In its short history, brand Nothing has been able to carve out a special niche for itself in the smartphone and audio segments, and that’s no mean feat… given how competitive these arenas are. Starting out with a fresh new approach to product design, and then being able to deliver value (the CMF Phone 1 is a good example), Nothing is now looking to distrupt things further. We sat down with Nothing Co-founder Akis Evangelidis for a candid chat, discussing everything from the brand’s products to future strategy. Read on.
91mobiles: What can you tell us about your new launch, the Ear (open)?
Akis: I wasn’t at first convinced by this type of audio product, but it kind of grows into you. I personally have quite an active lifestyle — I go running, go pick up my little one, walk to the office and so on. The Ear (open) is quite convenient, since it’s an all-day wear device. You put it on in the morning and then just go on about your day without removing them. It has eight hours of battery life. And it’s super convenient because you can do different things, like speak to people etc, and still be aware of your surroundings. Of course, it comes as an incremental product to traditional earbuds, which work for use cases where you require prolonged usage, for instance in an aeroplane.
91mobiles: It’s an interesting segment for sure and there aren’t too many options in the Indian market at the moment.
Akis: Yeah, it’s early. I think people need to be educated towards this category.
91mobiles: If we can point out the biggest USP of open-ear earphones, it would be comfort right? All-day comfort.
Akis: Yeah, it’s all about agility. Tune in and out at any moment, and know your surroundings. As for me, I love it because I like running. With the Ear (open), I can get into a proper running rhythm, and hear the sound of my steps too. When you put on ANC, you are cut off from the world. So I’ve been loving it, to be honest.
It’s one of those products that grow into you. The first year, I wasn’t super convinced, but then when you start using it, it’s actually so much better experience in specific use cases than having proper in-ear buds.
91mobiles: Let’s talk about the CMF Phone 1. It’s a strong device in its segment, offering everything from design to specs. How’s been the response from your perspective?
Akis: Yeah, I think with the Phone (2a), the idea was to first test and then start entering different product segments, leveraging unique product capabilities in terms of delivering unique user experience when it comes to hardware and software. In those price segments, we wanted to see if it offered enough to differentiate for people to see value, and also gain a competitive edge towards other products in the market. We saw that Phone (2a) was very successful towards that. It was our best-selling phone!
And then when we launched CMF Phone 1 with the same recipe, of course with other interpretations because it didn’t have the transparent design. But still, this kind of hardware design innovation, and Nothing OS with all kind of staggering features, seems to work. The OS you get on the CMF Phone 1 is the same as you get on a flagship device. So basically it was an already improved recipe and it did become our best-selling phone by selling over 100,000 units in just a few hours! This is like big volumes!
91mobiles: Big volumes, yes. It tries to do something different, and ticks the boxes in terms of being able to deliver on core experience like performance, cameras, battery, and value. The design and changeable covers are quite innovative.
Akis: We bring differentiation with design, but we are also thinking about design functionality We just don’t want to have design for appearance. We always think from a functional standpoint. Even the little details, and visual differentiation.
Then there’s the user interface. For the last four years, we’ve been developing products, building capabilities, refining improving the experience and making it unique to Nothing.
The final point is, of course, sustainability leadership, where we can start tracking the carbon footprint of the products. Even before launching the devices and then product after product, we’re just trying to minimise the carbon footprint. So, this is what’s really differentiating from a product standpoint.
After that, it is reassuring that in terms of the key purchase drivers: camera, performance and so on, we tick all the boxes. And then of course, it’s about us really carefully thinking about the product definition, and ensuring that it is well positioned from the value standpoint.
Simple yet very hard! (chuckles)
91mobiles: Any plans to venture into new categories? Tablet is something that comes to mind. A lot of brands have entered this segment. Any other new categories you might be considering?
Akis: I think there are some more obvious next steps, especially since we were able to scale this year and we have a lot more to do on that level.
Even though I think we did a fantastic job with our products this year, we’ll be trying even harder from an improvement standpoint next year. And at all levels: software, hardware. I’m quite excited to think that next year we will be able to drive innovation in a much more concrete way.
The idea is to not lose focus by spreading ourselves too thin across different categories. I think focus is key. Sure, I like everything we’ve built this year and we’ll continue on that path, bringing an extra level of improvements across the board but also a layer of innovation. And as part of that, we’re gonna start entering some more categories next year.
But again, we are being very careful and cautious on how we do this. So more to be expected from Nothing. but we are entering a few more categories next year!
91mobiles: Any updates on the service and support side of things?
Akis: Yeah, this I think is correlated to our growth.
When we started and launched our first product, of course, we didn’t have everything in place but ever since then, we’ve been continuously building improving things and expanding our footprint.
This year we’ve added five exclusive centres and 350+ service centres. And we are also adding priority desks at certain multi-brand service centres, so the customer doesn’t have to wait. They can just go in and get service. That’ll offer a better service experience.
This comes with growth. Now we are going even more aggressive on this. And next year, we are going to expand and grow hard as well. It (service) goes hand-in-hand with growth and expansion. Next year, we’re actually going to go offline.
Now I think we’ve created a lot of buzz online and people talk about our products, but they don’t have as many opportunities to go in actually test a product.
So next year, we’re aiming for close to 20,000 point of sales to allow people to go and experience our products by themselves. We’re quite bullish in terms of that kind of opportunity it (offline) brings us. At the moment it’s more about working towards convincing people to buy a product, and our offline expansion is going to be key.
91mobiles: A few interesting points came out in our recent survey. Nothing topped the user satisfaction ratings for software and also on overall user satisfaction, You guys are definitely doing something right. What do you think that is and more importantly, how do you plan to sustain this and make sure that these ratings doesn’t dip in the future?
Akis: To be honest, the answer is very simple. As you know, we are a founders-led company. We consider ourselves as users. So everything we do when it comes to the product, we almost make for ourselves. Us and the users. And I think a lot of brands have lost sight or lost touch from the end-user standpoint, whereas we work extremely close. We also have a super community. They’re involved in all our beta testing and so on.
Now for instance, they urged us to release a better version of Nothing OS. Our first Nothing OS 3.0-ready device was the Phone (2a). We really wanted to get that user feedback, bring it into our product development and ensure it’s implemented on the stable public version (of the OS).
So it comes down to always keeping a user lens, and also on how we can continuously improve things and bring new features that make sense for the user. It is something we’ve been doing since day 1. We haven’t been sticking to the status quo or specific ways on how things are being done.
We’re continuously rethinking things, whether it’s the hardware design or the software interface. I think at the end of the day, people will relate to the experience because it’s been thought out from purely a user standpoint.
91mobiles: Everyone’s talking about AI. What’s your approach? What do you forsee happening in this space, especially from Nothing’s perspective?
Akis: For next year, there is one capability that I’m excited about, and that’s thanks to our camera engineering team!
We have appointed a new leader and are aggressively building camera capability. So we will be aiming for significant improvements across the camera experience we can deliver.
Then when it comes to AI, I think we look at it from two different ways. One is facilitating and integrating existing AI tools to the software experience. And the second is a really fun user interface. It’s about thinking how AI can be leveraged to deliver value in a way that hasn’t been done before, and that requires a whole new approach to how we look at the interface of the smartphone.
So this will be going live through the Nothing Phone 3 next year, and that’s where we are looking to have quite a drastic approach to the user interface. It will be a lot more contextualised, personalised, and surface different elements within a specific context and very dynamic. I think it makes so much sense because there is just so much friction in the way we interact with a smartphone, like with different apps for instance.
Take my trip to India for example. I had to go online, fill my visa application, which was a struggle because it’s the same interface that’s been there for the past 30 years. And then get my ticket, check-in, download the ticket and so on. Then after I land, open the Uber app, get a taxi… there’s just so much friction for something that I’ve done a hundred times in my life. I shouldn’t have to spend a total of like two hours to get it done, right? AI will be able to do this without me having to think about it. We are in a society where we have so much mental burden in a way. So many things to think, so much stuff happening and our mental bandwidth goes into all these stuff. AI will be able to solve all this.
That’s the vision brands should have towards AI. It will redefine the whole thing and eradicate all friction points.
91mobiles: I think this also ties in nicely with the overall brand vision of Nothing. That technology should just blend into the background, and just do its thing.
Akis: Exactly. I have goosebumps and the team is equally excited about it. Now at least we have a clear path forward. So we have the team (AI lab) in London which is incredibly talentes, super passionate and highly energetic. Hopefully Phone 3 will be able to deliver a breakthrough experience.
