About Me
Editor & Motion Graphic Designer
Hello, my name is Manish Singh Mahant. I have 4+ years of experience starting mainly in motion graphics & over the last two years my focus has gradually shifted more toward video editing.
I began with packaging, clean motion graphics, visuals & smooth transitions but over time my perspective moved from just editing as a craft to understanding attention as a science.
Currently I work with LearnApp & Zerodha’s channels Zero1 Hustle by Zerodha, Zerodha Varsity & sometimes Zero1 Hindi by Zerodha.
In recent work, Zero1 Hustle has pushed me deeper into video editing, while Varsity has kept me closely involved with motion graphics.
So far I have worked across podcasts, intros, shorts, web series, vox pop & long-form explainer videos.
Job Role Expectations: Not Just a Regular Editing Role but beyond editing like IP creation, and all things that impact a video.
Beyond Editing
Competitor Analysis
While working with Zero1 Hustle, I contributed to the “Creation of new IPs” as I was part of the respective team. I explored & learned several areas, including competitor analysis, topic selection, pitch deck preparation, question and sequence positioning, market gap analysis, format research, & detailed competitor breakdowns to understand what already exists.
Answered several fundamental questions, such as why a new IP was needed, what it aimed to achieve, how it would stand out from existing formats, which niche it would target, and how it aligned with the channel’s direction. We also defined topic selection criteria and clear success metrics.
Both projects are still under development, so I can’t share links or details publicly yet.
Music
Zero1 had a separate music team with stronger technical experience, I also wanted to learn the music side better. At that time, shorts were mostly using stock tracks from Epidemic, Artlist, and Envato, while a new trend of emotion-heavy viral trending music was emerging on Instagram something very few YouTube Shorts creators were using then. I pitched this to the team there was hesitation at first, but I kept editing my shorts that way. Over time, the impact was visible, it became a mandatory shorts editing, and later the sound team built fresh new playlists using many references from my existing playlist.
While working on Financial Melodrama shorts, I felt the new playlist wasn’t fully matching the emotion. Since the shorts had a strong Indian context, they needed Indian instrumental beats to bring out the emotion better. Then I started looking beyond regular stock libraries and found tracks with sitar, dhol, & similar sounds, which blended much better and helped create emotional progression.
Video Analysis
Along with editing, I now spend time on pre and post retros, trend tracking & studying similar competitor content, while using YouTube Studio signals like STV, reach, and engagement especially for videos that perform far above or below expectations, to understand what impacted their performance. Along with tools, I also try to break down the content myself Why it hooked me?
My goal is to reduce the gap between what happens on the edit table & how the audience actually receives it, while improving my content selection taste better & better.
Core Skill: Quick Learning
No matter how much the work changed over last two years, one thing stayed constant I adapted things quickly. Almost every transition began with an initial struggle, whether it was animation on Zerodha’s Varsity Warren Buffett series, shifting from quality to quantity-driven output, moving into Zero1 Hustle podcast intros, shorts, web series. A similar thing happened with music too, whenever it was connected to video storytelling, I learned, adapted and picked it up quickly.
Next 1year
Based on where I am right now, my main focus will remain on editing. So far I have used AI mostly for research, along with some support in animation and editing, but next I want to integrate it more into my editing process to cut repetitive work and spend more time on larger creative areas beyond editing