the statistics) have their birthdays in December, isn’t that surprising? The reason for the same is that, if you see, any kid at the age of 3 or 4, whose birthday is per se, January and another whose birthday is in December, the kid will have an edge over the other kid as he/she is elder, stronger and more known still of the same age of that of the born in January.
Isn’t this sheer luck? Just because someone takes birth in December, gets an edge over others. Although with time this difference diminishes, this is proven by multiple stats and figures.
Luck is taking birth but hard work is learning the skill of football, and for the footballer, that’s the key to success. For me, getting a job in amazon and an opportunity from amazon was luck, but for cracking the profile, there was hard work as well. People who just believe that because of hard work I’m successful or so, should recognize the luck as well, and start being a little kinder, the world would be a beautiful place then.
People who are successful should acknowledge their luck, the people who are striving for success should work even harder. If this can be done, everyone will be happy and make life happier. Hence, the key to success is hard work as well as luck.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
“Life is too short to wait, do whatever you want to do, and do it right now”, India is full of competition but at the same time, everyone is unique. Everyone here has amazing talents and skills, it’s just a matter of using your talent, at the right place and at the right time.
I think I was made to be a software engineer, I don’t think I would have professionally been something else, this is the field I love. I really don’t mind sitting for hours and hours and doing overtime, it’s something which I enjoy! But if I was told to become a singer, I don’t think I would be here giving this interview with you.
For people who want to be YouTubers, I just have one piece of advice, to keep backup options ready! Because, irrespective of potential and your talents, YouTube is a risky place and there are chances you might fail as well. Everyone can’t be the most famous or the best. If everyone becomes mythpat, then the relevance of mythpat will be no more, right? Everyone here has different spaces in the universe, we must acknowledge that and go with the flow. Do hard work, believe in yourself, stay educated and never stop learning. That’s what will make you have a successful career.
Failures are a part of life, hard work needs to be done, luck is with everyone, it happens or, it all depends on time. There is no number that has to be associated with success, even if you’re 24 and have not completed your graduation or do not have a job, it’s fine! Take a little less stress, don’t stop hardworking!
At the same time, I think relaxing also is a part of the process. Working hard all day long, and not giving yourself any time, is not worth it! It’s your life, live it like one. Work, study, learn, but at the same time, enjoy relaxing and live your life. The happier you are, the more capacity to learn will increase and the more successful you will be in life. Even I, after office, recording and whatnot, play games with Mr Manager as well! I enjoy it, I keep my family happy, stay mentally balanced, and that does reflect on my content as well!
Never get demotivated, take a little less stress and keep your backup! And that’s my advice for you all.
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