13 Years at Amazon, Two Layoffs, and a T-Shirt That Survives 50 Washes: The NUITO Story

Two layoffs in four months will make anyone question whether they're in the right career. For Vivek Sivaraman, it did more than that. It ended a 13 year run at Amazon and pushed him toward an industry he knew almost nothing about.

Vivek is the co-founder of NUITO, a fashion brand built around a simple bet: most of India has never worn the fabrics that are common everywhere else. Before NUITO, he spent five years at TCS and then over a decade climbing through operations, QA, and engineering leadership at Amazon, a place he says he never dreaded showing up to in 14 years. He never wrote a line of code in his career, but he understood tech well enough to lead people who did.

Then came 2024. Two organizations, two layoffs, five months apart. Instead of chasing another tech role in a market where AI was rewriting what skills mattered, Vivek and his co-founder decided to build something physical, something AI couldn't easily replace. They picked fashion, a category neither of them understood, because for 15 years Vivek's work uniform had been shorts and a T-shirt.

What makes this conversation worth reading isn't just the pivot story. It's how deliberately Vivek talks about sourcing fabric from a fragmented Indian supply chain, testing a T-shirt to survive 50 washes in a lab, and rebuilding his own writing voice after a career spent avoiding adjectives.

Key Takeaways: From Amazon Lifer to Fabric Founder

The Layoff That Changed the Plan:

• Vivek spent 13 years at Amazon across operations, QA, and engineering leadership, after five years at TCS
• Two back-to-back layoffs across two organizations within four or five months in 2024 forced a rethink
• He and his co-founder deliberately chose something physical and hard to automate, and deliberately chose something they were bad at

Sourcing Reality for Small Fashion Brands in India:

• China, Japan, and parts of Vietnam have mature manufacturing ecosystems built for small volumes
• India's manufacturing ecosystem is mature but fragmented, with no wholesale equivalent to Alibaba yet
• NUITO leans on the global ecosystem for R&D because testing small batches abroad is cheaper than committing to large volumes in India without proof the fabric works

Proving Quality With Numbers, Not Claims:

• NUITO uses long-staple Supima cotton blended with bamboo charcoal for anti-odor properties
• The brand backs a 50-wash warranty, verified through lab testing where the tested shirt was visually indistinguishable from a new one
• The business crossed 10 lakhs in overall revenue after launching around last Diwali with an initial batch of just 40 T-shirts

Q: For someone hearing about your company for the first time, tell us who you are. What is the brand about?

Vivek Sivaraman: I am Vivek, one of the co-founders of NUITO. Our brand is called NUITO, which translates into "new threads." Essentially, what we are trying to build is bringing innovative new fabrics to India that either do not exist yet or are rarely available. Our idea is to introduce such blends that translate into bringing really good quality clothes to people in India.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Most fashion brands compete on design. NUITO is competing on chemistry, and that's a much harder story to fake.

Q: You were in the corporate game for a long time, 13 years at Amazon, and then a small stop at Freshworks before starting NUITO. What was it like being in corporate for more than a decade, and what made you take the switch?

Vivek Sivaraman: I started my career in TCS back in 2006. I was there for around five years, and then I moved to Amazon in 2011. Amazon is probably what defined my career as a whole. I played several roles: operations, QA, and then engineering leader. Every few years, I jumped across things. Whenever I felt very comfortable, I noticed two things: my performance dropped because I felt too comfortable, and I didn't feel challenged. That is why I kept jumping into streams where I struggled. While I have been in tech, I have never coded in my life; I understand tech really well, but I am not someone who has actively coded.

However, in 2024, I was part of two back-to-back layoffs across two different organizations within a span of four or five months. That got me thinking if I was in the right place. As AI was coming into play, I realized jobs were becoming limited and the skill set required was very different from what I was good at. I was talking to my co-founder, and we decided to do something physical, something real where AI could not easily replace us. We were also clear that we should do something we really sucked at: we didn't know how to dress. My work attire for 15 years was shorts and a T-shirt. So, we decided to pivot from that to something dramatically different, which eventually evolved into NUITO.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Comfort quietly kills performance before it kills motivation. Vivek noticed the dip before most people would even admit it was happening.

Q: How did you handle the mental toll of two layoffs and then starting something new?

Vivek Sivaraman: Amazon was tough. It was a place I loved working; I never woke up dreading going to the office in 14 years. It took a long time to accept the layoff. Freshworks didn't matter as much because I had no attachment to it after only three or four months. But the first one was hard. I hadn't attended an interview in a long time. Over the last year and a half, I've realized that the ability to build something has dramatically gone down. You don't need to know how to code to build a product; it is possible to build something that can run your family. While building is easier now, distribution is still the key. My advice to anyone in a similar situation is to just try and build something and put it out there rather than sulking.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Building has never been cheaper. Getting anyone to notice what you built is still the whole game.

Q: Regarding your supply chain, how did you find your suppliers?

Vivek Sivaraman: The ecosystem abroad, China, Japan, and some parts of Vietnam, is very mature in terms of manufacturing for small volumes. India has a very mature ecosystem too, but it is very fragmented. There is no "Alibaba" equivalent for wholesale in India yet. So, we leveraged the more mature global ecosystem for our R&D, as it is much cheaper to test small batches there than to commit to large quantities in India without knowing if the fabric works.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: India's manufacturing depth is real. Its discovery layer isn't, and that gap is costing small brands more than tariffs ever will.

Q: You offer a 50-wash warranty. How are you so sure about that claim?

Vivek Sivaraman: Most fast-fashion T-shirts use short-staple cotton. We use long-staple cotton, like Supima, which is stronger because there are fewer joints in the yarn. We blended Supima with bamboo charcoal to provide an anti-odor property. We ran lab tests and pushed it to 50 washes; the lab actually had to mark the tested shirt because they couldn't distinguish it from a new one visually. My trainer has also personally used a shirt for over 60 washes, and while there is a slight color fade, the structure remains perfectly fine.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: A warranty is a marketing line until someone shows you the lab report. Vivek shows you the lab report.

Q: How have the numbers been for the business so far?

Vivek Sivaraman: We officially started selling around last Diwali. We did a small initial batch of 40 T-shirts to get feedback, and everyone loved them. Recently, we crossed an overall revenue of 10 lakhs. We aren't obsessing over sales numbers yet because this is a commoditized business. Our objective for the first year or so is to understand the entire space, from sourcing to branding. We want to be recollected as a brand that sells premium fabrics.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Starting with 40 units isn't a lack of ambition. It's how you learn fast without betting the company on a fabric you haven't stress-tested with real customers.

Q: What is one thing you have had to unlearn?

Vivek Sivaraman: I would say two things. One is my writing style; I was used to long, objective, data-oriented writing at Amazon where we didn't use adjectives. Here, I have to do creative writing. The other is being in front of a camera. I have been an engineer all my life and never expected to be on social media, but that is the founder's reality now.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Amazon trained him to strip adjectives out of every sentence. Founder life demands he puts them back in, on camera, in front of an audience.

Q: If someone puts on a NUITO piece for the first time, what do you want them to feel?

Vivek Sivaraman: I want them to feel like they don't want to remove it. This polo is the first one I have ever felt comfortable sleeping in. If someone feels happy wearing our product every day without feeling the urge to take it off the moment they get home, then I have done my job.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The real product test isn't a lab report. It's whether someone falls asleep in it by accident.

Final Thoughts: Betting on the Thing You're Worst At

Vivek's honest take on starting over: "We decided we should do something we really sucked at: we didn't know how to dress."

The bottom line: Vivek's story runs against the usual founder playbook. He didn't leave Amazon chasing a passion he'd nursed for years. He left after two layoffs forced the question, and he picked fashion precisely because he had no edge in it. That's an unusual way to choose a market, but it forced NUITO to compete on something harder to fake than taste: fabric science, lab-verified durability, and a sourcing strategy that treats India's fragmented supply chain as a problem to engineer around rather than complain about.

For founders sitting on the fence after a layoff, his advice is blunt. Building has gotten radically easier. You don't need to code to ship a product that can support a family. What hasn't gotten easier is getting anyone to notice, which is why NUITO is still treating its first year as a listening exercise rather than a growth sprint, even after crossing 10 lakhs in revenue off a 40-piece launch batch.

NUITO is still early. Ten lakhs in revenue and a handful of months since launch is a start, not a scale story yet. But the discipline behind the 50-wash claim, tested in a lab until the shirt looked new, suggests a founder more interested in being right about the product than being loud about it. In a fast-fashion market built on cheap and disposable, that's a bet worth watching.

Q: How can people connect with you and learn more about NUITO?

Vivek Sivaraman: [Guest's response about where to find NUITO and connect with Vivek - LinkedIn, Instagram, company website, etc. Placeholder pending guest details.]

Final words: Vivek didn't wait to feel ready before building NUITO. He picked the category he understood least, backed his claims with lab tests instead of marketing copy, and started small enough to learn fast. If two layoffs taught him anything, it's that the ability to build was never the bottleneck. Showing up and putting something real into the world was.

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