Global is the next big thing to aim for: Gaurav Khatri, Noise

Noise, a brand that has managed to establish itself as a Rs 2000 crore D2C company in less than eight years, did not have an easy ride, according to Gaurav Khatri, CEO and Co-Founder of Noise. He said that those who embark on an entrepreneurial path do not begin with a goal of Rs 100 crore or Rs 1000 crore; in fact, most of them are striving for the first one crore. 

At e4m D2C Revolution Summit held on Wednesday, Gaurav Khatri in a fireside chat with the COO Utsav Malhotra spoke about the Noise's uphill journey to becoming a formidable brand.

Khatri stated that the team has been the most important factor in the brand's success. "It has its own difficulty to begin with. It was a difficult journey for us, but the brand first gained traction since we began with a completely different notion to establish this brand, which thankfully hit with the client. And once your customers believe in your brand, others join in and help you expand it." 

He also mentioned that it was even a difficult journey to get people on board for a non-funded organization where everybody is funded and everybody is asking how much is a cash burn? “We didn't have an answer for that. We thought that's not a question that we should be discussing. We should be discussing what is the right way to build a sustainable brand. I think now things have changed. People have started believing in sustainable business and developing that. So it has been a difficult journey but with time you grow and people join you together.”

While speaking about the company’s vision and the challenges faced during the entire journey, Khatri said that they had a mission- it  was, of course to democratize the technology, but the bigger piece of it was to democratize customer and the brand experience which was missing in the entire domestic brands that people were buying since 2000. 

“We started with a vision to create a brand which was much more experiential and aspirational, which was completely missing in this country and we found that white space and tried to build it up."

According to him, the biggest challenge was to get that first person to join, to go on the first meeting, where you have to convince others that their brand will do better. “Getting people with an entrepreneurial mindset rather than an employee mindset is one of the biggest challenges but we are fortunate to get good people. Also, I've learned with time that when you are not aware of what are the challenges that can come in your life, you don't prepare for them."

He noted that it was absolutely clear to him that creating a business means he had to make it profitable and sustainable in the long run.

Khatri also mentioned that if consumers' motivation and that has also been one of the reasons that the Noise team is very passionate and excited about the feedback that they get from the outside market. 

“We got very close to creating our technology piece by ourselves rather than being dependent on a third piece,” Khatri informed.  

He highlighted that Noise has created a great ecosystem of tech. “ We are probably India's only brand who's creating technology in-house and now we're not dependent on anybody or any global giants to create the product that we are creating. So that kept us innovate faster and better to implement the consumer feedback on time.”

Speaking on the next step for Noise, Khatri informed that the brand has been only online till last year, and now they are focusing more on offline to reach deeper Bharat. “We are now focusing more on offline and going to the deeper India, Bharat that we call now. But global is the next thing that we should be aiming but let's see when it happens.”