On the Day Nothing's Name Went on an RCB Jersey for the First Time, Its Co-Founder Told Us “There's No Plan B"

Bangalore on a March afternoon has a particular quality to it — the kind of weather the rest of India spends the summer resenting. At 4 PM on the day of the first IPL match of the season, the city was already moving differently. Red and gold everywhere. RCB flags on cars, jerseys on strangers, the particular electricity that only Bengaluru produces when its cricket team plays at home.

Akis Evangelidis, Co-founder and President of Nothing India, had a few hours before he needed to be somewhere. Nothing is the title sponsor of Royal Challengers Bangalore this season. His brand would be on the jersey tonight, in front of a stadium full of people watching the defending champions open their title defence.

It felt like an appropriate day for this conversation. RCB spent seventeen years being the most beloved team that never won, then broke through. Nothing, sitting at 2.5% market share in the world's most competitive smartphone market, has just launched what it believes is the product that changes its own story.

"There is no Plan B, my man," Akis told me, when I asked what happens if the Phone 4a series doesn't deliver. "There is only Plan A — scale, scale, scale."

Here's the part Akis didn't see coming

"The price jump was not small. There was a bit of uncertainty even from my side." Nothing was crossing from the sub-₹30,000 world into territory where, as he put it, "every single brand within the sub-30 segment entering the plus-30 segment struggles big time. All the launches failed. We are the only ones that launched a product in this segment and it performed."

The data from Flipkart was unambiguous. Best first-day sales in the above-₹30,000 category across both Flipkart and Amazon — not just Nothing's best day, the category's best day, across all brands, ever. The Pro specifically caught him off guard. "I didn't think that it would sell better than the Phone 3A series life cycle. The Pro has even more interest than the base variant. I'm quite honestly surprised."

Then there's the Bangalore store. Akis's own aggressive internal projection had it breaking even in three years and profitable in five. "It's likely that the store might be profitable even this year." A bet that looked ambitious on a spreadsheet, validated in real time.

"I guess still foolish," he said, laughing. "But a bit more calculated, more strategic."

That phrase is probably the most honest summary of how Nothing operates. He owns the 'foolish to begin with' motto but contextualises it. "With being foolish, there is a bit of courage that comes into play. If you are too risk-averse or overanalyze things, eventually there is a paralysis. And then you don't end up doing anything."

The calculated version of foolish is increasingly data-backed. Nothing sends Net Promoter Score surveys to buyers after purchase. The number one reason people cite for buying a Nothing phone is software. Value for money comes fifth or sixth. "This is very important," Akis said, "because it means they're buying into your product experience. They're not buying because it was cheap. And if people buy you because of value for money, it's only a matter of time before someone comes with something cheaper."

This connects to why he moved from London to Dubai, closer to India, over a year ago. What no market research prepared him for, he says, is the jugaad mentality. "People always find their way around, no matter what. There's nothing on paper per se. But people always find ways to figure things out." He says it admiringly — but acknowledges it changed how Nothing thinks about go-to-market strategy entirely.

The consumption story he's watching unfold here is generational. "For the longest period of time, brands have entered this market thinking the Indian consumer only buys the best value for money. But the sort of consumption behaviour has evolved as India is undergoing exponential growth — huge young population, premiumisation kicking in, people have more disposable income." The first-phone-was-a-Redmi generation is now earning and spending differently. "They're aspiring to buying into brands that stand for something that express their personality." Nothing, he believes, is positioned to catch that wave. "We want to create a generational brand. We want to be that kind of brand for the new youth that will be propelling India for the next 10, 20 years."

The piece of the Nothing India story that deserves more attention than it gets is after-sales — the graveyard of ambitious market share targets in this country. Akis doesn't dodge it. "We did the mistake once, not anticipating long enough." Customer satisfaction, measured through post-service surveys sent to real users, went from around 60% three years ago to 95% today. Service centers are at 430, heading to 600 by end of year. "If you don't have the right service level, you can kill your brand. No matter how hard you've worked to acquire a user."

What keeps him up at night is simpler than any of this. "There is never a time where you can just settle. If we settle, things will get quite challenging within a year or two. In this industry, if you stop growing, you're going to die." And underneath the operational pressures, something more personal — the bold public statements he and Carl Pei have made over the years, and the awareness that contradiction is always a risk. "I've done it multiple times. But it's okay. You live, you learn. People need to relate to you as a human. And humans always make mistakes. It's okay as long as your ethos and what you stand for don't change."

He needed to leave. The city was waiting.

Nothing's name would be on the RCB jersey tonight — a team that spent seventeen years being told the gap between promise and trophy was unbridgeable, then bridged it anyway. Akis seemed entirely unbothered about drawing the parallel.

"I feel we've built something very unique. Still day one. And only plan A — keep on growing."