Anchoring The Big Pivot

Affordability is one of the main hooks for your customers. Along with keeping tabs on cost, how do you manage and keep up with the innovations for your product line?

We have a world-class R&D team that is stationed within the boAt ecosystem and there is a continuous innovation engine that is working there. Through that we are able to bring our quality products for the consumer.

We also understand what the consumer wants. Some of the things are very typical to the Indian consumer. How to take those learnings and put it back into the product and keep innovating is something we are always on top of. 

Last year, boAt closed USD 60 million in funding from Warburg and Malabar Investments. How do you plan to utilise the capital? 

We have primarily been into the audio market, now we are building the wearables core, although we are at the very start of this journey. 

We have made the right investments to ensure that we have the right product out there in a way that you own the entire stack where you are able to give newer features and build an ecosystem for the consumers. We don't want consumers to think a smartwatch is just a heart rate monitor with a watch face. So that is what we want to build over a period of time, because that is where the consumers will shift to and that is where the funding is being diverted to.

When you look back at boAt’s journey, what comes to your mind? How do you handle success and stay focused?

There was a time when we had signed Rs 100 crore of personal guarantees just to make the business run, and that is the confidence we had in our business and ourselves. That, to me, was a big challenge for people who come from a middle class background to sign up for something like this.

We don't talk about our success often as it can get to one's head at some point and that is where your downfall starts. We want to focus on things that are not working rather than looking just at the positive side, because what is done is done. 

How do you deal with conflicts, differences and yet be aligned with the common goal?

boAt is our baby. We do what is best for the baby. Every relationship has conflict, arguments and a whole lot of issues to deal with, as long as the objectives are the same; which is to make this a world class company.