Inspiring Biography of Shlok Srivastava (Tech Burner)

Shlok Srivastava is one of India’s most famous tech YouTubers.

He has more than 6 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, Tech Burner.

Introduction-

Shlok Srivastava was born in a middle-class family and he hails from New Delhi.

Since his childhood, he has been very interested in technology and gadgets like mobiles and laptops.

But initially, Shlok’s parents didn’t provide him with gadgets as they wanted him to focus only on his studies.

Creating videos-

From his 10^th class onwards, Shlok started creating videos and uploading them onto YouTube.

He started with a moto g smartphone and later, started using a Samsung Galaxy Y smartphone for managing his YouTube channel. He also used his father’s laptop.

Shlok used to shoot videos with the 720p camera of the moto g.

During that time, as his videos weren’t decent, his friends discouraged him from working on YouTube.

But as Shlok liked the process of creating videos, he didn’t give up and continued creating and publishing videos.

A setback-

After working on his YouTube channel for a year, Shlok accumulated around $90 in his AdSense account and was about to receive his first payment from YouTube.

But unfortunately, his channel got deleted because of some copyright strikes.

Shlok got very disappointed by this.

IIT dream-

During that time, his dream was to get admission into prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

So, Shlok studied hard in his 10^th and intermediate and also took coaching for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).

Unfortunately, he couldn’t get into an IIT.

Joining SRM University & starting Tech Burner-

In 2014, Shlok joined SRM University in Chennai to study BTech IT (Information Technology).

While in his first year of college, he started a YouTube channel by the name, Tech Burner.

Initially, Shlok’s communication skills weren’t great but he improved over time.

Slow growth-

In the first four years, the Tech Burner channel didn’t grow fast because Shlok wasn’t publishing videos on a regular basis.

As he wasn’t serious about his YouTube channel, he used to upload just one video per week and thanks to this, his channel didn’t grow as expected.

Also, during that time, Shlok didn’t have good equipment for creating videos.

Many failures-

While studying in the college, Shlok got interested in dramatics and started acting and performing on stages.

But even after many attempts, he wasn’t able to perform well, so he abandoned acting.

Then, Shlok thought of designing posters for the theatre plays and starting a design company.

So, he began designing posters for the shows and other companies and also started freelancing but both of them didn’t work out as he wasn’t able to make decent money from them.

Then, Shlok started working for NGOs and a few businesses.

Later, he too tried to start an NGO in order to educate people about transgenderism but unfortunately, this also flopped.

Then, Shlok tried to start an organisation to sell books but that too didn’t succeed.

Even while working on these many things, he didn’t stop working on his YouTube channel but his channel wasn’t growing as expected.

The silver lining-

Shlok’s self-confidence greatly increased as he tried so many different things.

And all the above failures (experiences) later greatly helped him to scale up Tech Burner.

Becoming a full-time YouTuber-

By the end of his engineering, Shlok was offered a good job in a design company with ₹8 lakh per annum package.

But he rejected that job and decided to make a full-time career on YouTube.

During that time, Shlok had just around 2,000 subscribers on Tech Burner but he was very confident about his channel’s growth.

Struggles-

Even though Shlok liked creating videos, he wasn’t earning anything from his YouTube channel.

And this was very disappointing for him as most of his college friends settled in jobs whereas he was working hard but wasn’t earning.

Adding entertainment-

During that time, Shlok used to not get many views on his videos and so, he analysed his videos and realised that they weren’t quite entertaining.

So, he started making his technology videos entertaining and thanks to this, he started getting decent views on his videos.

During that time, Shlok was earning ₹25,000 per month from his YouTube channel and he hired his first employee for ₹17,000 per month which means at that time, after paying for his employee, he was left with less money than his employee.

Initially, he used to create videos in English but later, he shifted to Hindi upon realising that it was much easier for him to connect with people in Hindi.

Growth & success-

The growth of Tech Burner wasn’t impressive in the first four years.

But once Shlok acquired 10,000 subscribers, his channel grew rapidly.

Now, he is a very successful YouTuber and as of November 2021, he has more than six million subscribers.

Now, Shlok has a substantial team of 20 people working on his different projects.

Many projects-

Apart from Tech Burner, Shlok runs many YouTube channels like-

• Shlok Srivastava.
• TechBurner Shorts.
• Burner Clips.
• BurnerBits.
• Overlays Clothing.

He through his Burner Media has made many apps like-

• BurnerGuard.
• FreshWalls.
• BurnerScanner.
• reWalls.
• BurnerBits.

Shlok also runs the TechBurner website.

No one in his family did business ever before and they initially didn’t like him doing business.

But Shlok took the plunge and started his business of YouTube channels, apps, etc. and is running them successfully.

His inspirations-

Shlok’s most favourite tech YouTuber is Gaurav Chaudhary of Technical Guruji and he took him as his inspiration.

He also got inspired by other tech YouTubers like Ranjit Kumar of Geekyranjit, Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips and Marques Brownlee.

Shlok was also inspired by how Walt Disney made the Walt Disney Company hugely successful.

Some interesting facts about Shlok-

• In November 2019, Shlok delivered a TEDx speech in Manipal University Jaipur.
• In 2021, he was interviewed by Aman Dhattarwal.
• Shlok loves trekking and playing football.
• He performed in the YouTube FanFest on 13 April 2019 in Ambience Mall Gurugram.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Shlok Srivastava?

Share with me in the comment section.