A customer sees a logo once or twice, during onboarding, and rarely again unless they go looking for it. The payment-success chime, the order-confirmed ping, the in-app notification sound - those play dozens of times across a single customer’s lifetime, and almost no Indian startup has deliberately chosen what any of them sound like.
Open most app stores and the same handful of sounds repeat across unrelated products: the default system tri-tone, a generic “cha-ching,” a UI library’s bundled click. None of it was chosen. It was inherited, because sound sits so far down the launch checklist that it ships on whatever the framework or the previous developer happened to leave behind.
Why this matters more than it looks like it should
Sound is processed faster than almost any other brand signal, and it carries emotional weight the visual identity can’t - it’s the difference between a payment that feels confirmed and one that feels like it might have failed silently. A badly chosen sound, or worse, one that changes between app updates without reason, quietly erodes the sense that a product is considered end to end. A deliberate one does the opposite: it becomes a small, repeated proof that someone thought about this.
What a deliberate choice actually requires
It does not require a jingle or a composer. It requires the same discipline already applied to a color palette: a short list of moments where sound plays - success, error, a notification, maybe one brand moment on app open - one considered tone for each that matches the brand’s actual personality rather than the loudest option in a free sound pack, and consistency across every surface, app and website and even the hold tone if there’s a call center. Most founders could make this decision in an afternoon once someone puts it on the agenda. The problem has never been difficulty. It’s that nobody put it on the agenda.
The pattern repeats
Every unowned brand decision in a company eventually gets made anyway - by a developer in a hurry, by a vendor’s default setting, by whichever stock asset loaded fastest. The only real choice founders have is whether they make the decision themselves or inherit someone else’s.