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• Gaurav Khatri’s journey from pursuing a career in aviation to co-founding Noise shows how a change in plans can become the beginning of something much bigger.
• Noise started in 2014 with smartphone accessories before successfully moving into smartwatches, wireless audio and other connected technology products.
• Under Gaurav Khatri’s leadership, Noise has focused on accessible, design-led technology while increasingly looking beyond India and strengthening its global ambitions.

Entrepreneurship is often described as the courage to take risks, but in reality, it is much more about listening to an idea when everyone else is telling you to ignore it. Gaurav Khatri, Co-Founder and CEO of Noise, is a strong example of this mindset.

His journey is not the typical story of an entrepreneur who started with a carefully planned business career. Gaurav was trained as a commercial pilot and once imagined a future in aviation. However, circumstances changed, and instead of treating that change as a setback, he found another way to pursue his passion for technology and innovation.

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From the Dream of Flying to Building India’s Leading Wearable Tech Brand

Entrepreneurship is often described as the courage to take risks, but in reality, it is much more about listening to an idea when everyone else is telling you to ignore it. Gaurav Khatri, Co-Founder and CEO of Noise, is a strong example of this mindset.

His journey is not the typical story of an entrepreneur who started with a carefully planned business career. Gaurav was trained as a commercial pilot and once imagined a future in aviation. However, circumstances changed, and instead of treating that change as a setback, he found another way to pursue his passion for technology and innovation.

Along with his cousin Amit Khatri, Gaurav co-founded Noise in 2014. What began as a business selling smartphone covers and mobile accessories gradually transformed into one of India’s most recognised smart wearable and lifestyle technology brands.

The story of Gaurav Khatri and Noise is ultimately a story about understanding consumers, moving quickly, learning from mistakes and, most importantly, having the confidence to create something different.

A Commercial Pilot Who Chose Entrepreneurship

Before entering the technology business, Gaurav had taken a completely different professional path.

He pursued commercial pilot training in the Philippines and achieved his flying licence at a remarkably young age. Flying gave him the excitement and discipline that he enjoyed, but after returning to India, the limited opportunities in the aviation industry made him rethink his career direction.

Rather than allowing disappointment to define his future, Gaurav started looking for another field where he could combine his curiosity and ambition.

Technology had always interested him. From gaming consoles and mobile phones to the growing world of consumer gadgets, he had watched personal technology become increasingly important in everyday life.

His cousin Amit was already involved in business, and their conversations eventually became the starting point for something much bigger.

The two realised that India’s rapidly growing smartphone market was creating opportunities beyond smartphones themselves. This observation became the foundation for Noise.

The Birth of Noise in 2014

Noise officially began its journey in 2014.

The founders did not immediately jump into the smartwatch business. Instead, they started with something relatively simple: smartphone covers and mobile accessories.

For an early-stage business, this was a practical decision. It allowed the founders to understand customers, online selling, pricing, supply chains and the rapidly changing Indian smartphone market without taking an unnecessarily large risk.

The business gained traction. According to Forbes India, the founders bootstrapped the company and initially invested more than ₹7 crore from their savings. Noise generated nearly ₹10 crore in revenue during its first year of operations.

But success in smartphone accessories also revealed a problem.

Competition increased rapidly, and the average selling price of mobile cases started falling. The founders realised that simply selling accessories would not be enough to build the kind of lasting brand they envisioned.

This was the point where Gaurav and Amit began thinking beyond phone covers.

Seeing the Future in Wearable Technology

The smartphone had already become a central part of people’s lives. Gaurav and Amit believed that the next opportunity would come from products that could extend that connected experience beyond the phone.

That thinking led Noise towards wireless audio products and smart wearables.

The company eventually entered the smartwatch category and started developing products that combined technology, fashion and everyday convenience.

This transition was not without challenges. Smartwatches are considerably more complicated than phone cases. They involve hardware, sensors, software, applications, algorithms and user experience.

But instead of waiting until everything was perfect, the Noise team focused on learning and improving through real customer feedback.

That approach became one of Gaurav Khatri’s strongest entrepreneurial principles: listen to consumers and build around what they actually need.

Consumer Feedback Became a Growth Engine

One of the most interesting aspects of Gaurav’s approach to building Noise has been the importance he places on customers.

Rather than treating product development as something that happens inside a company alone, Noise has repeatedly used consumer feedback to understand what people want from wearable technology.

Whether customers wanted larger displays, new colours, better comfort or more convenient audio experiences, the brand tried to translate those expectations into products.

Gaurav has spoken about how this consumer-first approach helped Noise create innovations suited to Indian users. The company introduced products across smartwatches, wireless earbuds and other connected lifestyle categories.

For a bootstrapped company that did not have unlimited marketing budgets in its early years, keeping customers satisfied had another major advantage: word of mouth.

Happy customers could become brand advocates.

That helped Noise gradually build recognition without depending entirely on traditional advertising.

Building a Brand, Not Just Selling Gadgets

There is a significant difference between selling technology products and building a technology brand.

Gaurav and his team understood this difference over time.

Noise wanted to become more than another company selling inexpensive electronics. Its goal was to connect technology with the personality and lifestyle of young Indian consumers.

The brand’s identity reflects this philosophy. Noise describes itself as a design-led lifestyle technology brand focused on making connected technology accessible, expressive and useful.

This positioning helped Noise create a distinct identity in an increasingly crowded wearable market.

The company also understood that Indian consumers were looking for products that offered attractive designs and useful features without necessarily carrying the extremely high prices associated with international technology brands.

That balance between aspiration and accessibility became an important part of Noise’s strategy.

From a Bootstrapped Startup to a Wearable Leader

Perhaps the most remarkable part of the Noise story is how the company scaled without relying heavily on external capital during its early years.

For more than eight years, Noise remained bootstrapped, focusing on sustainable growth and carefully managing its resources. Forbes India described the company as a profitably bootstrapped business during this period.

The strategy was straightforward but demanding: create products people wanted, maintain reasonable prices, build consumer trust and reinvest into the business.

Over time, Noise established itself as a major player in India’s smartwatch market.

The company also expanded its portfolio into audio products, smart rings and other connected lifestyle technologies, showing that its ambitions were never limited to smartwatches alone.

Innovation at the Centre of Gaurav’s Leadership

Gaurav Khatri’s leadership philosophy appears closely connected to experimentation.

Instead of assuming that one successful product is enough, Noise has continued exploring new categories and technologies.

The company’s focus has increasingly moved towards creating a broader connected ecosystem where wearables can play a larger role in people’s daily lives.

Gaurav has also emphasised product innovation and understanding the future direction of consumer technology. His background as a commercial pilot adds another interesting dimension to his personality: aviation requires discipline, precision and the ability to remain composed while making decisions.

Those qualities can be valuable in entrepreneurship as well.

The Importance of Made-in-India Technology

Another important part of Noise’s evolution has been its increasing focus on Indian product design, development and manufacturing.

Noise states that a majority of its product design and assembly, along with UI and UX development, is based in India. The company has also expressed ambitions to strengthen domestic manufacturing and build products in India for global consumers.

For Gaurav, this represents more than just manufacturing.

It reflects a larger opportunity for Indian consumer technology companies to develop products that understand local customers while competing on an international stage.

Noise’s journey demonstrates how an Indian brand can begin by identifying a local consumer gap and eventually think globally.

What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Gaurav Khatri

Gaurav Khatri’s journey offers several lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

First, your original career plan does not have to define your entire life. A person trained for aviation can eventually become a technology entrepreneur.

Second, starting small is not a weakness. Noise began with smartphone accessories before entering the much more complicated wearable technology market.

Third, listen to customers. Product innovation becomes far more meaningful when it solves an actual consumer problem.

Fourth, speed matters. In technology, markets change quickly. Businesses that constantly learn, test and adapt can stay ahead.

And finally, building a brand takes patience. Noise did not become a recognised wearable technology company overnight. It evolved through multiple categories, product experiments and years of understanding its consumers.

The Road Ahead for Gaurav Khatri and Noise

Today, the Noise story has moved far beyond the smartphone covers with which it began.

The company has grown into a connected lifestyle technology brand with millions of users across its ecosystem. Noise says that more than 40 million users carry its products, while its NoiseFit app has more than 25 million users.

For Gaurav Khatri, however, the larger opportunity appears to be the future of personal technology.

Smartwatches, earbuds, smart rings and other wearable devices are gradually becoming extensions of our daily lives. The next phase of technology may not be about carrying more devices, but about making technology feel more natural, personal and connected.

That is where Noise’s journey becomes particularly interesting.

Conclusion

Gaurav Khatri’s journey from commercial pilot to Co-Founder and CEO of Noise is a reminder that entrepreneurship rarely follows a straight line.

What started as a small experiment in smartphone accessories eventually became a major Indian wearable technology story.

The success of Noise was not built on one revolutionary product alone. It came from repeatedly identifying consumer needs, experimenting with new categories, learning from the market and creating products that combined technology with affordability and style.

Perhaps the most fitting part of Gaurav’s story is the philosophy behind the name Noise itself. The brand was inspired by the idea of listening to the inner voice that pushes people to follow their ambitions.

Gaurav Khatri listened to that voice.

And from a dream of flying in the skies to building technology for millions of people, he has turned that inner noise into a business story that continues to grow louder.