May 16, 2022 · 36m · neon-show
From Selling Mobile Covers To Building a 1000Crore Revenue D2C Brand ft. Amit Khatri, Founder-Noise
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the 100x Entrepreneur podcast, Noise co-founder Amit Khatri discusses the strategic pivots, lean bootstrapping principles, and product-first philosophy that transformed Noise from a small phone accessory venture into India's leading ₹1,000 crore smartwatch brand.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Siddhartha as informed peer 4.2 Guest teaching 3.6 Guest disagreement 1.4 Siddhartha pushing back 1.8
speaking balance: gold is Siddhartha, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 27:12 Amit rejects distribution-first framing
Amit firmly counters Siddhartha's suggestion that marketing and distribution are separate pillars, asserting that great products automatically secure marketplace backing.
Hardest push from Siddhartha ▶ 27:12 Siddhartha challenges product-only playbookSiddhartha interrupts Amit's singular focus on product to challenge how brands can succeed without intentional marketing and distribution design.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 22:20 Amit clarifies domestic vs global sales metricsAmit directly corrects Siddhartha's misconception that Noise operates abroad, explaining that their global ranking stems solely from Indian market volume.
Siddhartha holds their own ▶ 17:06 Siddhartha breaks down electronics development risksSiddhartha demonstrates deep technical understanding by articulating why hardware electronics require multi-layered execution far beyond simple lifestyle accessories.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Siddhartha as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Siddhartha pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amit Khatri's Early Background and Professional Roots | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Siddhartha opens with an open-ended biographical prompt about Amit Khatri's upbringing and career background. Amit provides an extensive recounting of his education, work with international fashion export houses, and starting Noise with mobile accessories. | |
| Scaling Mobile Covers to Smart Wearable Inflection Points | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Siddhartha demonstrates solid comprehension of marketplace unit economics and asks how Noise decided to pivot into wearables. Amit explains why avoiding the wired earphone red ocean of Sony and JBL led them toward smartwatches. | |
| Channel Strategy: D2C Website, Marketplaces, and Offline Expansion | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Siddhartha queries the revenue channel split across D2C and marketplaces. Amit details the strategic rationale for maintaining a D2C site to retain customer direct relationships rather than letting marketplaces dictate KPIs. | |
| Building D2C Infrastructure on a Bootstrapped Budget | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Siddhartha asks about the initial capital outlay required for bootstrapped D2C website development. Amit shares early struggles with external agencies before migrating to Shopify, clarifying that Noise positions itself as lifestyle-first rather than tech-first. | |
| Actionable Entrepreneurial Lessons: Speed, Discipline, and Real Value | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Siddhartha asks when Noise began focusing on brand-building versus pure sales. Amit reframes the premise by asserting that branding starts on day one with the very first transaction rather than as a secondary phase. | |
| Navigating Hardware Complexities and Early Quality Failures | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Siddhartha displays good grasp of hardware complexity, noting that consumer electronics carry harsh failure penalties. Amit candidly admits early batches had massive return rates and whole product runs had to be discarded. | |
| Demographic Tailwinds in the Indian Smartwatch Market | 4 | 6 | 3 | 3 | Siddhartha assumes Noise is generating significant international revenue across APAC and global markets. Amit corrects him by clarifying that their top APAC rankings derive entirely from massive Indian domestic volume and penetration tailwinds. | |
| Lean Operations and High-ROI Digital Marketing | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Siddhartha inquires how Noise scaled from 150 to 800 crores without venture funding. Amit explains how capital constraints forced disciplined, high-ROI digital performance marketing rather than broad IPL television sponsorships. | |
| The D2C Blueprint: Product Superiority Over Distribution Hype | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | When Siddhartha pushes that distribution and marketing are equally critical to scaling, Amit doubles down on product superiority as the foundational requirement. He contrasts Noise's tight 30-SKU portfolio with competitors running 200+ product catalogs. | |
| Market Positioning: Quality Mid-Premium Lifestyle Products | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Siddhartha probes how Noise maintains accessible pricing despite high-end manufacturing. Amit details moving production to Tier-1 global contract manufacturers and amortizing BOM costs through scale and low return rates. | |
| Strategic Celebrity Endorsements and Building Brand Trust | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Siddhartha asks about the shift toward celebrity ambassadors and resisting VC funding rounds. Amit explains ambassadors provide trust at scale and underscores why remaining bootstrapped protects long-term company health. |
Statements from this episode (24)
Khatri: Early Indian gadget market lacked mid-tier options before homegrown brands
“I got exposed to international market in the West, where I could see that there are a lot of products which are there in the market, which India never had. I mean, India, it was all just super expensive brands like Apple or Fitbit, or you call cheap Chinese kn…”
Khatri: Noise grew revenue to ₹42 crore selling mobile accessories
“First year we did a revenue of 12 crores. It grew phenomenally well to next year, 24 crores. Third year, we were close to 24 crores. Again, we were very stagnant in revenue. I mean, we didn't grow because the ASPs were dropping, but the market was growing by t…”
Khatri: 20% of Noise's revenue comes directly from its D2C website
“We are one of the largest DTC websites where 20% of the business come from there.”
Khatri: Selling ₹500 products via D2C breaks unit economics
“So, so we realized that if you have to sell from our website, a 500 crore, a 500 rupees product cannot do justice because there is a customer acquisition cost, logistics, payment gateways you need to handle.”
Khatri: Noise scaled revenue to ₹800 crore after wearables pivot
“And then on, we pivoted ourselves to a category which was smartwatches and hearable. And from then on, it started, we grew first year, then to one 50 crores. Next year, we more than doubled. From one 50, we moved to three fifty-odd crores. And last year, we wo…”
Khatri: Wired earphones were a high-volume but zero-profit market
“If we had to go for a wired earphone market, then we had to fight with big giants like JBL, Sony, Philips, and we realized that Amit, it is not, me and Gaurav realized that it's not easy for us to do, and if we go at, It's, what do you call it? It's a red ocea…”
Khatri: Fitbit was the only smartwatch option in India initially
“We realized that there's only a Fitbit in India and there's no other option.”
Khatri: Marketplace KPIs focus on GMV rather than building brands
“When we work with marketplaces, they drive what to sell. Their KPI is not to build a brand. The KPI is to do GMV for them or get a consumer for the brand.”
Khatri: Noise offline retail grew to 20% revenue share in 2022
“We started offline business this year onwards in 20, 22, what you call. And from now on, from two percent of overall business, it is close to 20% of our revenue.”
Khatri: Noise is fundamentally a lifestyle brand, not a tech brand
“So, I mean, we are not a tech brand. We are a lifestyle brand. Lifestyle first and tech is an enabler to that.”
Khatri: Noise's first business plan targeted only 25 lakhs annually
“So when you start, I don't think we made a plan of doing a 12 crore or also maybe when we wrote the first business plan, it was like, can we do a business of 25 lakhs in a year?”
Khatri: Noise D2C website lost money for its first four years
“When we started building our website on the day one, it was a painful affair. We made losses for first four years or even breakeven. We never made money out of there, but yeah, it helped us for long term.”
Khatri: Noise dumped entire second smartwatch batch due to quality issues
“The first two generation of smartwatches, we had very high returns. I don't remember the numbers, but we had very high returns and you won't believe the second batch, what we've ordered, those are still still lying in my warehouse. Because there were so much o…”
Khatri: Noise controls 27% of the Indian smartwatch market
“We are the largest brand in the country for last two years for smartwatches. We have close to 27% market share Siddharth, which means one out of every four smartwatch in the country is a noise smartwatch.”
Khatri: India's smartwatch market grew from 2.5M to 13M units
“India as a market is the fastest growing market in the world in the smartwatch space. I think last to last year, the market was close to 2.5 million units. And this year, the 20, 22, the market closed at close to 12 to 13, 13 odd million units.”
Khatri: Noise ranks third in APAC smartwatch market solely via India sales
“We are not selling in APAC and world right now. In terms of size, we are ranked third in APAC. Asia Pacific and in, in the entire globe, if you look at the ranking, we would be number nine.”
Khatri: US sells 40 smartwatches per 1,000 people compared to 1.5 in India
“In US, there are maybe 40 smartwatches sold against thousand people. In China, it is close to 20 smartwatches against thousand people. And in India, it is close to one and a half smartwatch against thousand people.”
Khatri: Noise allocates 99% of its marketing budget to digital channels
“So we are 99% as organization on digital platforms. Which are like Instagram, YouTube, Hotstar.”
Khatri: Noise operates with no more than 30 active products
“So if you ask me, we don't have more than 30 odd products across our portfolio, which gives the revenue to us.”
Khatri: Selling the cheapest white-labeled electronics is unsustainable
“Doing the cheapest product is easiest. Because you do most of the time white labeling and you can't sustain because there is enough of competition. So the bigger the pocket you have, the more the business you can take.”
Khatri: Noise shifted manufacturing to tier-1 factories used by global brands
“And then we shifted the entire supply chain to a consumer base, which makes for bigger brands like JBL, Herman, Fitbit, sorry. So we are produced in these factories because the processes are already set because they're already making for the global brands.”
Khatri: Noise faced a 40% return rate on Tune Elite earphones
“We launched a product called tune elite. I'm sure some would provide we a user also of it. The procurement was not right. The supply chain team did a mistake there. And I think my customer returns were 40% there. So, I mean, I sold 200,000 units, a 100,000 cam…”