Mannan Amroliwala is among the tens of thousands of migrants who reach Bengaluru to realise their startup dreams. He moved to the city two years ago. For about a year, Mannan worked in a crypto company. Then, he quit it to work on his idea for an app for socialising. He noticed people around him constantly asking, ‘Hey, what to do in the city? I want to do something interesting other than just eating out or drinking.’ Though many events happened in the city, people did not know about them. That prompted Mannan to create an app that let people socialise better.
“The fundamental idea is to foster connections through real-life meetups rather than solely virtual interactions,” he says about the app he is working on.
The app, however, was a long-term solution to this problem. So, Mannan thought of a temporary fix. He made a Whatsapp group, wherein he made daily announcements of the offbeat events within Bengaluru. “It allowed me to test the waters for my app and see what works and what doesn’t. It was relatively simple too. Though the curation process demanded time and effort, I didn’t have to build an app or a website. It was just a WhatsApp group,” he says.
He called it Putting Scene (“Because that’s the local lingo for planning meetups”). Mannan created the group, tweeted its link, and left to a Karaoke bar with his friends. Before he could reach the bar, a friend called him to inform the group was already at maximum capacity. “Back then, WhatsApp had a limit of 512 members. So, I told my friend, ‘No way’. But she insisted that I check the group. And it was full!” he recalls. So, while his friends were having fun, Mannan sat in a corner, managing his new Whatsapp group.
Putting Scene, he thought, would be a group of no more than 100 people. Right now, it has about 19,000 members. Mannan, almost every day, posts events happening in the city. The curation of the events consumes two to four hours every day. “I manually scour through 20-plus websites and over 100 Instagram pages. I choose the events and experiences that resonate with me, places I would love to explore or have visited. And list them on the group,” he explains.
Mannan has made friends and acquaintances through the group. “People have started recognising me, probably through my Whatsapp DP. The other day someone new to Bangalore walked up to me to say he made new friends through the group. Someone else told me his parents, who are in their 60s, use the group. And the group is also branching off into smaller communities— like there is one for food, books, etc. I never thought it would take off so big!”
Mannan himself is relatively new to Bengaluru. What does he like about the city?
“My initial motivation for coming to Bangalore was that it was the tech and startup hub. However, upon my arrival, I quickly discovered that the city offered so much more,” he says.
“People develop an attachment to a city not just because of its physical attributes, but because they find a sense of belonging within a network of like-minded individuals. For me, Bangalore gradually became more than just a tech hub; it transformed into a place of belonging.”
To join Putting Scene, click here
