When was the last time you had a fortuitous meeting with an unacquainted person sharing similar interests? Perhaps at a friend’s party or a wedding. But what if it was something you could do on a more regular basis?
With social networking sites killing our people skills, the idea of meeting random people and having random conversations on common interests makes us very uncomfortable.
However, trying to change that around are two engineering graduates who realised that a lot could indeed happen over a cup of coffee.
Akhilesh Kumar and Prashant Angyan’s LetsDine.co is the perfect talking point. Launched this April, the website lists meetup events that folks can look up and be a part of. With each event underlined by a focus point -- be it food, travel, shopping -- you are sure to find some good company.
Talking about the initiative, Prashant says, “We were college mates and shared a common interest over food. We used to travel everywhere to find good food. What we missed was sharing this interest with other people and discovering more. That’s when we decided to start an initiative of our own.”
Post-college, the two boys went their separate ways and careers, but a decade later the calling to set up something of their own brought them back together.
“We always wanted to start a company together and wanted to create a platform where people with common interests could meet over lunch or some other activity. We want people to socialise, network and would like them to have productive conversations,” shares Prashant.
LetsDine events are conducted across the city in a host of eateries, cafe’s and restaurants. A special menu is usually requested at the venue, comprising some times of a two course meal, or even a six course meal. The almost two-month old initiative has already conducted 35 events.
Says co-founder Akhilesh, “We share a great love for food and the general idea of socialising. That is what we’re trying to encourage. For the month of June, we have already decided to conduct 40 events and are planning to take this to five other cities, including Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.”
Given the open nature of the forum, there’s space for anyone and everyone. But as that remains to be the LetsDine’s strength, in due course could also turn against them. Agreeing, the 32 year-old electrical engineer adds, “We put up details about the events on our website where people can register. From the registrations we accept only 15 people, for we believe the more crowded the meet up gets, the more formal the conversations becomes.”
Shifting from a lucrative steady job to hosting meet ups perhaps isn’t everybody’s dream job, but for these engineers, they couldn’t be happier. Says Prashant, “We chose something that is different as we found that these kind of organisations are rare in the Indian market and the work is challenging and different unlike the work we used to do. We both have worked in corporate companies for nearly 10 years and wanted to do something different, something that interests us. LetsDine is a combination of that.” The company also offers to arrange catering for any event.
Their list of upcoming events include one on women empowerment by Yudhajit Baul, a national level Martial Arts Specialist. This event, scheduled for June 1, will be a demo session where Yudhajit will talk about empowering women by teaching them self defence. A vegan’s dine out is also in the pipeline.
The entry for the event depends upon the venue that is decided. Usually, entry fees range from Rs 130 to Rs 1000.
Details: letsdine.co