Exclusive Interview with Alpesh Rawal On his journey as @frosto_89

Alpesh Rawal is an influencer, business owner, dancer, motivational speaker, model and a father. A mechanical engineer as well as an MBA graduate, he turned to influencing somewhere down the line. How does he juggle all these things? Let’s find out Interviewer: In an age and time when being an influencer was a novel idea, if not completely outlandish, how did you get into this field?

Advertisement

Alpesh: Well, honestly, a brand that reached out to me. It was back in 2015 that I got my first offer for promotions. A company had DM’d me and offered free products as well as money if I posted about them. I was very surprised and thought it was a hoax, but then the products actually arrived. And this was back when Instagram was just a photo sharing app. So yeah, that is how it started.

Interviewer: How hard has it been to balance your businesses with influencer work?

Alpesh: It does get tough. To share one experience, so in the lockdown, my construction company faced some losses. And this led me to rejoin the corporate firm where I had worked previously, after graduation. At the time I had to manage a full-time job and keep creating content part-time. I had to start from ground-up again. My efforts paid off and I was made the head of my department. But, my work as an influencer and content creator led to my colleagues questioning my contribution at work. And then I fell sick and had to take a leave for a week. During this time I was posting pre-recorded content so once more, I was accused of taking a leave to create content. However, eventually they realised that this was not the case.

Interviewer: You also have a very successful and thriving garba academy, Nav9rang. Tell me more about it. How and why did you start it?

Alpesh: Dancing has always been one of my passions. I started this academy because garba is something fun and also it can be an activity to improve your health. A lot of academies are profit motivated and have age restrictions which I think isn’t right. So I started something different. We focused on maintaining health in the lockdown, through a fun and engaging way and started power-garba classes. We also had garba sessions with special kids who run supermart. It’s something I hold very close to my heart. Also, I have been asked to judge garba contests as well. I did that for sometime but eventually, I stopped because I did not think that it is right for me to judge at this point in time. I want to continue playing. And so Nav9rang persists and as of today has nine branches.

 Interviewer: You have recently forayed into modelling. How did that come to be?

 Alpesh: In the past one year, I have completed more than 30 shows across the whole of India as a male lifestyle showstopper. This happened because I was approached to walk the ramp by a brand. Since then, I’ve started doing other modelling assignments as well. I recently won the 2nd runner-up title at Mr. Face of Mumbai 2022.