boAt Lifestyle co-founder, Aman Gupta, talks about the journey of building a brand from scratch to a unique Indian brand, the growth it has observed and the further hurdles that lie due to Covid-19.
Speaking about the stiff competition in the industry, Aman Gupta says, That is why we focused on product quality and starting with small numbers. We started our business by launching indestructible charging cables in 2015, and realized that owning the IP in a brand is very important rather than just sourcing products from China, which a lot of other brands were doing at the time .
According to Aman, community feedback and reviews are pivotal for the growth of the company. It €™s why boAt has been able to constantly make changes and improvements to the products.
Speaking about what makes the brand enticing, Aman noted, €œWe listen to our community and we identified that our fans like sports and films. So, we created themes like €˜Sound of the Champions €™ and brought in the cricketers. We created €˜Glamour of the Stars €™ and brought in Kartik Aryan and Kiara Advani, and finally created €˜Soul of the Musicians €™ with stars such as Neha Kakkar, Diljit Dosanjh, and Naezy. We designed our earpods by customising them with Hardik Pandya. The brand is about the future and the trendiness of the future stars, €
Boat Lifestyle's portfolio includes the newly launched Watch Storm along with a variety of headphones, earphones, speakers and mobile accessories.
With the pandemic slowing down the economy, Aman aims to reduce dependence on China and to promote €˜Make in India €™ as a long term solution. To that end, vocal for local has been a priority for the brand and its future plans.
COVID-19 taught us that we can be working closely with manufacturers in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore, and reduce the dependence on China. Make in India is a long-term vision and it will happen. We will increase the Indian manufacturing bets in years to come. For now, the focus is to create an ecosystem, a community, and be a wearable and hearable company" says Aman.
With the company witnessing a 20 percent surge in demand for its products amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Aman surmises that it is time for the government to recognize headphones earphones as €œessentials €.
Source: Yourstory
