Consumer electronics accessory brand,
Envent was incepted in 2011. Sukhesh Madaan is the Founder & CEO of Envent and an industry veteran with over 21 years of experience in IT and Telecom industry.
Envent was conceptualized with “invention” in mind. The brand focuses on experimenting and creating products based on the needs and requirement of a modern consumer. Each of their product segments introduces state-of-the-art products, which are broadly categorized into 4 segments of Home Audio, Personal Audio, Telecom Accessories & IT Peripherals. The company’s biggest category is Home Audio which offers a plethora of products, right from Bluetooth Speakers for on-the-go music to Sound Bars & Towers that takes TV viewing experience to an exceptional level. Its 2.0/2.1 speakers for Desktop & Laptops and 4.1/5.1 Multimedia speakers have upgraded features like Bluetooth, FM Radio, USB pen drive support, Remote & Display, standing out as complete entertainment solution for homes. The niche product line has more than one million satisfied consumers in India.
BWDisrupt team member Sujata Sangwan interacts with Sukhesh Madaan, Founder & CEO, Envent and spoke to him
How did the idea came to start?After spending ages in Hardware industry & working so closely with end consumer I could really feel the gaps and frustration of users. As Indians, we all love music but at the same time hate these entangling wires coming out from our speakers and headphones. We want to carry our speakers around but we’re scared of the dust or them slipping out of our hands and so on. So Envent was born looking at these frustrations, with an intention to find some solutions for all these issues. Digging further I realized, while there are so many brands around, Indian brands prefer to sell regular volume moving products without bothering too much about quality, and MNC brands ask for exorbitant prices. Therefore, we wanted to be a brand which offer first-of-its-kind feature rich products at incredibly affordable prices.
How is Envent different from the existing ones?Envent is different in many ways which are as follows:
- Our product development starts bottoms up! We first understand customer needs and then try to find a solution for that. We researched and realized that consumers want to buy Bluetooth speakers but at the same time they are tired of delicate speakers with which he/she has to carry with a “Handle with Care” tag all the time. So we launched Livefree 530 which is Dust proof, Water proof and best of it, Shock proof -a fall from 6 feet won’t harm it at all.
- Envent has come from Invention and we stick to our policy of risk taking. We don’t like the commodity business. We were the first among the peers to launch Power banks and may be the Only one to sell Power banks for Notebooks. And as soon as the quality standards started deteriorating and it became a commodity we moved out of this. if we can’t value add, we don’t like to be there!
- Envent is a young brand and we relate to our Generation X like no one else does! Next Gen wants the latest technology but at the same time want to pay the right price. We realized next Gen wants to live tangle free. We don’t like wires all around but the same time don’t want to pay 100 USD for a BT headphone. Envent worked tirelessly, to launch a BT headphone at 1/5 of the cost but also added features like Capability to run even without battery (through a 3.5mm jack), Dual pairing (to connect 2 devices) etc.
- We spend time in designing and love to spoil our customers with choices! We want our customers to express themselves based on their preferences. We hardly launched any SKU in single colour. In fact, we had a regular thing like a wireless mouse in 5 different colours ranging from typical Black to Delicate Pink.
How much amount of funding Envent raised till now? We are self-funded and Angel invested. Our angel investor is a HNI and Chennai based. The first round of investment was close to $350k and almost another $500k has been invested through debts and personal savings. He gave us the initial impetus and since last 3 years we are on our own. We are now to ready for Series A funding and looking for investors who shares our vision and passion!
What were the challenges your startup faced while setting up the business?I think every startup goes through a sine wave and organizations who succeeds are the one who survive through the troughs. To start with, our Plan A failed so did Plan B & C too and this happened in first 100 days. We started with Plan D which we drew when everything else failed.
I faced an even bigger challenge where the team who came on board at the start lost the patience and jumped the ship. Within a span of 45 days, my team strength went down by almost 60% and worst, I was left with only finance and marketing people while the entire sales team decided otherwise. I practically singlehandedly built the entire organization brick by brick. Similarly, initial investors lost their faith when they saw the attrition and closed the finance taps. Down to 5 people team including the office boy, we were in 1Cr+ debts from tens of vendors, almost the same amount of loss making/non-saleable inventory, people claims & salaries not paid for months. To turn this around profitably in almost 2 years is no short of miracle in its own.
On top of it, our few product calls went awry. We banked heavily on iPhone 4 & Samsung 2 cases and covers and bought the entire range of cases and covers. By the time the material hit the market, all these moved to next generation and till now we were stuck with outdated inventory!
What is the market size and market opportunity?There are not many agencies who truly calculate accessory market but the Home audio market is around 15 Mn units a year. Out of this the Bluetooth or wireless speaker market is growing more than 30% YoY. The new entrants are Sound Bars as well as Bluetooth speakers.
In the personal audio space, if you include the wired range of products like earphone and headphones it’s as much as mobile phone market since every decent cost phone comes with a pair of earphones.
What are the traction details? We have 1Mn+ installed base of Envent users. Considering we are not even a 5-year-old company, it’s a good number. We mainly sell through online retailers to sell through to the consumers. We also have a channel distribution partner in Eastern part of India. Going forward, we intend to double our sales and consumer base every year! From the expansion point of view, our next frontier is LFR channels and also seriously contemplating to cross borders and add on few more countries. Nevertheless, our short-term goal is to enter into the IoT space and break some serious price barriers by launching a smart range of products at super affordable prices.
What advice you want to share with the emerging players?Well, I have few words of advice not only for the entrants in this space but for all the startups.
- Be flexible. Your Plan A will for surely fail and B will be too. Keep your eyes and ears open for fresh opportunities to hit you. If something is not working, give it an honest try but quickly move to other too. Don’t stick with it for too long, it will harm you.
- I have yet to see a business which hasn’t gone through crests and troughs. You are not an exception and people who succeed are majorly the ones, who could hold on when the troughs hit them! So, hold on….believe in yourself and you will sail through
- Be wise with your people selection. People who don’t share your passion and vision will do you more harm than good. End of the day, it’s the people who make a company and whether you like or not, you can’t do everything on yourself. You need these hands to take care of various functions in your organization.
