Noise, which is one of the top wearable brands in India, was established back in 2014. The company was co-founded by two brothers, Gaurav Khatri and Amit Khatri. They started off by selling smartphone covers and cases, then moved to wearables such as truly wireless earbuds, and smart watches, and then more recently launched Luna Ring and more. The aim was to create affordable, high-quality, wearable technology accessible to a broader audience. They identified a gap in the market for feature-rich wearables that didn’t break the bank. Storyboard18 spoke to Gaurav Khatri, co-founder of Noise, to understand the decade-long journey so far and the road ahead for the company.
Edited excerpts.
Tell us more about the highlights of the 10-year-old journey of the company.
It has been a beautiful journey. We have seen growth more than 100% year on year. We have seen the achievement of being the third-highest smart wearable brand in the world.
You and Amit were doing completely different things before starting off Noise. You are a commercial pilot yourself. So how did you decide that this is the space that I want to be in?
I think the reason for loving the tech was also being a pilot. Pilots are always surrounded by the big machines and there’s a new tech innovation that is happening there. And in the cockpit also, you see a lot of tech available there. So probably an attachment came from that.
I just did not thrive in my pilot career in the initial days. Probably I had no other way to build my career. It was just that e-commerce was booming and things were showing a positive response in India, and a new India was coming up. The generation was very, very different from how probably our parents or my older ones used to buy the products. So the idea was to now figure out the tech, which has not yet come in. Not only in India but worldwide also it has not been so big, which we feel that there is a potential that can become big in the coming time. So gadget was close to me, and fitness was close to Amit. And fortunately, we were just scrolling around with different, different gadgets every probably three months, six months, we were buying, trying, and then that’s the reason probably we got into wearable as a space, earbuds as a space. But yeah, wearable did well for us, so we just continued that.
What were some of the initial challenges that you faced?
The most common challenge when you don’t come from a background of tech, is probably hiring the right talent and also getting the right partners who work for you. When you work in the technology space, you need the right set of partners who work and create the product, who are ready to work on a smaller scale and someone who believes in you. People who believe into you, getting them motivated and getting them convinced is the biggest challenge, I would say, that was there for us. Beyond that, the rest of everything is more of an operational challenge. So, that’s the journey.
Going forward, what are some of the products and innovations that we expect from Noise that you are most excited about?
There’s a lot that is happening with the global giant Bose, you will see soon. But yes, a lot on AI, a lot on health.
What is your and Amit’s ambition with Noise going forward?
So when we started, we used to just think about India as a market. Now we’re trying to figure out a way how to make it, India’s first brand to go global and make a bigger name there.