How GYGS Is Revolutionising India’s Creative Gig Economy for Dancers and Artists

An extremely innovative platform created to help dancers, choreographers, artists, and other creative professionals find genuine work opportunities without relying solely on personal contacts is GYGS, founded by Akash Tiwari. It aims to simplify the hiring process by connecting talented artists directly with clients through verified profiles and portfolios.

The platform focuses on bringing professionalism, transparency, and equal opportunities to India’s creative industry. By reducing dependence on middlemen, GYGS empowers artists to showcase their talent and build sustainable careers. It is helping transform the creator economy by making quality talent easier to discover and hire. I spoke with super dynamic Akash, excerpts from the interview:

Tell me about your dancing journey

I started at 13 in school, mostly to look cool in front of the other kids, but I eventually realized I had a knack for it. By 15, I was already earning my first paychecks choreographing for sangeets and local competitions. Dance stayed with me throughout my education.

Whether it was school, junior college, or my degree, I ended up leading the dance teams at every stage, participating in all kinds of competitions, and winning most of them! I was also getting a taste of the professional world through corporate shows, live events, and ad shoots.

By the time I graduated, I was organizing dance workshops, battles, and promoting dance-related events for different brands. Oh! I have also trained in Hip Hop, assisted a few celebrity ad shoots, and years later, choreographed a TVC myself.

How did the concept of Gygs start?

Before Gygs, I was a part of an agency dealing with brands and artists. Later, I left it and eventually started managing artists like dancers, musicians, and influencers. I was constantly frustrated by how unorganized and broken the system was.

The turning point was a WhatsApp group. I saw a post for a dance gig offering 6k. A few hours later, a different person posted the same requirement for 4k. By the next day, it was being posted for 3k, and eventually, it hit 1.5k. It was the exact same job, but different people with different budgets.

The artist’s pay was being drained away by layers of middlemen. Seeing that value disappear in real-time was a wake-up call. I started digging into the system more and realized that there were multiple inefficiencies and the whole system has become numb to it. If we didn’t organize this space, the talent would always lose out. That’s how the concept for Gygs was born.

How has Gygs helped the dancers and the makers?

We currently support 2,462 artists and 347 contractors on the platform. To date, we’ve facilitated over ₹5 crore in potential earnings for artists, managed to increase their pay by 50% to 100% in many cases, while simultaneously saving contractors more than 40% in project costs.

We understand the full scope of a creator’s work and aim to help them get all kinds of opportunities possible while making it easier for clients to find, hire, and manage the perfect talent for any project in one place.

How do you monetise this?

We’ve cracked a few pieces of the puzzle, but for the rest, we’re still in that classic startup phase of figuring out. If you or anyone reading this has a billion-dollar monetization idea tucked away in your notes, feel free to share!

How is Gygs different from other platforms?

Some platforms focus primarily on remote work, some on traditional white-collar or blue-collar jobs, and some are sector-specific. But the creative industry doesn’t work in a single box. A creative person has a wide variety of income sources and roles, and current solutions fail to cover that full spectrum.

Beyond that, many platforms are built by people who haven’t experienced the ground reality of this industry. In our case, every decision is intuitive. It comes from having spent over a decade in this world, seeing the gaps firsthand. We aren’t building based on office-room theories; we’re building based on the actual life of an artist.

Tell me a bit about your members, dancers as well as choreographers.

Our community covers the entire spectrum. We have everyone from fresh talent just starting their careers to seasoned professionals with over a decade of experience. The best way to describe them is through their own words. Recently, a dancer who moved from Bangalore to Mumbai to find work walked up to me and said, ‘I’ve been looking for something like this for so long.

When I found your platform, I was so happy that it finally exists!’ Hearing that reinforces why we started Gygs. Whether someone is a beginner or a senior, they are all looking for the same thing: transparency and access to the right opportunities.

Where do you see the future of Gygs?

Right now, there are too many different labels; some people call themselves artists, others call themselves content creators. I believe these boundaries will eventually disappear. Creativity is everywhere, and eventually, anyone who creates will simply be known as a ‘creator.’

The future of Gygs is to be the global, one-stop portal for that world. We want to bridge the gap between clients and creators everywhere, making it the definitive place to connect and find any kind of creative opportunity, no matter where you are in the world.

Do you think in making Gygs somewhere you lost your personal dancing journey?

To be honest, I had stepped away from my personal dancing journey long before Gygs. Looking back, I realize I probably quit too early, because anything truly great requires time and sacrifice, and building on that would have been easier compared to building a startup from scratch.

I still drop into my friends’ classes occasionally just to feel present and stay in touch with my first love, and I’m grateful they still let me in! Right now, I can’t afford to focus on my own dance journey because my priority is everyone else’s.

I’ve been approached many times to take on dance projects personally, but I always refuse. If I started taking work personally, the platform would break. Even if I acted with 100% honesty, the perception of an ‘inner circle’ or unfairness is enough to ruin trust.

Hence, from the time Gygs launched, I haven’t taken any work under my name. For Gygs to be a true home for every artist, we have to remain neutral. That sacrifice is necessary to ensure the platform remains a fair, unbiased space for the entire community.

Sandip Soparrkar holds a doctorate in world mythology folklore from Pacific University USA, an honorary doctorate in performing arts from the National American University, He is a World Book Record holder, a well-known Ballroom dancer and a Bollywood choreographer who has been honored with three National Excellence awards, one National Achievement Award and Dada Saheb Phalke award by the Government of India. He can be contacted on sandipsoparrkar06@gmail.com