Shahnawaj Khan is 21, lives in Siwan, Bihar, and has built 1.4M Instagram followers on outfits he designs and stitches himself, most of them worn by his 11-year-old sister Zoya.
- Your first viral video wasn’t a fashion video at all. What was it?
- For nearly a year, videos were doing 20 to 30 million views and Instagram was paying you nothing. How were you funding the work?
- You said no to management for six to eight months, then joined an agency and left it. What went wrong?
- Your agency is in Delhi and you shoot in Siwan. What actually breaks because of that distance?
- How bad do those retakes get?
- How long do payments take now that you have an agency?
- A lot of creators assume one million followers means the career is settled. Is it?
- What has been your best brand experience so far?
- Do brands send you scripts that are obviously written by ChatGPT?
- Zoya is in most of your videos. How much of the business does she actually know about?
- How do you decide what becomes content and what stays private?
- Do you think about leaving Bihar?
He started two years ago, after finishing Class 12. For him, fashion designing only registered as an actual career after he met a distant relative working in it, and both NIFT and NID turned out to be too expensive to attempt without putting real pressure on his father. So he stayed home, learned to stitch, and began cutting outfits out of his mother’s old dupattas. But something else went viral first. Not the clothes, but a video of a room he had decorated with his own money, purely so he would have one good-looking wall to shoot against.
TCI spoke to Shahnawaj ahead of Raksha Bandhan there is no team and no studio, just an agency in Delhi, a handful of brand deals, and a 21-year-old sourcing his own fabric in a town where people still gather on the road to watch someone film.
What comes through across the conversation is how much of the cost sits outside the frame, and how long Instagram took to pay for any of it.
Your first viral video wasn’t a fashion video at all. What was it?
It was a room-decor video, and Zoya was not in it. I had an old room and I decorated it from scratch with my own money. I did not originally intend to post it. I had only planned to post the outfits I designed for Zoya, and I decorated the room because I wanted an aesthetic place to shoot. After finishing it I made a video of the room and posted it. That one went viral, and after that the other videos also started performing.
For nearly a year, videos were doing 20 to 30 million views and Instagram was paying you nothing. How were you funding the work?
For almost a year I did not earn a single rupee from Instagram, even though videos were getting 20 to 30 million views. On YouTube my first payment came after roughly four or five months, and after that YouTube became an important source of income and helped me keep creating. Instagram stayed almost silent on monetisation for about a year.
A lot of people approached me saying they wanted to manage me, but many did not feel like proper agencies. People would come, make promises and then disappear. Or the commercials would be extremely low. I had seen other creators and expected the amounts to eventually reach lakhs, so I decided to wait. I also did not want to chase money so hard that it affected my creativity so I effectively let that first year go.
You said no to management for six to eight months, then joined an agency and left it. What went wrong?
The agency I joined was somewhat better than the others, but the environment became a little toxic. They did not prioritise my talent enough. If I am putting real work into a video and there is no appreciation for the creative side, I felt I would lose motivation. So I left and joined another one. That has been working well. They are called Social Literate. They have a presence in Delhi, Lucknow and Mumbai. Most things happen online. When I recently went to Delhi I met them, and that was after we had already worked together for around four or five months.
Your agency is in Delhi and you shoot in Siwan. What actually breaks because of that distance?
There are a lot of problems here, from shooting to the way people think about content creation. People are not interested in the video itself, they just gather around because they see someone shooting. I have been in situations that felt so awkward that I decided I should avoid shooting outside altogether. Even if you are dressed normally and shooting on a road in a village, people stare and wonder what is happening. It is still an alien concept for many of them.
There are problems with locations, with shooting, even with sourcing fabric. A lot of it has to be done by me personally, and even when I delegate, explaining and coordinating takes almost the same time and energy. If the agency were nearby we could have offline meetings, which would improve the communication and the relationship. On a branded shoot we could also shoot together and cut out unnecessary retakes.
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How bad do those retakes get?
One brand project required me to reshoot almost 10 times. It took around 40 days, close to a month and a half. I was not working only on that project the whole time, but it still took very long. Part of it may have been that I did not follow the script exactly, and I put in extra creative effort at the end because we were going to Lucknow to shoot. Then the changes kept coming and the concept changed significantly before I finally uploaded the reel. Fortunately the reel performed extremely well.
How long do payments take now that you have an agency?
Around one and a half months is normal for me. I have seen creators wait longer than that. Luckily I have not had a brand take more than three months so far. Payment is a major issue in content creation. You have to make the video now, script it now, invest the money now and put in all your energy now. But by the time the payment finally arrives the excitement is gone. The money was useful when you needed it, not several weeks or months later.
If all content creators collectively decided not to work on three-month payment cycles, the situation could change. It is very difficult to create that kind of unity.
A lot of creators assume one million followers means the career is settled. Is it?
That is a major misconception. Your life is not settled just because the follower number becomes big. This work demands consistency in every situation. You have to stay consistent and keep showing up on camera.
What I would tell creators starting out is to build an audience, not a follower count. Build people who genuinely care about you, who wait for your videos and wait for your stories. Whether that is 1,000 people, 10,000 people or a million people, create a community that feels almost like a family group. One or two viral videos do not matter as much as real interaction.
I also think spoken content creates a stronger bond than transitions or song-based videos. If people connect with what you are saying, you feel more secure, because the connection goes beyond a trend or a music track.
What has been your best brand experience so far?
Mars Cosmetics. The collaboration process is smooth, the payment is good, and it comes within about a week after the video goes live. I have a very good relationship with them. They supported me at a time when I needed money and the payment came quickly. That is one reason I have worked with them a lot.
Do brands send you scripts that are obviously written by ChatGPT?
Almost always. Sometimes it makes the work less enjoyable, but there is only so much I can do. In some ways it is actually useful, because it explains things clearly and leaves fewer doubts. So I sometimes feel that if a brand wants to use it, that is fine.
Zoya is in most of your videos. How much of the business does she actually know about?
She is still very young. She has made a tiny brand of her own where she makes bracelets and sells them to some classmates at a little profit. But I have not explained money, growth or business to her in detail yet. If you saw our routine at home you would understand how young she still is, and I want to let her remain a child.
How do you decide what becomes content and what stays private?
A lot of things should remain personal. People suggest daily vlogging, but I feel it exposes too much and I do not like that. Content creation slowly demands more and more of your personal space without you noticing.
Even posting stories can feel like a big task. What should I post today, what am I doing, what creative thing should I put there. On energetic days I enjoy it, on other days I post only because I feel I should.
Do you think about leaving Bihar?
All the time. Almost every day. But Zoya’s schooling would be disrupted. If she were older and could manage everyday things, the two of us could go together, but right now I would need to take my mother too because of Zoya. So we are stuck in the middle of it. Otherwise I probably would have moved already.
Right now I actually like Lucknow. The people there are very good. From cab drivers to the people you meet generally, they speak calmly and politely. I like people who speak respectfully.
