ImagesBazaar Model: How Sandeep Maheshwari Earns

ImagesBazaar - Sandeep Maheshwari

I don’t need to introduce Sandeep Maheshwari. He is India’s top motivational speaker who has not earned a single Rupee from his seminars and YouTube channel. But he owns a website based business named ImagesBazaar which has a great income model.

There are several people who monetize the mental weakness of people who are vulnerable. Well, that’s their revenue model no matter how harsh it might sound.

However, Sandeep Maheshwari has been different. Being a motivational speaker, the best part is that he never charged for it. His seminars are free of cost.
In fact, he didn’t even monetize his YouTube channel which is the biggest motivational channel in India. Also, it is the biggest non-monetized YouTube channel in the world.

Now you might be wondering, how is Sandeep Maheshwari even earning then? The answer lies in his mainstream business which he rarely talks about – ImagesBazaar.com, India’s largest stock Photography website.

Mind you, there are no investors for this private business. Even that’s his biggest choice. I know you are getting too many questions now.

Let’s discuss them one by one.

What is The Revenue Model of ImagesBazaar & How Sandeep Maheshwari Earns Through It?

The advertisers buy the stock images from ImagesBazaar and the model gets paid. ImagesBazaar gets the commission. That’s the business model.

I have simplified the whole business here. But this does not clarify many of the questions.

What are Stock Images?

Stock images are pre-photographed images for advertising and commercial purposes.

When Advertisers need images for their Ads, they can’t use random images from the Internet. This does not suit their brand and also increases the danger of copyright infringements.

So, brands need to carry out their own shoots where they hire models and carry out with the process. However, this process costs a lot of time and money.
Hence, stock images are cheaper and you get them instantly.

Revenue Model of ImagesBazaar

ImagesBazaar sells stock images of Indian models. The revenue earned is shared between the company and the models. I couldn’t get the revenue sharing ratio of this website anywhere.

The pricing is fixed for all the images which start from around Rs 8000 per image. They have given everything on their website regarding the resolutions, sizes, formats, etc.
You can check that out here: ImagesBazaar Pricing

This website approximately gets 150K traffic per month and more than 99% of the traffic is organic. It means that the company does not even need to advertise much. This makes it the largest Indian stock photography website.

Also, there is not even a single investor for this company because Sandeep Sir believes in bootstrapping a business from scratch without relying on anyone else.
According to one of his seminars, investors look for profits and hamper the working model of an existing business. He does not like interference in his business.

Expenses of ImagesBazaar

It’s not just a website but a complete business. It has several photographers, editors, models, and many technical people for maintaining the website. Employees take their salaries.

Additionally, the server costs must be higher for such a heavy website as it is an image-based website. It needs fast loading speed and a high amount of data storage.

Also, the free seminars that we watch on YouTube cost as well. They might be free for us but definitely not free for him. The high-quality cameras, equipment, lighting, studio, video editors, etc come at a cost. Also, sending SMS and calls to the participants is not free. I have not even counted the basic operations.
Revenue from all this? Zero!

How Sandeep Maheshwari Started All This?

Sandeep wanted to become a model. But he saw the high amount of competition and got to know how agencies exploited the new-comers for basic portfolios.

He dropped the idea of modelling and decided to enter photography. He bought a cheap camera and did a course of 2 weeks.
After that, he started working as a freelance photographer.

While freelancing, he decided to build portfolios for models at much cheaper rates.
In 2003, Sandeep made a world record of shooting 10,000 images of 122 models within 10 hours and 45 minutes.

Finally, in 2006, Sandeep Maheshwari started a website called ImagesBazaar.com where he listed the stock images for sale.

However, the initial stage was tough as the website was not loading properly. The company faced too many technical issues at that time.

Finally, after a few days, the website started working properly. Then the business never looked back.

And that’s how your favorite motivational speaker makes money for a living. He has not been just talking but actually done the real business for himself. Totally an online business, to be noted.

[Also Read | 6 Ways To Earn From a Website]

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