Bengaluru influencer slams Sharan Hegde firm's request for free session: 'My fee is ₹25,000 an hour'
In a long LinkedIn post, Vengurlekar said that it is a poor mechanism in the “well-funded” start-up like 1% club to expect unpaid services from professionals.
A Bengaluru based content creator and former journalist, Ankit Vengurlekar, called out financial content creator Sharan Hegde-led 1% Club for approaching him to provide unpaid online sessions for its members. In a long LinkedIn post, Vengurlekar said that it is a poor mechanism in the “well-funded” start-up to expect free services from professionals and just offer branding in return.
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Here is the viral post
In a viral post, Vengurlekar claimed that a team member from 1% Club reached out to him to conduct a masterclass on the topic “Building your personal brand online.” When Vengurlekar quoted ₹25,000 per session, the team member said that the company does not offer monetary support but instead gives the coach branding on its platform.
Calling out this practice in the company, Vengurlekar responded to the company and said, “That's a very poor approach to engaging with professionals whose experience and expertise you want to leverage. Why not just pay them their fees? You have charged members a certain membership fee; why expect free content from experts?”
{{/usCountry}}Calling out this practice in the company, Vengurlekar responded to the company and said, “That's a very poor approach to engaging with professionals whose experience and expertise you want to leverage. Why not just pay them their fees? You have charged members a certain membership fee; why expect free content from experts?”
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{{/usCountry}}However, the deal did not end up as Vengurlekar did not agree to give a session without getting paid for it. He further slammed the personal finance start-up and said it is “shameful” of the company to not pay the coaches for services they offer. “It's almost 2025. This is shameful. Why does a startup as well funded as Mr. Sharan's 1% club, that "teaches" people how to invest their money expect free hours from experts? Why can't they pay? Such poor mechanisms,” he wrote.
{{/usCountry}}However, the deal did not end up as Vengurlekar did not agree to give a session without getting paid for it. He further slammed the personal finance start-up and said it is “shameful” of the company to not pay the coaches for services they offer. “It's almost 2025. This is shameful. Why does a startup as well funded as Mr. Sharan's 1% club, that "teaches" people how to invest their money expect free hours from experts? Why can't they pay? Such poor mechanisms,” he wrote.
{{/usCountry}}Responding on the issue, Raghav Gupta, co-founder of 1% Club told HT.com, “We do pay hefty amount for people who host our master classes as they have high-level expertise. However, we also host community sessions for our members which are different from master classes. We do offer exposure for those who give community sessions and this is one of such cases. Many of our experts are happy with the kind of exposure that community sessions offer to them. We do discuss everything and proceed after mutual acceptance.”.”
Meanwhile, many people supported Ankit Vengurlekar’s claims and lauded him for calling out the practice openly. A founder called Atul Hegde wrote, “Good on you Ankit Vengurlekar for calling this out. This reeks of entitlement and absolute disrespect for professionals. Irony is these are the poster boys of the creator economy and should be the first to recognise the value of other creators. Having said that, they definitely had their research spot on , you would be a great mentor on the topic of building personal brands.”
The 1% club earlier made headlines for laying off 15 per cent of its workforce as part of the first cost-cutting exercise since the founder Sharan Hegde set up his company two years ago
