Rajan Chida gained 370,000 Instagram followers in under a year. He has not made a single dollar from it. Not one brand deal.
He's 22. He's building a luxury cabin in Virginia, in public, and documenting every step. Half of his followers came from just four videos out of roughly 180 posted.
And a year ago, his plan was to take a job at JP Morgan and sell shoes on the side.
I sat down with Rajan on the Profitable Founder Podcast. Here's the full playbook.
From Selling Shoes on eBay to a Luxury Cabin
Rajan posted his first video on August 30th, 2024. No script. No plan. He just put a tripod down in his office near the University of Virginia campus and filmed himself doing what he'd done for five years: flipping shoes on eBay.
He documented his road to $15K a month in eBay sales. That series took him from 0 to 30K followers in three to four months.
Then his old high school tennis teammate brought him a real estate opportunity. A piece of land in Virginia.
Rajan did a 180. Sold all his shoes, walked away from the game, and started building a luxury cabin with his partner Renzo. That's when the account exploded.
The Pivot That Should Have Killed His Account
Everyone says don't change your niche. You'll lose your audience.
Rajan went from sneakers to real estate and barely lost anyone. The real estate videos pulled so many new followers that he didn't even notice who left.
His take: "The brand eventually has to be just you. And whatever you do, people will follow."
He never boxed himself into shoes. The series was always about him, with shoes as the setting. So when the setting changed, the audience stayed.
(His friend Yoni did the exact same thing. Sold Amazon stickers, pivoted to AI content overnight, blew up.)
Half His Followers Came From Four Videos
Rajan has posted around 180 videos. Half of his followers came from four of them.
His biggest one is a video about his construction loan. 6 million views. Between the original post and reposts, it brought him 80 to 90K followers. A quarter of his entire audience from one video.
But here's the part most creators miss. There are videos that go viral, and videos that go viral AND convert to followers.
→ A meme can hit a million views and bring you nobody. People laugh and scroll.
→ A viral video inside a series converts like crazy, because people want to see what happens next.
→ Rajan's loan video shared real numbers and foreshadowed the build. Viewers got invested like it was a TV show.
So don't chase viral formats. Chase viral moments inside YOUR story.
The Daily Posting Math
Rajan says he improved more from video 1 to video 20 than from video 20 to today. Why? He posted every single day for those first 20 days.
His growth proves the pattern. Posting three to four times a week, he grew steadily. When he graduated and went daily, he jumped from 100K to 250K.
The setup is stupidly simple:
→ Shot on his iPhone
→ Edited on CapCut
→ Half his on-site videos have no script at all, the other half get 10 to 15 minutes of notes in his phone
The time investment is not simple. He now spends six to seven hours a day on a single one-minute video. Scripting, filming, editing, plus the hour drive to the site each way.
Daily posting also fixes your head. When you post twice a week and a video flops, you spiral. When you post every day, you get a blank slate every morning. Rajan survived stretches of 10 and 20 flops in a row because the next video was always hours away.
Why He Replies to 90% of His DMs
This is the tactic nobody copies because it doesn't scale. Which is exactly why it works.
Rajan answers about 90% of his DMs and comments. Manually. Out of 300,000 followers, he estimates he has personally connected with 6,000 people.
When someone new commented in the early days, he'd reply, then DM them to say thanks. He'd check their profile and mention something specific. Someone recognized him at a bar in college? He bought them a drink.
Now every video he posts gets 100 to 150 comments almost instantly, because those people are real relationships, not vanity metrics.
His advice to new creators: forget brand deals. Make it your goal to connect one-on-one with the next 20 people who comment on your page. It's the same logic behind joining a mastermind of founders at your level: depth with a few beats reach with many.
And it makes him so mad when struggling creators ask him for growth advice while their own comment sections sit unanswered. Four comments, zero replies. Those are your first fans. Talk to them.
Leaving Money on the Table (On Purpose)
Rajan turns down brand deals worth $3,000 to $5,000 because he refuses to risk the brand. AI companies email him constantly. He's broke, living with his parents, and he still says no.
(He admits he and his creator friends hopped on a call after 15 straight days of posting and asked themselves: are we the clowns here?)
But he's not anti-money. He's playing a longer game:
→ Sponsors covered his hot tub, sauna and cold plunge, saving about $20K, because those products live inside the story
→ 700 to 800 people dropped their emails on the cabin's website without ever being asked
→ The cabin targets $180,000 a year in revenue, at $500 a night across 360 booked nights
The audience IS the marketing budget. He's not giving away free content. He's selling 180 two-night stays, one video at a time.
I interview founders like this every week → Watch the Podcast
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Rajan Chida?
Rajan Chida is a 22-year-old creator and real estate developer who grew to 370K Instagram followers in under a year by building a luxury cabin in Virginia in public. He previously sold shoes on eBay for five years, documenting his road to $15K a month in sales while studying at the University of Virginia.
How did Rajan Chida grow 370K followers so fast?
He posted short-form videos documenting his cabin build like a TV series, kept a daily posting habit, and replied to 90% of his DMs and comments manually. Half his followers came from four viral videos, including a construction loan video that hit 6 million views and brought in 80 to 90K followers.
Does Rajan Chida make money from Instagram?
No. He has never taken a paid brand deal and hasn't earned a dime directly from Instagram. He accepts sponsorships only for cabin amenities, which saved him around $20K. His monetization plan is the cabin itself, targeting $180,000 a year in bookings at $500 a night.
One video can change your life. Rajan's job is posting every day until it shows up. Yours is too.
