IIT​ ​Delhi​ ​Students​ ​Go​ ​On​ ​A​ ​Rebellion Against​ ​Skullcandy​ ​and​ ​Other Over-Priced​ ​Audio​ ​Brands

During a research project in University of Illinois, Urbana Champagne - Avinash Bansal and Chiraag Kapil invented a way to customize the firmware in the traditional audio devices like earphones, headphones and speakers, and enhance its sound experience by 5 times. They took forward their research to their friends in India at IIT Delhi and DTU- Paras Batra, Ayush Banka and Manik Mehta. With the techniques learned back in Illinois, the team ended up making a wireless earphone that could deliver much better sound experience than multiple earphone models of Skullcandy and Samsung.

“It was pretty evident that the so called “Big Brands” were selling below average music experience for inflated prices. Indian youth (including us) loves music and the “Big Brands” are making it tough for us to enjoy premium music experience by selling devices at sky high prices.” says Paras Batra, Head of Marketing.

Being die hard music lovers, the founders thought of changing things themselves and what started as a rebellion, later took form of a registered company, Leaf. As a team, they had earlier worked on wearable technology products at Leaf Wearables, a Delhi-based wearable startup, that we featured last year, which gave them sufficient experience developing products from the scratch.

[caption id="attachment_120962" align="aligncenter" width="530"] First Product- Leaf Ear Wireless Bluetooth Earphones[/caption]

Leaf as a brand was launched with focus on- insanely great sound experience and affordable price for the Indian youth. In the pre-launch phase itself, Leaf has sold more than 11,000 Leaf Ear Wireless earphones and it is quickly capturing the wireless audio market of India. Leaf is getting huge support from its fan-base and the company plans to #MakeInIndia even greater wireless audio products.

"With every product we will take on a major brand and beat them in music experience with a lower price. Our first target was Skullcandy and their Skullcandy Jib earphones don’t stand anywhere near Leaf Ear” says Ayush Banka, Co-Founder and Head of Product Research at Leaf.



"Leaf is starting the revolution of wireless music in India with our technological expertise.. We have a big chart* at our office with logos of multiple brands that form the pool of brands selling average music quality at exorbitant prices. Skullcandy is already a chosen target and a proven victim. Let’s see who is next.” says Chiraag Kapil, Co-Founder and Head of Product Design.

Currently, Leaf Ear is available on the website - www.leafstudios.in and on Amazon. The company is dedicated to increase the reach of their products and plans to enter the offline retail markets with a strong distribution channel.