'Hustle hard and stay humble,' boAt founder Aman Gupta's advice to entrepreneurs

Popular shark and co-founder and CMO of wearable startup boAt, Aman Gupta believes that amid this testing time for startup founders, budding entrepreneurs should hustle hard and stay humble.

In a conversation with Business Today, Gupta acknowledged the ongoing 'funding winter' that has engulfed the startup ecosystem. "Everyone was getting funding, it had become very easy but now the 'funding winter' has put companies under scrutiny. Even good companies are being scrutinised which is a good thing. So, it was survival of the fittest and now it will be funding of the profitable," he said.

Gupta also explained that the scrutiny amid the funding crunch will bring sanity to the startup ecosystem.

Gupta who is a shark on the popular reality show, Shark Tank invested about Rs 18 crore in the second season of the series that concluded in March this year. He is known for his calm and fun behaviour on the show. Upon being asked about his favourite investment so far, Gupta instead of taking any other company's name, instantly named boAt.

"It has been the best investment of my life. and Inshallah it has given great returns and will continue to do so," he said.

Gupta also acknowledged the rising popularity of artificial intelligence tools but he doesn't agree with the popular fear of AI replacing humans.

"AI is here to stay and it's just the beginning but a lot of people think it will replace humans, I don't think that will happen. It will not take over humans or any creative jobs. AI and humans will co-survive, Gupta added.

"At boAt, we were the first ones to integrate AI through automated voices and now we have much more in the pipeline which I will not share because I am aware that our competition watches us closely. So, it's all under wraps," Gupta explained.

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