Meet Viraj Sheth, an engineer-turned-entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Monk Entertainment, a creative digital media agency specialising in talent management, influencer marketing, video production, and social media management.
Co-founded along with the popular YouTuber and entrepreneur, Ranveer Allahbadia who is known for his channel ‘BeerBiceps‘ and ‘The Ranveer Show‘ podcast, Monk Entertainment has now become one of the leading creator management agencies working with the top creators of India.
Viraj, who is Ranveer’s college junior, first worked with him on some college projects and soon their friendship strengthened to the extent that now they run a successful company together.
The journey that started with Viraj managing the business side of Ranveer’s channel, BeerBiceps has now transformed into a team of people managing some of the top creators of India along with collaborating with brands for their influencer marketing campaigns.
Viraj Sheth has truly changed the dynamics of how people engage with one another and succeed in entrepreneurship while deepening the bond of friendship.
Beginning of the Journey
Viraj Sheth, who comes from a traditional Gujarati family, was born and brought up in Mumbai. In 2013, he received his diploma from Mithibai College of Arts and later pursued Electronics Engineering at Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering.
During his engineering years, he met Ranveer Allahbadia, the popular YouTube creator of the BeerBiceps channel who, at that time, was in his last year of college. Even though they were in different years in college still they were good friends and worked on various projects and internships together.
Viraj used to experiment with different things during his college years and also took different internships in content creation, digital marketing, copywriting and many more.
As he did not belong to a power-driven business or entrepreneurial family, it came as a shock to his family when Viraj decided not to go ahead with his stable job but to move into an entirely different pathway. But, to secure money for the same he continued to work for some time and later joined Ranveer Allahbadia in managing sponsorships for his channel.
Startup Story of Monk Entertainment
In 2015, when Viraj was still in college, Ranveer had already begun his career as a YouTuber with his YouTube channel, BeerBiceps, and had gained a decent subscriber base already.
Ranveer invited him to manage brand campaigns for his channel when Viraj was still in his final year of college. His task included sending cold emails to brands for influencer marketing campaigns integrated within BeerBiceps’ videos and managing the business side of the channel.
After securing some brand deals for BeerBiceps, they both got a leap of faith in the business of creator management helping influencers earn more money with branded campaigns.
Then, Ranveer tasked him to also manage the channels of some of his creator friends and after finding a product-market fit, they co-founded Monk Entertainment in 2017 to scale the business of talent management and influencer marketing.
Today, Monk Entertainment manages hundreds of creators exclusively helping them get sponsorships and brand deals along with PR and collaboration opportunities.
They’ve worked with some of the top creators of India like Yashraj Mukhate, BeYouNick, Niharika NM, Aastha Shah, Madan Gowri, Ruhee Dosani, Bihari Ladka, Aksh Baghla, and many others including its co-founder Ranveer Allahbadia.
The Bollywood celebrities and other popular guests featured on ‘The Ranveer Show‘ and the podcast’s collaboration with brands like Spotify, AJIO and Mountain Dew are all managed by Viraj himself and his team at Monk Entertainment. They’ve truly scaled the possibilities a content creator can achieve in terms of business and entrepreneurship.
Now, the agency has become a full-fledged creative digital media company also engaged in video production and social media management for brands along with influencer marketing partnering with companies like Skechers, Nykaa, Puma, Gillette, Groww, Celio, Sony Music, Skillshare, Zomato and many more.
The company is now growing exponentially by onboarding new content creators every other month and helping them with the business side of content creation and brand collaboration.
Ranveer Allahbadia is now solely focused on creating content for his channel BeerBiceps and his podcast; while Viraj Sheth being the CEO of Monk Entertainment is spearheading the agency along with his team to support creator management.
