This Guy Is Trying To Fight Online Loneliness & Get Young People To Spend Quality Time Offline

India will soon have the world's largest population in a few years. In fact, it's estimated that 2020 will mark India's rise as the youngest country in the world with an average age of 29.

Young and hungry for opportunities, India's youth is leading the wave of the great urban migration in the quest for better jobs and a promising life. And this is the cause of a rising problem, which Suyash Sinha's startup MyScoot is hoping to address.

Suyash Sinha - MyScoot

"Loneliness is on the rise with millennials on the move, following work opportunities across cities and countries," Suyash says. "It can be hard to make meaningful connections in a city where one has no previous network."

It's true. I faced this issue myself when I left behind friends and family in Mumbai for my first job in Bengaluru in January 2008. Eventually, I think I made some of the best friends of my life during my time in Bengaluru, but the initial few months were quite challenging and lonely.

Just like gaming disorder, the World Economic Forum has recently declared 'loneliness' as an epidemic with 40% of under-25 year olds reporting that they feel lonely. As many as 23% of Indian students log into social media platforms for more than 8 hours daily due to low-battery anxiety, nomophobia, and FOMO, says research from Omidyar. According to Suyash and MyScoot, this isn't something that we should take lightly. "In the digital age, we are more connected than ever," argues Suyash. "However, as we 'connect' digitally, we increasingly are disengaging from a healthy social life."

MyScoot Team

Co-founder of MyScoot, Suyash Sinha has moved quite a bit in his life, relocating to about 13 cities pan-India. And the idea of MyScoot came from a problem he had himself: creating a strong social circle. The story goes that he and Siddharth (co-founder of MyScoot) hosted a 'friends of friends' house party while in New Delhi in 2017. "We ended up only knowing about 25% of the guests that showed up, but it was so much fun," recollects Suyash.

In the coming weeks, it stayed in conversation. Everyone kept talking about how much fun the event was and how they wanted to do it again. "We set up a Google Form to create more such get-togethers, which is when it became clear that this was something larger. With roughly 600 people signed up on our form, we knew that we were solving a larger problem. This is where MyScoot came from - interesting people, wanting to make new, meaningful connections in a safe and comfortable environment," sums up Suyash.

In a world where we're becoming more and more polarised, distanced by electronic communication, MyScoot has found a way to leverage the best of the on-and-offline world, offering it directly to users. And according to Suyash Sinha, 'Unstrangering' is an experience and it's clear that's what modern, young consumers are after - experiences. "MyScoot allows users to find their tribe, tap into their passions, and meet interesting like-minded people along the way," he says.

Reuters

From a beta launched on a Google Form in August 2017 to closing a seed funding round of US $1.7 million in July 2019, MyScoot has come a long way. With over 200 verified hosts and over 2000 bookings, it still has a long way to go become the "Airbnb of experiences" in India.

But for Suyash Sinha and other co-founders of MyScoot, they're quietly confident that there's plenty of room to grow in this space. "MyScoot is creating unique experiential entertainment concepts out of spaces, redefining the socialising industry, which currently has limited choices and innovation," according to Suyash.