Shark Tank India pitchers say they were ‘harshly treated’, recall facing 'pressure’: ‘It was a lot of drama’| Exclusive
Piyush Suri and Neetica Pande, founders of Nooe, shared their Shark Tank journey, revealing the intense negotiations and scrutiny they faced.
Entrepreneurs Piyush Suri and Neetica Pande, the creative minds behind the luxury brand Nooe, a premium lifestyle accessories brand, recently shared their transformative experience on Shark Tank India Season 4. Despite facing intense scrutiny and tough feedback from the sharks, the duo walked away with a deal that Piyush described as "life-changing." (Also Read | ‘Flying Beast’ Gaurav Taneja gets rejected on Shark Tank India, called ‘terrible entrepreneur’ by Anupam Mittal)

Building Nooe: an amalgamation of their personalities
When asked why they chose to build Nooe, Piyush explained, “I really believe one should first build as a consumer. Having spent 15 years in design and product development and Neetica’s vast experience in building exceptional products, it felt natural to combine our skills and interests into a brand. We wanted to create a design-centered premium luxury brand.”
They said that the idea for Nooe emerged during the pandemic when there was a surge in demand for high-quality desk accessories. However, the founders were clear from the start—they didn’t want to limit themselves to being just a desk brand. “I am a productivity freak and a growth freak. So we wanted to build things around that. We have built this amalgamation of both our personalities,” Piyush said.
Highlighting the gap in India’s luxury market, Neetica added, “I used to be in Copenhagen, Piyush used to be in New York, and the kind of lifestyle that people lead there are those kind of people who look out for high-value goods and something that lasts a lifetime. They believe in sustainability, minimalism and that’s where we decided that India has a huge demand for such things but there’s nothing really available in the market. So we tried to build that gap with Nooe.”
Piyush Suri and Neetica Pande further added that they were satisfied by the outcome of the episode and added, "the experience as founders and the immense publicity from the episode have been invaluable. With a few million impressions, Nooe is now synonymous with global design and luxury, with us as its proud faces. The attention has been overwhelmingly positive, and we couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome."
Addressing criticism: India and the luxury market
During their pitch, Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal remarked that “India is not ready” for Nooe. Piyush disagreed strongly. “The thing that I don’t understand is that all of them sitting on that chair, they are wearing luxury, buying luxury and spending on things. The luxury market in India has been growing phenomenally in the last three years. The income group benefiting the most from this growth is affluent Indians, who are our target audience. Around 15% of our customers include Bollywood stars and industrialists who were aware of our brand even before Shark Tank. There’s massive demand because no one else is creating in this category.”
Neetica also drew parallels between Nooe and the journeys of the sharks themselves. "All of the Sharks who were sitting there, they were also very early on and people weren’t ready for it, but they did create that need in the audience. They also built that category, be it boat or Lenskart or Shaadi.com. We are category builders, there is no one doing this before us and so somebody has to do it. Because this is the need of the hour. I think it was said in terms of where we are currently but we’ll soon prove them wrong," she said
Piyush says they were treated harshly
Piyush said, "I think we are an outlier brand, nobody expects this from India in terms of luxury. The kind of category we are doing, people are surprised with the kind of quality and the price points. People are absolutely surprised and I think we got some sharks in a surprise. They were like how it is even possible that a brand can go and sell their products in Harrods, London. There was a little bit of a disbelief but at the same time, when an outlier comes to the tank, it’s very easy to judge brands that are making for India. It’s very hard to judge what we do because we are unique. We are an outlier brand and I don’t know if 2 hours is a good enough time for sharks to also judge that. They have a limited understanding of different industries and they also have a different understanding of someone else’s brand. We got a little bit of harshly treated because of that. Had they given us more time, we could have spoken to them and given them better understanding."
Decision to Partner with Peyush Bansal
Despite receiving a compelling offer from boAt co-founder Aman Gupta, the founders ultimately struck a deal with Peyush Bansal of Lenskart. This decision came after a dramatic back-and-forth negotiation.
Talking about their decision, Piyush said, "Giving a controlling stake is not what you think about when you are going to Shark Tank. That sort of an offer is not something anyone can prepare you for and two hours being there, selling a company’s majority stake is a very difficult decision. To really say yes to it was a lot of pressure. There was 90 seconds of conversation that Neetica and I had. We didn’t even had the time to think and ponder over it. You don’t make decisions so big in that short period of time. From a vision point of view, Peyush’s vision of building global brands was a lot more appealing and for us getting the right partner on board was very important. We are relationship driven people, we are partnership driven people. We want to work with right partners. So there was a bias for Peyush."
Piyush added, "Things happened really fast in terms of going back and forth on negotiations. As Neetica said, we were there for 2.5 hours and everyone was pouncing on us and giving us offer left and right. Both Aman and Peyush were fighting, it was a lot of drama to handle for two founders who were there on TV for the first time.
Neetica further called the process daunting and said, "It’s reality, right? This is the thing we do on daily basis. It’s not like some reality show where we are asked to participate and things are scripted. This is our reputation at stake as well and our day-to-day story as well. So it can’t be like a drama. It was very daunting when they were coming at us for so many things. It does become like a crazy situation there when you just have 90 seconds to make a decision."

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