Of the trove of brands in India that sold audio gear (earphones, headphones, and speakers) back in 2016, most were and continue to be international brands with a sizable share in the Indian market. Often touted as not so ‘value for money’ products, consumers could only wish for an Indian brand that was high on affordability with quality. boAt Lifestyle made its foray into the consumer electronics space at this time around - with both the founders infusing a capital of Rs 30 lakh and Aman’s garage to call it an office space - to offer Indians a ‘made-in-India’ product for the masses. 

As of today, with a total of 6 funding rounds, one acquisition, and a multitude of product categories eyeing a glorious future, boAt is on its way to becoming the first homegrown electronics manufacturing company that will break the decades-old record of relying on international countries or brands for quality audio gear and wearables - a first for consumers as well as for the industry. 

boAt today is a publicly listed omnichannel D2C brand that has filed an IPO of Rs 2,000 crore - a first in the history of India’s consumer electronics segment. It hasn’t reported any loss in any financial year since FY’15. It boasts of very high reach and engagement across e-commerce and social media platforms from its addressable market which mainly comprises Gen Z and the millennial population in India. Through the fundraiser, it aims to gradually reduce its dependency on third-party marketplaces, manufacturers, and suppliers. Online marketplaces help bring 86 percent of the total sales for boAt. 

The Journey from a Solo Step to Shark

Aman Gupta is known to be one of the early movers in the D2C industry as a co-founder of boAt Lifestyle, as of today, India’s No. 1 earwear brand. A CA by profession, he along with co-founder Sameer Mehta started working out of his garage back in 2016. There was no term called D2C back then. For the most part of Delhi, it meant the bus service. E-commerce brands were known by different names like online brands, Amazon-focused brands, etc. It was a time when VCs didn’t get attracted to a direct-to-consumer model and never thought about it as a big industry. Hence, Aman and Sameer were among the few first guys to move the needle. Industry panels back then were largely focused on fintech, health tech, etc.

Today, the tables have turned. Now, investors have a FOMO about how they cannot have a D2C brand in their portfolio. There has to be one or more in their portfolio. The industry has grown leaps and bounds with 35,000+ brands thriving in a competitive landscape filled with niche products and a bright future for Indian consumers.  

Aman truly is the rockstar of the D2C industry whose efforts by way of investorship, co-foundership, and mentoring have supported the existence and growth of the D2C industry in India. 

Navigating Through COVID to Meet the Demands

Like most industries, D2C and retail found it tough to sustain through the lockdown months as the COVID pandemic brought imports and exports to a grinding halt. While we witnessed a good number of businesses shut down their operations, boAt was on the other side. It realized it can no longer be dependent on outside countries for manufacturing as they were in China. They pivoted with innovative breakthroughs and grew well.

“We never made anything in India initially. We were importing from one country because no one was really making it in India when we started out. The ones making in India were also going down, especially through the lockdown months. The manufacturers in India - in electronics - were going down, it was zero. Electronics is a tough industry to be in and I don’t know manufacturing, labor, labor laws, etc. We went to China as they are the manufacturers of the world. There was pricing and scale in China. India was not making supplies, including the PPE kits and shields to combat COVID. COVID was thus an eye-opener for us and even our Prime Minister had acknowledged that India was not really making progress. We realized we can’t be too dependent on a few countries for manufacturing. We, therefore, went to Vietnam and Taiwan. But it wasn’t easy. That's when we took a call to manufacture in India,” he explained.

Tough time calls for tough measures. The uncertainties looming around lockdown months didn’t deter Aman Gupta from building a solution. That’s when a joint venture with Dikson Technologies - a publicly listed company and getting Qualcomm as an investor turned out to be a strategic way to strengthen its infrastructure here in India. Aman shouldered the responsibility of marketing and selling while the acquisitions helped boAt become more robust in becoming resilient to lockdowns and most importantly setting up a manufacturing base in India.

Building in India, for India, and for the World

While most Indian companies are involved in contractual manufacturing, boAt is the first brand that’s investing in manufacturing in India with its own funds. What’s also pushing it forward is GoI’s ‘Make-in-India’ initiative and even consumers consciously choosing ‘Made-in-India’ brands and products. 

“Earlier, what we’ve observed is that Indians would buy from anyone, even now a lot of Indians buy it from anyone. But we see that trend going through a paradigm shift, where Indians are buying local brands or Indian brands. People are liking Indian brands and are supporting that culture of buying products/services from homegrown brands. Until now, we were a brand made in India but our product was not made in India. Now we have our brand made in India and very soon we’ll have all our products too made in India. We have committed to ourselves, the consumers as well as the government,” he stated.

New Line of Products for the Indian Consumer

boAt is on its way to enter into ‘wearables’ as a category and extending further into a lifestyle brand. Aman Gupta foresees wearables as a bigger category of products for boAt as, at present, no Indian company is making them for the Indian consumer. It’s the international players that are either battling their products at a premium in Tier I cities or do not have adequate presence in Tier II and III cities which creates an accessibility issue. 

Giving it Back like a Shark

As one of the early movers in the D2C industry, Aman brings a deep understanding of how this space has evolved in India and globally in the past six years. He actively invests in startups, especially D2C brands, and has a sound head on evaluating start-ups in the D2C space. He shared with us a few key points that he considers before he bets his own money on these D2C startups.

“When writing to Kanwaljeet Sing for boAt, I told him boAt wanted a shark, a mentor who can tell us how to grow and take boAt to the next level. This was about mentorship for ‘growth’ as a brand and not just ‘survival’ for the coming few months/years. We are a profitable brand. We don’t lose money, we earn money. Some start-ups want money to survive the next few months. For us it was about growth,” he asserted.

“For me, it’s about mentorship - whether investing or asking for investment. I look at the person and passion when betting on my money for D2C startups. If the person knows what and how to crack things - be it any industry, he /she will make things happen no matter what. Somebody took a bet on us and we’ve given them crazy returns. Again, it’s not only about returns, it extends far beyond giving it back to the industry, society, and people at large. It also helps us to develop an ecosystem very well. I try to help founders and mentor them, something that I did not have back then when we started out. I made a lot of mistakes. I have seen and grown through it. I try to help founders not repeat that. A lot of people do charity.  I don’t believe in or understand charity. My wife does it on my behalf. I like to give back by becoming an ethical investor with my time and money to the young startups,” he further added. 

Funding or No Funding, Focused Startups will Sail

Start-up founders see funding as a crucial element to growing and scaling. It’s a pathway to project success for most founders who are sort of in a race to scale. But not all of them manage to get funding. However, Aman is of the view that it’s not the end of the road in the day and age of information where any founder can learn, unlearn and grow themselves with the resources they have at their disposal and continue to build their company even when funding is not available. The founder/s have to have it in them to crack what it takes to put their product/service out in the market, understand the market and consumer needs, and be able to see in which direction the industry is heading. That’s enough for me to trust that the founder/s and the rest can follow. 

“Unfortunately, funding is a fad in India. People celebrate funding over startups. Instead, we must celebrate startups. Funding throws a start-up into a rat race of fulfilling the obligations of investors - one after the other. 

“It’s a good time to be in the D2C industry. It’s the best time to start a brand. So I’d say just start a brand. If you do well, you’ll either get funded or you’ll get bought. If not, you’ll learn a lot by starting a brand from scratch. There might be issues with the timing of funding due to various global factors, but India has only started,” he explained. 

“I did get an offer for acquisition which I refused. I knew I could build boAt and my co-founder Sameer also stopped me. I was hesitant but he still insisted and the outcome of it has been great. We diluted last year by Rs 2,000 crore. We are doing well for ourselves with huge room to grow further. There was a time when I was after investors with no one ready to give us funding. Today, we’ve turned the tables and we tell the investors wanting a piece of us that ‘You missed the boat’. It’s a mixed feeling of happiness and validation,” he further added. 

Hiring in Times of ‘The Great Resignation’

The ‘Great Resignation’ only reflects how sensitive the workplace ecosystem has become post-COVID. The lockdowns, hybrid models, and fully remote setups have changed the roles of many employees. While most Indian startup companies now have to navigate the ripple effects of the pandemic, BoAt continues to have a unique approach to attracting and retaining talent. Franchise India picked Aman Gupta’s brains on his approach to building a team during a catastrophic time, not losing the vision in sight, and navigating the tides when the workplace rules are undergoing a paradigm shift. 

“I would divide it into two parts. One is corporate governance and the other is leadership management.

Corporate governance is something that one should not let go of. There are a number of cases where corporate governance is absent and even the founders were asked to leave. I am personally very scared of regulators. I get shivers. I come from a middle-class family and I was always told that the police should never reach our doorstep. So I am built that way. We are very ethical with everything we do at boAt. We pay a lot of advance tax and then we get refunds. Corporate governance is an ethic that no company should ever lose at any time,” he said.

He further lays an emphasis on how building a team impacts existing investor relations, prospective investors, and the overall image of a brand.

“Investors are very smart. Even if they know, they can be silent over frauds or issues in your company until a day comes where they can tell the world that you did this and we caught you and then remove you. Even the authorities. It’s best to not trick them around. So whether a D2C brand wants to make any investment in the future or not, they shouldn’t get involved in any fraud or hanky panky stuff that can backfire with permanent trouble,” he asserted.

Leadership and management of any company are mastering the art of delegation. It’s paramount for any startup founder or employee to know his/her own strengths and what they can bring to the table to elevate the company from where it presently stands.

“I personally don’t like running a company. I loved boAt when it was in its zero to hundred days. I used to work out of SOCIAL in Haus Khas village in Delhi with a team of young and mad guys hustling their way. I used to love doing branding and never really liked finance being a CA. Sameer loves finance and operations, so we let him take his lead there. So I allow people to do what they are good at. At the same time, I don't involve myself in something I don’t like to do. So it’s always best when people take up roles that they can perform to the best of their abilities. That’s what we have done at boAt. I took up Marketing and Sales, Sameer does operations, product head, and finance, and Vivek is hired as CEO. He has run big brands like Godrej, BAIN & Co. and he is a Harvard graduate. He knows organizations better than any of us. He knows how to run a company better than I do. So I wouldn’t want to try that when he is better than me,” he stated. 

“Your company is like a baby and the baby has to grow. So whoever can help that baby grow should take the charge from time to time. You have to pave the way for that. One cannot micro-manage and be resistant to hiring better people or delegating duties - that aspect of growth that is closely tied to people. The right people will give the company the right pace and build it positively in the eyes of investors. Never try to do it all by yourself because then you might only limit your growth. It’s best when founders and teams have their energies focused on what they are best at. Your growth and profits unfold automatically then,” he further added.