Kunwer Sachdev
Founder of Su-Kam · Inverter Man & Solar Man of India · Pioneer of India’s Solar Digital Brand
“In 2009, I launched Su-Kam’s YouTube channel. Microtek — one of India’s biggest inverter brands — joined YouTube in 2019. That is a ten-year gap. The whole industry eventually followed what I did, just a little late.”
— Kunwer Sachdev, Founder, Su-Kam Power Systems
August 17, 2009 — A Date the Industry Does Not Know
On August 17, 2009, I did something no inverter or solar company in India had ever done. I created a YouTube channel for Su-Kam — and started making videos about our products, our technology, and the solar future I believed was coming.
YouTube was just four years old. In India, broadband was slow, smartphones were rare, and digital video was something most businesses dismissed entirely. My own management team thought it was unnecessary. Competitors were spending money on hoardings, newspaper ads, and TV commercials.
I made videos instead. And the Su-Kam Solar YouTube channel became the first solar and inverter company channel in India.
What Happened Next — The Whole Industry Followed
Here is the data that tells the full story. I checked every major competitor’s YouTube channel creation date:
| Company | YouTube Channel Created | Gap After Su-Kam |
|---|---|---|
| 🏆 Su-Kam Solar | August 17, 2009 | FIRST IN INDUSTRY |
| Luminous India | November 1, 2010 | +15 months later |
| V-Guard Industries | December 16, 2011 | +2.3 years later |
| Microtek International | May 14, 2019 | +Nearly 10 years later |
| UTL Solar | November 17, 2021 | +12 years later |
| Microtek UPS | June 30, 2024 | +15 years later |
Microtek — one of India’s largest inverter brands — started their YouTube channel 15 years after Su-Kam. This is not an opinion. These are verifiable facts from each company’s own YouTube “About” page.
Why I Did It — The Thinking Behind the Move
I was not trying to be a digital marketing pioneer. I was simply watching how people were beginning to learn and make decisions. In 2009, people were already going on YouTube to understand how things worked. If someone wanted to know how a solar inverter functioned, there was no video to watch — because no inverter company had thought to make one.
I thought: why not us?
So we started documenting every product we built, every innovation we created, every problem we solved. Each video was essentially a moving, speaking version of our product catalogue — but more than that, it was education. It explained why our products worked the way they did. According to Google’s Think with Google research, buyers who watch product videos are far more confident and far more likely to purchase. We figured that out in 2009, without any research telling us so.
What the Channel Built — In Numbers
2009
Year Su-Kam went on YouTube — first inverter/solar company in India
105K
Subscribers built organically on the Su-Kam Solar channel
8M+
Views on top videos — for a technical solar & inverter channel
10 yrs
Head start over Microtek — who finally joined YouTube in 2019
The Earliest Video — September 2010, When No One Was Watching
The oldest surviving Su-Kam video we can find on the channel dates to September 18, 2010 — a tutorial called “How to Safeguard Against Voltage Fluctuation.” Think about what that means. In 2010, most Indian companies didn’t have websites that worked properly. YouTube comments barely functioned in India. There was no influencer economy, no algorithm optimisation, no social sharing culture.
I was making educational videos about voltage fluctuation for Indian households — and that video has since been watched 28,000+ times by people who needed exactly that information and found it only because Su-Kam had created it.
💡 The insight: In 2009–2010, there were no comments, no likes, no sharing culture in India’s YouTube world. I built the channel with zero immediate feedback — purely on the belief that this content would matter when the internet grew. It did.
The Videos That Reached Millions
As internet penetration in India exploded from 2015 onwards, every piece of content we had built over the years started finding its audience. These are the Su-Kam videos that people watched in the hundreds of thousands — and millions:
| Video | Views | Year |
|---|---|---|
| How Solar DC System Works with DC Lights, Fan, Panel, TV and Battery | 2,342,447 | 2016 |
| Battery Powered Homes | Renewable Solar Energy Storage | 2,285,036 | 2016 |
| Solar Inverter Charges Batteries and Runs Load Through Both Solar and Mains | 744,036 | 2016 |
| How does a Solar Off-Grid UPS or Inverter Work? (Hindi) | 606,785 | 2016 |
| How to Install a Solar Inverter in Your Home | Su-Kam Brainy Eco | 385,053 | 2016 |
| How to Convert Your Inverter Battery Setup into Solar | 391,310 | 2016 |
| How to Convert Any Ordinary Inverter into Solar Inverter | 312,928 | 2016 |
| DIY: How to Install Grid Tie Solar Inverter in India | 299,128 | 2016 |
| How to Understand Battery Capacity and Ratings | 275,960 | 2016 |
| How to Change Settings in Home Inverter/UPS | Su-Kam Falcon+ | 202,636 | 2016 |
| Sun Fuel — India’s Best Solar Documentary | Discovery Channel | 165,992 | 2015 |
| How to Size Battery with Inverter | Su-Kam | 130,411 | 2016 |
| How to Safeguard Against Voltage Fluctuation ← Earliest surviving video | 28,982 | 2010 |
| TOTAL — Top Videos Only | 8,170,704+ | views |
Over 8 million views on the top videos alone.
For a technical industrial product — inverters and solar systems — in India. Built from zero. Starting in 2009 when YouTube comments didn’t even function properly in India. No shortcuts, no algorithm hacks, no paid promotion. Just useful content created years before anyone else thought to create it.
Discovery Channel Chose Su-Kam — Not Our Competitors
In 2015, Discovery Channel produced Sun Fuel — described as India’s best-ever solar documentary. They filmed at Su-Kam. They featured our technology. They showed our products bringing light to homes that had never had reliable power.
Why did Discovery come to Su-Kam and not to Luminous, Microtek, or V-Guard? Because Su-Kam was already the visible, established digital leader in the solar space. We were not just making inverters — we were telling the story of solar India, one video at a time. The documentary, uploaded to our channel, has since crossed 165,000 views.
📺 Sun Fuel — India’s Best Solar Documentary by Discovery Channel
Filmed at Su-Kam. 165,000+ views on the Su-Kam Solar YouTube channel. A testament to the brand story we built through consistent digital presence since 2009.
See the Videos — Real Proof of What We Built
These are not claimed numbers. Click any thumbnail below to watch the actual video on YouTube and see the view count yourself.
▶ View All 167 Videos on Su-Kam Solar Channel →
Every Video Was a Product Story — Every Product Was an Innovation
What I built on YouTube was not a marketing channel in the traditional sense. Each video was documentation of a real invention — a product I had personally driven the creation of. The first DSP-based MPPT charge controller, the first sine wave inverter for homes, the first 30KVA solar Online UPS — each of these had a corresponding video that explained it to the world.
The channel was Su-Kam’s living product archive. And because we were first, we set the standard for how the industry communicated.
The Lesson — Go First, Let the Industry Follow
- First-mover advantage in digital is compounding. Every year you’re on a platform before your competitor is a year of content, credibility, and subscriber trust they cannot buy back.
- Education is the best marketing for a technical product. A customer who understands your product trusts your brand. Videos educate better than any brochure.
- Go where your customer is going — not where they are now. In 2009, Indian consumers weren’t yet on YouTube in large numbers. But they were getting there. I built the channel before the audience arrived.
- The industry will always follow a genuine leader. Luminous followed us onto YouTube in 2010. V-Guard in 2011. Microtek took until 2019. They all eventually understood what I had understood in 2009.
For the full story of why and how I started the Su-Kam YouTube channel, read: Why I Started the Su-Kam YouTube Channel →
And to understand the innovations that powered those videos, read about how Su-Kam built its empire →
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Su-Kam start its YouTube channel?
Su-Kam Solar’s YouTube channel was created on August 17, 2009 — making it the first inverter and solar company channel in India, verified directly from YouTube’s own records.
Which competitor came closest to matching Su-Kam’s digital start?
Luminous India created their channel on November 1, 2010 — 15 months after Su-Kam. V-Guard followed in December 2011. Microtek only joined YouTube in 2019, nearly a decade after Su-Kam.
Why did Discovery Channel feature Su-Kam in Sun Fuel?
Su-Kam was the most visible and credible solar brand in India by 2015 — built through years of consistent digital presence, product documentation, and education-first marketing. Discovery came to the brand that had told solar’s story best.
Disclaimer: Kunwer Sachdev is no longer associated with Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd. in any capacity — neither as a director, shareholder, employee, nor advisor. He has no involvement in Su-Kam’s current operations, products, services, or warranties. Anyone purchasing Su-Kam products or dealing with Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd. does so entirely at their own discretion. Kunwer Sachdev shall not be held responsible for any product quality, service, warranty claims, or business dealings with Su-Kam.
Kunwer Sachdev
Founder of Su-Kam and Kunwwer.ai, and mentor at Su-vastika and several other companies — the “Inverter Man & Solar Man of India.” Read his story →