You open an app to see what your friends are doing. The screen fills with stories, short videos, and glimpses of daily life. There’s colour, humour, and creativity in every swipe. It’s familiar and easy, part of the way we move through our days now. And yet, sometimes, after scrolling for a while, a quiet thought appears, how are my friends actually doing?
It’s a simple question, but it lingers. Over the years, the internet has become the place where most of our lives meet, where we share ideas, build work, find communities, and stay connected across time zones. It has given us scale, reach, and access that once felt impossible. Each new tool adds its own form of connection: messages, stories, short clips, and spaces that bring people together in different ways.
Lately, a new pattern has started to emerge. More people are looking for smaller, calmer ways to stay in touch. Group chats, close-friend lists, private updates, little pockets of connection that feel easier, lighter, and closer to real life. The meaning of being “social” is expanding again, slowly taking a shape that feels more personal and present.
One of our founder friends, Mitesh Shethwala, is building something along these lines. His product, Currently, describes itself as “a place to know what your friends are doing.” It isn’t designed for reach or performance. It’s built around awareness, the quiet comfort of being part of each other’s everyday moments, without needing to say too much. It’s the kind of idea that feels small at first, but it touches something most of us understand immediately.
Across the world, similar ideas are emerging. Some builders are creating tools for closer communities. Others are designing products that make it easier to stay in touch in small ways. Together, they form a quiet but clear pattern, a new wave of social products that see technology not as a stage, but as a space to stay present in each other’s lives.
People are slowly finding new ways to stay in touch. A short message instead of a long post. A photo shared with a few friends. A small update that says, I’m here. These moments feel light, but they hold what social networks were always built for, a sense of closeness that fits into everyday life.
The next wave of products seems to be moving in that direction, simple spaces that help people stay connected without trying too hard. Apps that blend into our days instead of asking for them. Tools that make it easy to reach out, not perform.
Maybe this is what social networks were meant to do all along, to help us notice each other, to make distance feel a little smaller, and to remind us that connection was never about being seen by many, but being remembered by a few.
I still remember the first message Manoj sent me on LinkedIn back in 2021. It was short, warm, and thoughtful. He had recently moved back from Singapore after several years at Barclays and was looking to connect with the startup community in Surat. He mentioned that he hadn’t come across many events and said he’d be happy to help if something was being planned.
At that time, eChai Surat had slowed down. The community had many founders who cared, but it needed someone to bring people together again. Manoj joined those efforts with patience and intent. He started reaching out to founders, helping host meetups, and creating spaces where people could share what they were building. Gradually, the gatherings found new life.
Founders who attended once began returning. New faces joined in. Conversations that began casually turned into collaborations. Manoj became a familiar presence in Surat’s founder circle, someone who helped keep the community connected through consistent effort. The people he met during those sessions often stayed in touch, and many of those connections grew into lasting friendships and collaborations.
As his involvement grew, so did his reach. Manoj went on to host eChai meetups in Singapore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Bengaluru, and met founders during his visit to Vienna. Wherever he went, he carried the same spirit of community, listening, connecting, and helping founders share their stories.
During this period, Manoj was also shaping his professional path. After nearly a decade in technology and risk roles at Barclays Singapore, he started Bizsomia to explore the startup world more closely. Building on that experience, he joined hands with Vipul Jain to lead Growth at WebOsmotic, where he continues to work with teams on digital products and partnerships.
In parallel, Manoj co-founded Narad.io, an AI-driven platform that helps companies respond to information-security and compliance assessments quickly and accurately. The venture brings together his background in risk management and his understanding of how businesses navigate operational challenges.
Alongside his work, Manoj launched Vaani with Adwani, a podcast that captures stories of founders from emerging startup hubs. Many of the people he met through eChai became guests on the show. The stories he once heard in Surat’s meetups now reach a wider audience.He also began producing content on Instagram about startup life, about growth, about what happens when you choose to stay. That creator side showed a different layer: that he wasn’t just helping others build; he was helping others see what building really looked like.
Beyond eChai, Manoj continues to stay deeply involved in other founder communities, supporting local Surat initiatives and actively contributing to groups like GrowthX and SaaSBoomi that help founders learn, share, and grow together.
Some people grow because of communities. Some grow outside them. A few grow with them. Manoj is one of those people. He shows up, listens, connects, and helps things continue. And maybe that’s the quiet truth about building something that lasts, when you keep showing up, things start showing up for you.
A Nike campaign premieres on YouTube, clocking millions of views within hours. A Swiggy ad slips into an IPL stream. A Coca-Cola jingle hums under a Spotify playlist. Somewhere in between, an Airtel 5G spot flashes across television, four seconds of red before the next clip begins. Each of these moments feels transient, but every one leaves a mark. Machines, not people, record that they happened.
This invisible layer runs beneath everything we see and hear. It listens, watches, and timestamps reality. A hidden signature, inaudible in audio, imperceptible in video, tags every broadcast and stream. These signatures aren’t about creativity or persuasion; they’re about existence. They turn the fluid world of media into something measurable.
For much of modern advertising’s history, visibility depended on trust. Networks shared logs, agencies made projections, brands relied on reports. That model has been replaced by systems that verify each signal directly. Every ad, campaign, or mention carries an identifier that proves where and when it appeared. The business of influence now depends on the ability to trace proof of presence.
A small group of companies builds and maintains this infrastructure. They don’t create content or shape narratives; they measure the flow of attention itself. Kinetiq is one of them. It monitors television, digital, and streaming content from more than 30,000 channels in over 120 countries. Its systems translate those signals into structured data, when something aired, how often, on what platform, and beside which other stories. It is one of the unseen networks that holds the global media economy together.
In October 2025, Kinetiq announced it was acquiring Veil Global Technologies, a company specializing in audio watermarking, a technology that embeds microscopic identifiers into sound. The merger connects Kinetiq’s video-monitoring framework with Veil’s sound-tracking network, forming a continuous verification system across both mediums. A jingle on a local radio station and a logo in a video ad now enter the same data stream, mapped with precision across geographies.
The integration expands the field of what can be known. Every broadcast, commercial, or political message becomes part of a global record. The data doesn’t describe emotion or context; it simply confirms that the signal existed. In an environment where visibility drives value, the infrastructure that captures exposure quietly determines what counts as real.
As these networks merge, they begin to shape more than they measure. The creative process adapts to what can be tracked. Campaigns are optimized for clarity and duration, for formats that leave clean traces in the data. Over time, the measurable becomes synonymous with the meaningful. What cannot be captured risks sliding out of view.
Kinetiq’s expansion reflects a broader consolidation across the industry. Media intelligence is moving toward a single, continuous map, one that follows sound and image across every possible surface. The system doesn’t evaluate content; it observes the fact of its transmission. The result is a permanent record of the world’s media traffic, a ledger of everything that reached a screen or speaker.
In this ecosystem, verification becomes a quiet form of authorship. The infrastructure doesn’t create stories, but it decides which stories are documented. It turns exposure into evidence, and evidence into history. The act of being seen is inseparable from the systems that record seeing.
The next time a familiar ad plays before a video, or a brand sound rises between songs, another audience is listening too. It doesn’t react or respond. It listens to record. It listens to ensure that the moment leaves a trace.
The story of modern media isn’t only about what captures our attention, it’s about what captures that attention itself.
For years, India’s SaaS story was written for global markets. The pricing models, product choices, and growth playbooks came from what worked overseas. It made sense because global buyers were ready, payments were easier, and validation came faster. But a quiet shift is now visible across Indian cities. More founders are building SaaS products for Indian businesses not because it is simpler, but because it finally feels worth building for.
Selling software locally is not new. Every city has long had IT firms that made custom tools for nearby clients. What is new is how these founders are approaching it as product builders, not project vendors. They are turning local understanding into scalable SaaS. That shift demands a different kind of thinking. It is not about cheaper software; it is about smarter empathy. Products have to be simple enough for self-serve adoption yet flexible enough to match the sensibilities of Indian small businesses work that is fast, informal, and deeply relational.
In Surat, that change feels organic. The city’s IT base, built over years of contract work, is now giving rise to founders who understand both code and commerce. Denish Patel and Jay Patel, co-founders of AdKrity, represent this evolution. Early in their journey, they realized something many overlook: Indian businesses do not want tools to run ads, they want customers. They do not ask for more features or time-saving options; they want visible results. That insight guided AdKrity from the start. After years in ad-tech with JustDial, Directi, and Media.net, Denish returned to build software that helps small and medium businesses run digital ads without jargon or agencies. The product’s goal is not to automate marketing; it is to deliver customers.
At the eChai × Video SDK Diwali Gathering in Surat, Denish spoke about how much of AdKrity’s journey grew through proximity and community. Parthiv Patel of Petpooja connected him with Meta, which became an early partner. Naman Sarawagi from Refrens introduced him to Gagan Goyal of India Quotient, who, through their First Cheque fund, led AdKrity’s first round. When AdKrity was just starting out, Denish rented his first office from Manoj Advani, founder of Narad.io and lead for eChai Surat. Progress often begins with conversations between founders in informal settings.
As The Rough Guide to Building an Enterprise SaaS Dhandha in India by Blume Ventures observes, the Indian SaaS landscape runs on proximity and persistence. Deals are closed through conversations, not campaigns, and early traction often depends more on credibility than marketing. That is visible in AdKrity’s journey too. It grew through referrals, partnerships, and trust, the same instincts that have long defined Indian business, now expressed through software.
There is also a perception that Indian businesses do not pay for tools or software. Denish believes otherwise. If you deliver value and help them gain customers, they are willing to pay, as proven by platforms like Justdial, IndiaMART, and TradeIndia. What matters is not whether Indian businesses will pay, but whether the product directly helps them earn. As Blume’s essay notes, applying Western SaaS models blindly does not work in India; the market rewards relevance over process.
Across cities like Surat, Pune, Indore, Ahmedabad, and Jaipur, this quiet localization of intelligence continues to grow. Some see it as a shift inward, others as a sign of maturity. Either way, the pattern is clear. The most thoughtful builders are staying close to what they know best. Sometimes, that closeness turns out to be the smartest form of scale.
Every emerging startup ecosystem has a few companies that quietly hold it together. They begin early, grow patiently, and create the talent base from which everything else emerges. In Surat, one of those rare companies is Narola InfoTech.
Long before Surat’s founders started using words like “startup” or “ecosystem,” Narola had already built one of the city’s first large-scale IT operations. It was one of the very few companies that showed what it meant to build seriously from Surat. For many people, Narola was where someone in the family worked, a cousin, a college friend, a neighbour, or a colleague. The company became a quiet common thread across the city’s tech generation, a place where ambition met its first opportunity.
At the eChai × Video SDK Diwali gathering, that connection came alive again. Every few conversations found their way back to Narola. Someone mentioned their co-founder had worked there. Someone else said their brother still does. A few people smiled at old memories of applying for their first job interview there. In Surat, everyone seems to have a Narola story.
What stands out about Ashish Narola and his team is the way they continue to show up for the community. When they host eChai meetups, community gatherings, or founder sessions at the Narola campus, the atmosphere always feels open and generous. Many companies today approach community engagement as part of their growth strategy, which has its own merit. Narola approaches it as a natural extension of how they have always built. It feels more like paying it forward than marketing.
With Narola AI Studio, the company has built a dedicated vertical for developing and deploying AI solutions. The studio works on automation, analytics, and intelligent systems for e-commerce and enterprise clients. It brings together Narola’s software expertise with applied AI to help businesses operate faster, make better use of data, and deliver smarter customer experiences.
Every city that wants to build a meaningful startup culture needs companies like Narola, the ones that start early, stay consistent, give more than they take, and grow alongside their people. Surat is fortunate to have a few of them, and Narola has been one of the most enduring.
"I have evolved from role of Community Builder to Startup Consultant to Startup Ecosystem Enabler to Angel Investor and now launching a Venture Studio and eChai has been a catalyst in my overall journey as Startup Evangelist since 13 years."
Mehul Shah
Co-Founder at Counselvise & Ivy Growth
“When we launched LegalWiz.in back in 2016, concept of procuring legal and compliance services through a digital commerce platform wasn't as prominent in India. eChai played a significant role in providing the early adopters, and building significant positioning in the startup fraternity. Overtime, eChai grew to be a massive network of like-minded entrepreneurs and extended that benefit to all the members in a true "co-rise" spirit. I personally love to attend eChai events, learn from subject matter experts who share relatable and actionable insights and experiences. For startup journeys, it is so important to be surrounded by people who can add relevance, perspective, and push you to do better. Most importantly a group of people where you aren't being judged about things going right or wrong, but be a motivational force that keeps you going, yet keeping you in check. eChai is that place for me!”
Shrijay Sheth
Founder at LegalWiz.in and Hire4Higher Consulting
“eChai has been that turning point in my journey. It gave me a platform when I wasn’t looking for visibility but needed direction. Over the years, it became more than just a network. It became my tribe; a place where conversations sparked collaborations, and strangers became trusted sounding boards. What I value most is how effortlessly eChai brings people together - no airs, no filters, just genuine people with shared dreams. I owe a lot to this community and to Jatin, whose consistency and belief in people have shaped journeys like mine. Forever grateful to be part of something so real.”
Rushabh Shah
Managing Partner - STIR Advisors
eChai Partner Brands
eChai Ventures partners with select brands as their growth partner - working together to explore new ideas, open doors, and build momentum across the startup ecosystem.
