2019-03-01 Money

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House of Highlights NBA ESPN NFL MLB NHL

SOURCE:CrowdTangle

MARCH 2019 MONEY.COM 11

created the page in his University
of Central Florida dorm room. He
says he was just depressed that
LeBron James had announced his
decision to leave the Miami Heat
and wanted an outlet to reminisce
about James’s time in Florida. So
he made one.
Here’s how he did it.

HE FOLLOWED HIS INTERESTS
Raja’s first foray into entrepreneur-
ship began in high school with a
YouTube account that broke down
his favorite sports plays or video
game tricks. The channel became
popular enough to bring in around
$200 a week in advertising revenue
for around 100,000 page views. Raja
used the money to buy his first car
and pay for rent in college.
After mastering YouTube, Raja
switched to Instagram. At 22 he
started clipping and posting short
videos of LeBron James and
Dwyane Wade making faces at each
other and memorable moments
from James’s time in Miami. At first
he was using the platform to share
videos with his friends, but the
success of his YouTube channel
made him consider House of
Highlights a part-time job. “I knew
because of YouTube that things on
the Internet can get big,” says Raja.
That perspective paid off. Raja
amassed 11.4 million followers in
four years, with a growth spurt
from 1.1 million to 7.6 million
followers over 20 months. In
January 2016, Raja sold his
platform for an undisclosed
amount to the sports website
Bleacher Report—all while
finishing up his senior year.
“I had one semester being a
full-time student and full-time
worker,” he says. “That was the

most insane four and a half months

of my life.”

HE’S ON THE JOB DAY AND NIGHT

The millennial sports-media star

attributes his career success to his

unorthodox work ethic—that is, he

never stops.

As soon as he wakes up, Raja,

who’s based in New York City,

immediately checks his Instagram

messages. He gets to work and

starts preparing videos at

10:30 a.m., works until a dinner

break from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., and then

keeps watching and cutting clips un-

til falling asleep after 2:30 a.m. Even

though HOH now has 11 employees

working alongside Raja, he is still

running the page.

The toughest part of building

a platform around sports, Raja

says, is that the games never stop.

Football doesn’t take a break on

Thanksgiving, and the NBA’s big-

gest day is Christmas. By now, his

friends are used to Raja leaving

dinners, movies, and weddings to

post an important highlight. He

even stepped away from a job in-

terview to post a video.

“People kind of know the gig at

this point,” he says. “It’s no big deal

when I have to stop a conversation

to take two minutes to watch a

highlight or get something up on

the page.”

HE TOOK KOBE’S ADVICE

Raja’s job grew out of his passion for

sports—which has opened the door

to unbelievable perks. After telling

Dwyane Wade how much he

inspired him to build the platform,

Wade responded, “Now you got the

whole damn league following you!”

But Raja’s most pivotal interac-

tion came out of a conversation with

Kobe Bryant. Feeling burned-out by

his demanding schedule, Raja asked

the athlete if the grind ever stops.

Bryant replied, “Never, not until

you’re six feet under.”

As hard as Bryant would work

on the court, he’d work just as hard

at home, he told Raja.

“It inspired me right away,” Raja

says. “Whenever I feel low on

energy, I think of that conversation,

and it gets me right.”

House of Highlights’ Meteoric Rise

How Raja’s project stacks up against some traditional players.

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