Exclusive: boAt Lifestyle co-founder Aman Gupta has a message for young entrepreneurs

boAT co-founder Aman Gupta and judge of the popular reality show Shark Tank India is a household name and inspires many with his successful business and entrepreneurial spirit. Gupta still feels that it is the competition that pushes him to innovate. Speaking exclusively to ZeeBiz.com, Gupta says it is the right time to be an entrepreneur and that young entrepreneurs must keep hustling to be successful.

Here are the edited excerpts from the interview:

Q: What are the factors behind boAt's success and what message would you like to give to young entrepreneurs to succeed in life?

Aman Gupta: I believe that a top-quality product with value for customers is the key in the Indian market as we are a price-sensitive market. Also, Indian consumers are a highly aspirational populace, who always desire products which people in the higher income class consume. So offer products, which are the best in quality and build a brand, which is aspirational. In short, consumer centricity and keeping an eye on consumers' needs helped boAt.

Q: While boAt retains a substantive share in the wearable market, its share has dropped to 23.9 per cent in Q4. The wearable space is also seeing lots of new names mushrooming up. How do you foresee the challenges for the company in the coming months?

Aman Gupta: boAt is fairly a new entrant in the smartwatch category and it loves the challenge of competing with new brands. We see the competition as a challenge and we get motivated to garner market share in this category.

Q: Do you feel threatened as a lot of companies like Fire Boltt, Noise, Gizmore and Boult are now eyeing the affordable earwear and smartwatch space?

Aman Gupta: Competition is always healthy and more so now in this space because we are competing with Indian brands. At the start of boAt, when we launched our headphones, we were competing with established global players and we got to build a brand beating those established ones. Competition inspires me to continuously innovate.

Q: Could you share your plans for the high-end smartwatch category or will you continue your focus on the affordable segment?

Aman Gupta: We are focusing a lot on the smartwatch category and believe that the Indian market is at the cusp of changes in this segment and is ripe for disruption just the way we disrupted the headphone market a few years back.

Q: You have been one of the judges of the reality show Shark Tank. What's your view on young generation vying to become entrepreneurs?

Aman Gupta: India is a country of entrepreneurs and let me tell you that entrepreneurship is here to stay. We all are entering into a very good phase.

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We know that startups are being encouraged so it's a good time to be an entrepreneur. I want entrepreneurs to keep hustling, keep hustling and keep hustling to be successful.

Q: What is your view regarding ALFA Network and how it is helping young business personalities?

Aman Gupta: It's great. A huge crowd was here and they had some very fantastic questions and they were eager to learn more about developing business skills.