#1 Smartwatch Brand in India

#3 Smartwatch Brand in Asia

#9 Smartwatch Brand Globally

All the above feats are not from Apple, Samsung or a legacy player in the market, but from our own homegrown Indian brand – Noise.

In this week’s podcast, we turn the spotlight on Noise: A brand that’s on a mission to offer quality smart wearables at affordable prices to its customers.

In our conversation with Amit Khatri, Co-founder of Noise, he shared how the brand started bootstrapped in 2014, what have been the challenges and how have they scaled over the years.

We have tried to summarize some key themes & takeaways from our conversation.

Notes –

02:09 – Early Career & Family Background before starting Noise

05:45 – Product development & Revenue journey from 2014 to 2018

08:04 – Finalising on the main categories – Smartwatch and Wireless Earbuds

09:55 – Why prioritize growing own Website instead of relying on marketplace?

12:18 – Testing your idea in the market being bootstrapped

13:36 – Vision & plan of the brand early-on

14:56 – Initial Learnings for early-stage D2C Entrepreneurs

16:16 – Focus on building the brand from Day 1

18:55 – Building and launching the first product

24:15 – Secrets of scaling from Rs.160 Cr+ to Rs.800 Cr+ Revenue

26:26 – Key elements of creating a playbook for a Rs.1000 Cr+ D2C brand

31:36 – Keeping prices reasonable while ensuring better quality

 

Read the full transcript here:

Amit 0:02

First, I always believe that you need to fail fast. I mean, a lot of folks keep thinking, what to do, what not to do. So what has helped Noise, like you said, smartwatch what is the thesis behind smartwatch was, we had an idea. We really liked it. We quickly worked on it, we did some more research r&d and launched it. And by the way, you are just seeing the success part. There are categories which we have launched and we have drastically. So I mean, just just do it. And I think speed always takes over perfection. And so speed is the key. And another thing, when you’re Bootstrap, you always have to spend wisely. So there is no second thought. But more importantly, there is no shortcut to it.

 

So when we started building our website on day one, it was a painful affair. We made losses for the first four years or even breakeven, we never made money out of there. But yeah, it helped us for the long term so there is no shortcut to it. Get the right product to the consumer, and they are there for you.

 

Siddhartha 1:13

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia. Welcome to the 100x Entrepreneur Podcast. Today I have someone with me who has broken the norm, who has built India’s first 1000 Crore revenue d2c bootstrapped brand. Welcome Amit Khatri to 100x Entrepreneur Podcast. Brothers Amit and Gaurav Khatri founded Noise, a company that sold smartphone covers and accessories back in 2014. However, in 2018, the brand made a pivot and started selling smartwatches and wireless earbuds competing with some of the biggest and best global players in the market. Today, it has become one of the biggest players in the Indian smartwatch segment. Amit, welcome to the podcast.

 

Amit 2:03

Hi Siddhartha, Thank you for having me. And thank you for the lovely introduction.

 

Siddhartha 2:10

Amit, I would love to understand your background first before we dive into the Noise journey, which cities did you grow up in? What is the background of your parents? Where did you study?

 

Amit 2:21

So, Siddhartha I come from a very middle class family. I grew up in a small town called Bikaner and none of my extended families are into business. So, my father is an ex banker and I grew up there and did schooling from Rajasthan. Dad was in the bank, so he got posted to Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. I graduated from there. When I was in Rajasthan, the only career choice which I was forced to have was doctor or engineer, everyone wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer. But I realized quite early on that was not my cup of tea. Honestly moving to Kanpur helped us broaden your horizon to see what are the new professional streams we can have there. I mean, there are a lot of career opportunities you can pursue, just not medical or engineering. I graduated from there where I did it from stats and math. I was good at subjects which were easy to learn. I could not ever mug up things, where social studies biology I used to hate actually.

 

So I did my post graduation in management from NIFT Hyderabad, spent two years there and then I started my first stint in a manufacturing setup called Orient craft limited. I worked there for three and a half years. I worked with brands like, it was an international export house so I used to work with brands like H&M, Zara, all these Gucci, Prada, all these international brands. Working in the product development supply chain team realized, I mean worked on quality products with them. That’s how my stint with looking at international brands and towards quality products started from there. I realized then that the kind of problem I’m solving here is a problem for most of the brands across the globe.

 

I started my first business in 2007 where I ran it for six, seven years. We were again product partners for these brands, Zara, GAP, I learned how these bands work, and worked closely with the designers product teams. I ran that business for six, seven years and there on I got exposed to the international market and the west where I could see that there are a lot of products which are there in the market which India never had. In India it was all just super expensive brands like Apple or Fitbit, or you can call cheap Chinese knockoffs.

 

From there on we started with the easiest thing, what we could do was accessories as a space because that was lifestyle. And I was into the lifestyle business, which was textile. So started with mobile covers. And I mean, it was a problem for us because we couldn’t get mobile covers in India for ourselves. So we thought, if we are self -purchasing outside, then why not we try to solve this problem for others, and Gaurav my younger cousin, he’s a decade younger to me. So maybe when we started, he would be around 20-23, a young fellow who could sense the pulse of the market, understand technology and the consumer. And then we started in 2014.

 

Siddhartha 5:47

And 2014 to 2018 can you describe in detail the different products that you made, and also revenue journeys during that point.

 

Amit 6:00

So Siddhartha, when we started honestly, we were not sure if we would get success or not. And we were very clear that the mobile infection boom is coming to India. The market was at an inflection point where we were all transitioning from a feature phone to smartphone. So that was a time when international brands were coming to India. So we thought of testing there. So the first year, we did a revenue of 12 Crores, it grew phenomenally well to next year 24 Crores, third year, we were close to 24 crore, we were very stagnant in revenue. I mean, we didn’t grow because the ASPs were dropping, but the market was growing by the way. And we grew next year to 42 Crores and then we realized that, me and Gaurav were chatting that we need to move on to products which are more technical because we need to move on to higher APS because you can’t keep on selling a 500 rupees product because we were selling through our website.

 

So by the way Siddhartha, we are one of the largest d2c websites where 20% of the business comes from there. So, we realized that if you have to sell from our website a 500 rupees product cannot do justice because there is a customer acquisition cost or these payment gateways you need to handle and then only pivoted ourselves to a category which was smartwatches unhireable. And from then on it started, we grew the first year, then to 150 Crores. Next year, we more than doubled from 150 we moved to 350 Odd crores. And last year, we would be closing somewhere around 800 crores of net revenue.

 

Siddhartha 7:39

And this has been a fantastic journey where you spent some time initially understanding how d2c worked, then perfecting the marketplace. Because now in the first four years, you would have an idea, if you invest X in the marketplace, you could get Y. How do you scale revenues on the marketplace? The most interesting part is, how did you figure out that these are the two categories that you want to stick to or launch, which is smartwatch and wireless earbuds?

 

Amit 8:15

So Siddhartha, let’s go back to the drawing board. We were bootstrapped. So we had no external funding, which means we had to do something differently. So at that time, the wired earphones was a very big market. But if we had to go for a wide earphone market, then we would have to fight with big giants like JBL, Sony, Philips, and me and Gaurav realized that it’s not easy for us to do. And if you go with it, what do you call it red ocean, you will get volumes, but there’s gonna be no profits there. So from there on, the hunger was there to get a differentiated offering. And fortunately, we were a little bit into fitness. So we wanted a smartwatch for ourselves. And we realized that to buy it the only option in India is Fitbit. And, by the way, I got my first Fitbit from the US Market. This is a problem for people around and that’s how we started there with smartwatches and hearable as a space.

 

Siddhartha 9:22

And initially you mentioned that the first year that you launched, the revenue jumped from 45 crores to 150 crores. So it was half smartwatches contribution and half earbuds or how was it?

 

Amit 9:38

No, I think at that time smartwatches were way early on. So we were way ahead of the market. So there was no business coming from the marketplace side. So we used to do it from our website particularly and Truly Wireless was the business which took momentum there on.

 

Siddhartha 9:54

Got it. And you had mentioned that the revenue share always has been 20% your website and 60% marketplaces.

 

Amit 10:05

From early on, from the daytime we started 20-25% is the revenue which comes from our website. So why a website? First of all we need to look at it Siddhartha. Websites really give us a leeway to talk to the consumer first, to engage with them, to own them and more importantly, to offer a product to them what we think is right and what they feel is right. When we work with marketplaces, they drive what to sell. Their KPI is not to build a brand, their KPI is to do GMV for them or get a consumer for the brand. So that’s why we always built our website and off lately. We started offline business this year onwards in 2022, what you call. And from now on from 2% of overall business, it is close to 20% of our revenue.

 

Siddhartha 11:04

Before we dive further into the podcast, I would like to thank our sponsors’ Prime Venture Partners, Prime is the first institutional investor in the category creating tech startups like Mfine, Dozee, Planet Sparks, Niyo. Prime is now investing out of its fourth fund of $120 million. Today, I have with me, Amit Somani, managing partner Prime Venture Partners. Amit, how does the evaluation criteria of Prime work?

 

Amit Somani 11:33

Siddhartha, so at Prime we look for what we call category creating or category defining startups. So we’re really looking for, in what way is a startup 10x Better 1,000% Better than the current state of the art, it could be product, it could be technology, it could be go to market, it could be a business model, whatever. So that is one of four criteria. As for the founders themselves, we’re really looking for founders that have very high learning agility, or a very high learning quotient. Why that is important Siddhartha is, as you’re going through your seed to pre series A to series A and sort of journey to build your company, to get product market fit to accelerate it, you have to make a lot of trade offs and a lot of decisions. So we’re really looking for founders that have very high learning agility.

 

Siddhartha 12:18

Now moving a little forward. If you could share the journey, from even the mobile covers used to sell on your website, as well, from 2014 to 2018, the kind of investments required for a bootstrap entrepreneur to sell d2c through their website.

 

Amit 12:37

See, first of all I feel when you’re bootstrapped, so you can start small. I mean, now there are plans, so by the way, we first built our website through an agency that screwed us up and then Shopify came to the Indian market. And really they made life simple, it was just one tech stack, you just start operating it. So I think if you are really into business, a small investment can be kept, you can start the business immediately. I mean, 10 years ago from now we used to go to offline markets, throw the product to distributors, give commissions to them and build. Right now there is no middleman, you just start selling on your own. That’s what is d2c all about. So with a small saving, you can test your idea and the market. And if the product is good, you can go from there.

 

Siddhartha 13:24

And so Shopify is a platform that you built your website on, right after,

 

Amit 13:31

After a disaster of working with tech tech guys for a year or so.

 

Siddhartha 13:36

But it’s been initially a slow journey. Now there is all kinds of compounding happening very rapidly, So, what was your thought process back then? Did you want to build a lifestyle business or such a big 1000 crores revenue company?

 

Amit 13:54

So first of all, Sidharth, when, across my business I was talking I was somewhere connected to the consumer, directly or indirectly. So we always wanted to build a brand which is a lifestyle, I’m talking to the consumers. So lifestyle was the thing and I always worked with brands like Zara H&M, so it’s all lifestyle. So it was clear that we have to do it in lifestyle and we are not a tech brand. We are a lifestyle brand first and tech is an enabler to that. So we’re very clear on that on that part. And when you asked me what’s the plan. So when you start I don’t think we made a plan of doing 12 Crota. Also, maybe when we wrote the first business plan, it was like, Can we do a business of 25 lakhs in a year. So it was 25 . You keep pivoting, you keep learning, you keep growing.

 

Siddhartha 14:56

If you can share some of those are three to four learnings of initially is that you have character now. And that can be beneficial all day to find entrepreneurs listening to this podcast.

 

Amit 15:08

Yes. First, I always believe that you need to fail fast. I mean, a lot of folks keep thinking, what to do, what not to do. So what has helped Noise like you said, smartwatch what is the thesis behind smartwatch was we had an idea, we really liked it. We quickly worked on it, we did some more research r&d and launched it. And by the way, you are just seeing the success part. There are categories which we have launched, and we have drastically failed. So I mean, just just do it. And I think speed always takes over perfection. And so speed is the key. And another thing, I mean, spend anyways, when you’re Bootstrap, you always have to spend wisely. So there is no second thought. But more importantly, there is no shortcut to it. So when we started building our website, on the first day one, it was a painful affair, we made losses for the first four years, or even breakeven, we never made money out of there. But yeah, it helped us for the long term. So there is no shortcut to it, get the right product to the consumer, and they are there for it.

 

Siddhartha 16:17

When did you start working on building a brand, because the initial goal was right being bootstrapped, just to make sure that you launch the right product and how to sell it. That’s it.

 

Amit 16:28

Siddhartha, you start building the brand, when it gets incepted. When the first consumer is buying you, you start building the brand. So what do we call it, the branding is the share of the rest. The more the consumers are buying you, they refer you, they gift it to their friends and family. So it starts from day one, it starts from day only. And when you are into d2c business, you have to really work on branding, you have to really build on work on content. It’s all digital. So you’re building the brand from the first day.

 

Siddhartha 17:07

Electronics is a difficult category, because let’s say till 2018, you were at the intersection of what you understood earlier, which is lifestyle businesses built out of textile. And you married it with the demand happening in the explosion of mobile devices in India. But you can’t go wrong with electronics. It’s much more difficult to build a smartwatch. So how much time did you invest to get the right first smartwatch? How were the first few returns like? And how did you make sure that the journey of perfection.

 

Amit 17:52

So you won’t believe, I think the first generation of smartwatches, we had very high, very high returns. I don’t remember the numbers, but we had very high returns. And you won’t believe the second batch that we have ordered, those are still lying in my warehouse. Because there was so much of quality issues that we couldn’t sell them. We didn’t want you to sell them. So we dumped them in a warehouse. We said okay, we will not sell it. So yes, you’re very right. Electronics is a super technical category. It’s just not design, it’s hardware, it’s software, it’s performance, it’s data accuracy, it’s mobile app, there are five, six components to it. And we honestly make mistakes. We spent a lot of time investing ourselves into r&d learning the trick and it happened with time, I would honestly say, we kept learning with time. And that’s why it helped us actually. I mean, we made mistakes early on.

 

Siddhartha 18:55

How much time did it take you to manufacture the first smartwatch yourself?

 

Amit 18:58

It took us maybe four to six months to launch our first product when we decided to get onto it.

 

Siddhartha 19:05

Can you mention the five components? How did you build the expertise? You mentioned five components of it. The hardware is there, the software is designed, two more components are there.

 

Amit 19:17

So when we started that time we were too young. I mean, as an organization we were too young, we didn’t have that resources. So you try to take help from people around you who have friends and family who could help you build an app or guide you for an app or you work with a consulting agency who’s a friend of yours, you’re like hey, make an app for me, I can’t pay you much just take the cost from me or I’ll pay you later. Which screen supplies you’re talking about? I need your support. You have to just sell them your vision. You have to tell the chipset guy’s that my plans are big. I mean, you have to show them the vision and everybody when there is an intent everything will fall in place.

 

And by the way when we started, we never realized it. But we are the largest brand in the country for the last two years for smartwatches. We have 27% market share. So that means, one out of every four smartwatches in the country is a Noise smartwatch, we are top three in APAC. I mean, one is Apple, second, Samsung, third is Noise. And we are in the top 10 in the world now. But we never thought on day one, it would happen. And every time you think this is the time, let’s do it. And next time, we’ll see what to do.

 

Siddhartha 20:34

And I think going global, your export experience would have helped, because you could imagine the Indian product being consumed outside India.

 

Amit 20:43

So we are not yet global Siddhartha. But since I’ve worked with global brands, the brain was wired to make a product, which is global. I mean, the base standards were high, I mean, make something which went global. So our entire product range can be taken to any part of the globe. I mean, it’s just certifications that need to be done. But yeah, the product is ready for that. So that base, the testing, the components, all were set in that order.

 

Siddhartha 21:11

And which are the current countries you are selling in and what’s the market share, like let’s say if you’re selling 100 units, how much is coming from India and how much coming from other countries?

 

Amit 21:22

Okay, Siddhartha I would let you answer this, but I’ll give you some insight then you answer back to me. India as a market is the fastest growing market in the world in the smartwatch space. I think last to last year the market was close to 2.5 million units. And this year 2022 the market closed at close to 12 to 13 odd million units, we grew 4x. Worldwide our market share grew from 3% to 10%. So we became 10% of the world from 3% and India’s population is 130-140 crores. We have the largest young population, 30 million odd analogue watches are sold here. And those users are set to upgrade to a smartwatch and this year the market is expected to more than double, where should we focus on?

 

Siddhartha 22:20

I think India is the right market, but you mentioned that you’re also selling in APAC and worldwide right so that’s why.

 

Amit 22:28

No, no. We are not selling in APAC and the world right now. In terms of size, we are ranked third in APAC, Asia Pacific and in the entire globe, if you look at the ranking, we will be number nine

 

Siddhartha 22:42

And it’s just because of selling in India, right. All these numbers.

 

Amit 22:46

yeah, I think India has got a very diverse consumer base and there is a customer for all actually, Winner never takes all the market. So, we believe we are blessed to be there in India, I mean, phenomenal growth as markets we are witnessing.

 

Siddhartha 23:03

and what you are projecting is right. In a few years, we would be selling 50 million smartwatches throughout India in the next four to five years.

 

Amit 23:13

See we sell close to 200 million smartphones in India, you have to peg it, so with that, how big the market can be. So, if you asked me, in the US there are maybe 40 smartwatches sold against 1000 people. In China it is close to 20 smartwatches against 1000 people and in India it is close to one and a half smartwatches against 1000 people. So, whatever we take up benchmark as 20 or 40, we still have enough headroom and if we hit ten or six also we have to go 4x. We are very much focused on the Indian market, we are very much focused on bringing products for the Indian consumer and at the right pricing.

 

Siddhartha 24:01

And if you could share, because you have been bootstrapped. So there is a limitation, you have to invest very wisely. And that leaves room for less experiments. So what has been the secret to the growth from 150 crores to closing last year at 800 crores?

 

Amit 24:24

So, first of all, I give credit to the success of Noise for being bootstrap because being bootstrap, it pushed us to become innovative. If you’re funded, you can focus on 10 categories, we had no choice but to work on just one and be the best there. So being bootstrapped, helped us to solve the problem and really, I mean, we couldn’t just address the problem superficially, we had to solve it to the bottom and, I mean If there is a problem in the watch for an example, a bigger company might just scrap it up. For us it was just first making it right. And if something has gone wrong for us, it was fixing it right also.

 

And second, since we were bootstrapped, we always looked at avenues in marketing which were cheaper. I mean, how can we acquire a consumer in a cheaper way? And how can we build a brand? So which means the creative plays a good role? I mean, you can’t just bombard IPL, if you have money, I mean, we don’t have that money that we can buy an entire property of IPL and just bombard all the consumers. So, it helped us to look at categories, which were not present or had a scope of marketing and people also, I mean, you have to find people who are the right mix for you.

 

Siddhartha 25:54

And right now, you only focus on digital channels for growth, am I right?

 

Amit 26:01

Yeah, so we are a very ROI driven organization, Siddhartha. So we can’t afford to spend money like big companies on TV ads. So we try to keep our entire spends which are ROI driven. So we are 99% as organizations on digital platforms, which are like Instagram, Youtube, Hotstar.

 

Siddhartha 26:26

For entrepreneurs listening to this podcast, if you had to create in 2022, again, a d2c brand, from zero to 1000 crores in the next three to four years. What would be your playbook today?

 

Amit 26:41

I mean, playbook today. Honestly, I think it’s gonna be a little easier for me to create it again. Because we know the little nuances. But again, I feel the right key is the product. See rest, people money, it’s all manageable, I mean, you need to have the right idea, right idea means the right product, if there is a product which is solving for the real user, you will find the success there.

 

Siddhartha 27:11

But there are other elements also, like distribution, marketing. How do you build those functions right?

 

Amit 27:18

It all happens, the base is the product, if you have the right product, if your product, if your idea is great, the customers will come to you please understand, nowadays, let’s talk about distribution. If you have a great product, Amazon and Flipkart are more than willing to invest with you in building that you just need to have a great idea. I mean, let’s say if I make a watch, which doesn’t serve a purpose for the consumer, who will take it up, I can keep bombarding consumer by ads to buy it, but it would not be success, why we got successful because we realize there is a pain we spoke to consumers and then we lost the first word and then we got a success there. I mean the product is the key Siddhartha, no second thought and then you will build on from there.

 

Siddhartha 28:04

And today, if you can share the number of products or SKUs that noise has.

 

Amit 28:11

As said before, as an organization, we always wanted to be lean, so lean in terms, which means people, resources, and products also. So we had to create a good product. So every product takes a lot of energy to create. I mean, you’d need to deploy a lot of manpower and dedication to build it. So as an organization we never worked on a spray and pray approach. So if you look at the market landscape, there are brands who have more than 200 products and they keep launching it. They expect that at least 2 out of 10 will be successful. For us, it was never the case we always had very few products and we wanted to make them heroes. So if you ask me, we don’t have more than 30 Odd products across our portfolio, which gives the revenue to us.

 

Siddhartha 29:03

And there’s a very high focus on quality because earlier India made electronic brands were sold because they were cheap, they were not sold because they had the best quality. If people wanted the best quality you had to either go to Apple or an Android The next best to Samsung.

 

Amit 29:23

So during my last stint where I was working with these brands, all brands like Zara and all these were all mid-premium brands, they were not expensive and they were not the cheapest. I mean I beg your pardon if I say something wrong. That time the cheapest in India was a Big Bazaar. So I realized customers in India are waiting to buy from Zara outside, at that time Zara was not there or H&M outside. So we were ourselves one of them. So we realized that there are customers everywhere. India is a very big country.

 

So there are enough brands who cater to the cheapest. And by the way, doing the cheapest product is easiest, because you do most of the time white labeling. And you can’t sustain because there is enough competition. So the bigger the pocket you have, the more business you can take. So I was wired to work at a bass quality level. And then second, we were Bootstrap. So we always had to think innovatively and focus on the set of consumers. We never wanted to go in the crowd

 

Siddhartha 30:33

And how did you fall for manufacturing? Third party contract manufacturing is a hard problem to solve for all d2c brands.

 

Amit 30:41

We honestly made a set of mistakes in the beginning where we tried to work with manufacturers who were cheaper but okay by one learning to all of which you asked me, which we’ve come out of, everybody asked, we wanted to buy cheaper actually reduce the BOM cost. So we move on to manufacturers, which were maybe not the best one, but maybe the scale was also too low. But gradually we realized that customer experience is the key and we can’t give a product which is not performing up to the mark. And then we shifted the entire supply chain to a consumer base which makes for bigger brands like JBL, Harman, Fitbit. So we are produced in these factories, because the processes are already set, because they are already making for the global brands.

 

Siddhartha 31:36

Then my next question is, when you are doing such kind of quality manufacturing, how are you able to keep Noise product prices reasonable? That’s another challenge.

 

Amit 31:48

Not a challenge Siddharth because first of all, we try to understand what the consumers are looking for. And then we try to work on the BOM. And honestly speaking, if you ask me when the product is right and the sales are high and the customer returns are low, automatically the cost gets amortized. With the highest cost, I’ll give you an example. We launched a product called Tune Elite. I’m sure somebody might be a user also, the procurement was not right, the supply chain team made a mistake there. And I think my customer returns were 40% there. So I mean, I sold 200,000 units and 100,000 came back to me. And that was a disaster for us. And we realized, we stopped everything and we fixed it. And from there on. We were very clear. This is no compromise.

 

Siddhartha 32:45

And if you’re comfortable, if you can share with listeners, what are the return rates today for some of your best products?

 

Amit 32:54

We hover around under 5% return, if you look at a category, it is close to 8-10% of return but our returns are under 5%.

 

Siddhartha 33:02

So ultimately, as you said earlier, the product wins. And recently you onboarded Taapsee Pannu, Rishabh Pant as brand ambassadors, what was the thinking behind that since you’d already been frugal? Didn’t it make sense to just scale digitally without these brand numbers?

 

Amit 33:21

So in every phase, if you look at it we started engaging with endorsers two years back into a seven, eight years journey. So for six years, we didn’t have the budget to invest there. But lately we realized that, when you’re growing, you need some kind of trust also on the brand. And these ambassadors really help us build that. But we are very choosy while picking the people around. I mean, we don’t have an army of let’s say 20 influencers who are talking about Noise we have people like Taapsee, Rishabh who are doing good in their life, they all had their hard times and they have heard that inside Noise that what they have to day, just cutting out the outside cutter they did it.

 

Siddhartha 34:00

When people were raising left, right and center, money around you from VCs for d2c brands, it became really popular to raise money for d2c brands, for the last three to four years. How did you keep sanity and choose to not raise any money when it was coming your way?

 

Amit 34:24

So, to be honest, first of all, we don’t come from a high pedigree background. Neither me nor Gaurav, called IIT, IIM. So, raising money was not easy for us. So I mean, that was not an easy path for us. So again, that door was closed for us, that okay this path is tough, so we had to go on our path only. But yes, now since we are scaled up, we do get a lot of opportunities. A lot of bankers or VCs or funds are interested in investing in us. But we feel that the marriage has to be right. I mean, you look for somebody who could help you to grow at a much faster pace than when you’re growing. Otherwise, there are other avenues also to take money, getting someone from outside also takes a lot of freedom from the founders the way they want to work.

 

And honestly there is one more problem Siddhartha, when you’re trying to build a business, for sale, you’re trying to do things which are not right for the business. I mean, your focus goes on getting the top line up, and not building the organization, which is sustainable for the next 10 years. So we don’t want to go onto that path. We very clear that. I mean, there has to be a right marriage, let’s do right, which leads to something which is right for the business, and let’s build the business which could sustain beyond decade.

 

Siddhartha 35:51

So I believe you are around 40 years in age now. What’s your vision that you want to do for the next 10 years?

 

Amit 36:02

My vision is very clear. We want to build this brand to a scale. So Apple is a good example for all of us. It’s a legacy brand going on for decades now. So we always look up to brands like Apple and I personally feel that it is time for Indian brands to go to the globe. Next 10 years are our efforts to build Noise to the next level.

 

Siddhartha 36:28

Thank you so much Amit, for sharing your learnings, your life very honestly. All your mistakes very honestly. I learned a lot. And I believe my listeners love it. What you have shared.

 

Amit 36:42

Likewise, Siddhartha enjoyed the conversation with you looking, forward and let’s stay connected.

 

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