When we take the name of a Startup then we reflect with just one word known as ‘Funding’. If a startup is regularly being funded then only it will succeed, as we have seen in the case of Byjus, where this startup went bankrupt after investors left it alone due to some reasons. But today we will understand the story of ‘Dilli ka Ladka’ named Varun Gupta, who made ‘Boult’ a ₹2,000 crore company, India’s no.1 audio brand without funding. Let’s explore this story in detail.
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About Boult and its co-founder Varun Gupta.
Varun Gupta, who belongs to Delhi Punjabi Bagh and comes from a religious family, had a vision to break something big from a very young age. “He had a family business that showed many collapses, and once, his family was on the edge of bankruptcy. From there, he understood the value of money, and this hardship built his character, “Varun said while talking on Josh Talk.
This hardship made Varun strong, and he determined to do something that could bring his father’s and family’s pride back. So, having all these reasons in mind, he introduced his Boult startup in 2017, which specialized in the Audio segment. Within a few years, it left all the global Audio brands behind without any funding.
Today, it is India’s no.1 audio brand, with a diverse portfolio that includes wireless earbuds, smartwatches, soundbars, and more. Because of its quality and customer satisfaction, Boult has become a ₹2,000 crore brand. But wait! This extraordinary story has many failure and hardship backend stories. Let’s explore those failure journeys and how Boult became such a big brand.
Boult’s story from struggling to success.
“Boult was the fourth startup which Varun had started, and those three startups failed badly burning Arun’s over ₹40 lakh, “Varun Gupta said in Josh Talk. “Varun explains, “he started to prepare for IIT but couldn’t get selected because of a low score, around 20% from the cut-off, which consumed his almost 2 years.
After this failure, he entered engineering preparation, but throughout the engineering journey, he was unable to find what he had to do for his career and even his engineering journey ended. Then he joins the MBA following his parent’s suggestions and from this phase, his business journey begins.
Failure in the first startup: “After completing his engineering, he starts pursuing an MBA as his parents recommend. He studied very hard with a full focus on his MBA. He was advised by his parents in childhood to do something big in life. So, while studying for an MBA, he starts his startup. In fact, during the summer internship, Arun was the only one who made his startup his summer internship. When his MBA degree was completed he realized startup is not only tough but very tough, “Varun revealed on Josh Talk show.
Failure in the second Startup: “Varun had understood running a startup is not easy, it requires a lot of knowledge, effort, hard work, and so on. So, he joined to a job after his MBA graduation. After working for five to six months, he shifted to another company named Snapdeal. While working in this company led Arun to his second startup. After working for 5 to 6 months on this startup, Varun left his Snapdeal job because he started getting good feedback. Working more than 6 months after job resignation, he realized, he had customers, and products but didn’t have proper revenue, “Varun explains. Thus he fails in his second startup.
“After failing in the second startup, he was unable to understand that in which direction he was moving, because he had lost his whole savings earned through jobs. Now, he had two options either do the job or start again for something big, “he says.
Failure in the third startup: “But, somehow he managed to start his third startup named Brand Hawkers in 2015 and run it for almost 2 years. Under this startup, he started to work with foreign e-commerce businesses and several brands to establish their businesses in India. While helping businesses, brands, and even several Audio brands to establish their business in India, Varun Gupta realized why not to establish an Indian brand while living in India, “He explains to Josh Talk stage. Now starts the journey of India’s No.1 Audio brand ‘Boult’.
Rise of Boult as India’s No. 1 audio brand.
While failure through these three startups Varun lost an overall ₹40 lakh, but while working through his third startup with the Audio brands, he got a powerful idea, Why can’t we make an Indian brand while living in India, why do we just go behind the big international brand, why we kept thinking to consume just international brand, and why can’t we build a global brand out of India?
All these thoughts led Varun Gupta to launch his 4th Startup. Yes! That startup is today’s India’s no.1 audio brand ‘Boult’. Varun launched ‘Boult’ in 2017 without any funding. Varun figured out the mistakes he made during his 3 startup failures and managed not to repeat them. Now! he was ready with every kind of requirement like product engineering, manufacturing, how a product should be, for whom the product should be, product price points, what features, and from where had to make the product.
Now! Varun focused on making just one product which devoted to the customers’ needs, price points, features, and benefits. This product took almost 9 months of time, which they made with great care. Analyzed brands carefully such as JBL, Bose, and Sony, and traveled the country and the world to understand how and where the products of the top brands are being manufactured.
Varun had the money, focus, and energy of just one product. Eventually, he launched his first product ‘Boult Wave’ in 2017 with a co-founder Tarun, his brother. They had done an exclusive deal of 1,000 unit orders with Myntra but they didn’t have money to buy components for manufacturing.
So, they went to a bank for the ₹13 lakh loan but the bank laughed, “You don’t have a balance sheet, your previous company is bankrupt, and you have no money in your bank”, but they tried several other banks, and somehow, they could manage the cost to fulfill 1,000 order. As soon as the product came on the market, it was sold out within one day, which they genuinely expected to sell in one month.
With the success of the first product, they get confident. Before they were dependent on freelancers and now these two co-founders started to build in house team. And with this confidence, they launched several other products.
Varun Gupta says, “We spread in the country with a speed that, rivel started to mention our brand in their ads saying, don’t buy boult product buy us”. All these touched their confidence in the sky, and they kept breaking one after another milestones.
Within the first year of the company, they made a revenue of ₹3 crore, then ₹19, then ₹95 crore, and then ₹190 crore. Like this, they touched 700 crore in revenue, and this year 2025, they are expected to touch ₹800 to ₹900 crore in revenue. Where these two founders started 7 years back in a closed room is today a 700 people team, 2.5 crores satisfied customers, and more than 3 million ratings. They sell one product every three seconds, they are India’s fastest growing wearable brand and are India’s no.1 top-rated audio brand.
Varun Gupta’s 3 mistakes during his 3 startup failures.
Varun Gupta reveals the three mistakes that he made while building startups and has suggested to young startup youths not to repeat this in their journey. These mistakes are below.
- Chasing Investors Rather than Customers: Varun says, “I was making products for investors. Before making a business model, and customer services I was making the business deck and investor pitch. I ran around behind the investors in a way that I couldn’t even realize that I was chasing investors rather than chasing customers, and working on their satisfaction.
- Making Products for Yourself not for Customers: Varun further explained, “I was just focusing on the products which were my need, rather than focusing on the market demands. As there are several states and different kinds of people with different kinds of choices and needs”.
- Hope of Investors: He said, “When I was failing in the startup, I was thinking one day investors will come and will lift falling startup, instead of taking money from the business’s customers whom I was serving, I kept thinking, right now! I have to build the brand, market, and business, will make money anytime and that was the worst mistake. Because when doesn’t bring revenue and profit to your home then relatives, parents, girlfriend, wife, and so on say you are not making business, you are losing money and time”.
Three lessons from Varun Gupta’s Boult’s success.
To make a successful startup, the below lessons from Varun Gupt may save years.
- Speed Over Perfection: Rather than focusing on making an extremely unique product, which doesn’t exist in the universe, focus on making a little advanced product and launch it in the market as soon as possible, then by time keep on renovating it to the extreme level.
- Focus On Customer Feedback: Varun says, “We listened to the customer’s recommendations, and reviews, and listened to them on the calls. Instead of ignoring this valuable feedback, we implemented them in our new products and improved the old products”.
- Innovation: He further says, “Instead of just following the global brands we started to do our innovation. As we got confidence and understood that we could afford a powerful team, we started to make our faces. Because it doesn’t matter that people will love only what international brands are creating.
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