At ScrollStack, we know a thing or two about India's nascent creator economy - we are India's #1 creator platform. Thousands of creators use ScrollStack to create, distribute, and monetise their digital goods and following.

Having dug deep into India's creator economy, one of the biggest learnings for us and our creators is that the "economy" part of creator economy will be built on Support/Contributions for a creator vs. Subscriptions or Membership which is more popular in the West. Here are the reasons why Support/Contributions will kick start the direct monetisation movement for creators:

- India is not a subscription nation - the only things we "subscribe" to are newspapers and milk. The rest, specially online, is paid for based on consumption - mobile phone and DTH recharge, Cash On Delivery for e-commerce, Internet plans, etc.

- Mobile phone recharge is the most telling of them all - 85% of all connections in the Metros, and 95% of all connections in other 4 circles are pre-paid connections (source is here).

- Cash on Delivery (CoD) is still the most popular mode of payment, used by 70% of online shoppers. Even Razorpay has specialized solutions for CoD (source is here).

- What does this mean for creator economy? Consumers are used to paying for things AFTER they experience what they are paying for. Fans/followers of a creator already see and consume what they create. They just haven't taken the natural next step of charging for it.

- One of the main reasons Creators don't ask for contributions/support is because the social media platforms they are on won't make it easy to do so. They never will, so creators have to go "direct".

- For most creators, tapping into this existing behaviour is a faster, more scalable path to direct monetization vs. subscriptions. So, what should creators do here?

- First and foremost, be okay with asking your followers/fans to support you. What you produce requires a lot of effort, and "likes" don't pay the bills. Remind your followers/fans regularly why they should support, and how they can support you. Our first hand experience so far is, there is a group of fans for most creators who can, want to, and will pay.

- Make it easy for your followers/fans to support you. Create an account on ScrollStack.com, build out your profile, and send them a link. It's that simple, and your followers/fans from around the world can start paying you. There are other, more involved solutions out there as well if you really want to take the difficult route :-)