KHEL-O lets you book a station at a gaming café without calling anyone, standing in a queue or asking "is the PS5 free?" for the fifth time. This is the story of how it got built, and who is responsible.
Daksesh Kalewar, an IIT Bombay alumnus, had an idea: gaming cafés deserve a better way to be found and booked. Simple to say. Slightly bigger to build.
Daksesh brought the idea to Uzair, and Uzair said yes before fully understanding how many late nights that sentence contained.
Turns out Bindu had been wanting the same thing for just as long. So an idea, a builder and a future CEO walked into the same room, and KHEL-O stopped being a thought and started being a company.
Sathvik joined and quickly became the person who does a bit of everything: finding cafés, keeping owners happy, testing, and herding our bug testers. A whole social media team keeps our feeds alive, and friends tested every button, found bugs we swore did not exist, and still showed up the next day. We did not do this alone, and we would not want to.
Builds KHEL-O from the booking screen you tap to the infrastructure running quietly behind it. If something breaks, he's probably already looking at it. Please call him Uzair. Everyone who has known him longer than the company does.
Powered by chai and the dangerous thought: “How hard could it be?”LinkedIn ↗ (opens in a new tab)Always wanted a startup of her own, and now runs one. Keeps the whole company pointed in one direction while everyone else is arguing about button colours.
Doesn't have a profile picture yet. Mysterious, honestly.LinkedIn ↗ (opens in a new tab)Sathvik has put in a huge amount of work, and it shows everywhere in KHEL-O.
An IIT Bombay alumnus, and the person who had the idea in the first place. Without his "what if" there would be no KHEL-O, and a lot fewer queues.
Prefers not to be on camera, so we are respecting that.LinkedIn ↗ (opens in a new tab)Our social media team helps bring KHEL-O to life online. From editing and content ideas to managing multiple profiles, they've helped us reach people far beyond Hyderabad, including people who have reached out to us from other states.
Turns our random footage into videos people actually want to watch. Niyaz is the guy behind some of KHEL-O's coolest edits, making sure the good moments don't stay stuck in our camera roll.
Comes up with the ideas we sometimes question before filming, and somehow they usually work. Zeeshan keeps our content fresh, experimental, and occasionally a little weird.
Keeps multiple KHEL-O profiles moving while juggling everything from posting to planning. She has played a big part in helping us show up online consistently and get KHEL-O in front of more people.
Sai Charan helped us get KHEL-O moving in the early days, especially with cold calling and reaching out to cafés. He is less involved now while he focuses on his own work, but he played an important role in getting our early momentum started.
A huge shout-out to every single friend who trusted us and never gave up on us, and who encouraged us on the days we wanted to give up. I still remember each of you sharing our links with your friends, and helping us get contacts of café owners and important people.
And to everyone who took part in our content creation: I do not want anyone to feel left out. I will remember every one of you, and I am grateful to have friends like you. I know this is a little emotional, but you get the feeling.
Thank you, truly. ❤️
-uzzu
Find a café near youKHEL-O is a booking marketplace for gaming cafés in India. It is operated as a sole proprietorship by Mohammed Abdullah, headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The Platform is a software product, a Next.js web application backed by a Python/FastAPI service, built and operated in-house and not resold or white-labeled from another provider.
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