The Digital Problem Holding Back Millions of Small Businesses
Across India, millions of small businesses still depend on WhatsApp chats, notebooks, and multiple disconnected apps to manage their daily work. Payments happen in one place, bookings in another, product catalogues get buried inside conversations, and customer details are often difficult to track later. While large companies have access to expensive digital systems, many local shops, home-based entrepreneurs, tutors, clinics, and service providers are left with tools that were never designed for the way they actually work. The result is unnecessary confusion, lost opportunities, and an online presence that rarely reflects the quality of their business. MeraLink was created to solve this gap by bringing essential business tools into one simple link, but that solution began long before the product itself—with two founders who always wanted to build something of their own.
That ambition was shared by both founders from an early age. Growing up in Mumbai, Shashank Kakrecha and Rohit Naidu were surrounded by hardworking entrepreneurs, neighbourhood businesses, and people creating opportunities for themselves. Neither imagined following a conventional career path for long. Instead, both were driven by the idea of building companies that solved practical problems. Their shared mindset eventually brought them together, combining Shashank's product and technology experience with Rohit's background in design, product development, and growth. While running their software company, Joistic, they continued searching for a product that could create lasting value for ordinary business owners, and that search slowly became more focused through everyday observations.
A Problem They Saw Everywhere
The turning point came through a pattern they could no longer ignore. Everywhere they looked, small businesses relied almost entirely on WhatsApp to sell products, answer customer questions, and manage enquiries. Conversations stretched endlessly, important details disappeared inside chat histories, and customers had no single place to explore products, services, or prices. Shashank and Rohit realised the problem was not limited to one industry or one city. Businesses needed a simple digital home that required no technical knowledge and no expensive website. That observation gradually evolved into MeraLink, even as both founders continued bootstrapping the product alongside their full-time work at Joistic.
Launching MeraLink required patience as much as conviction. Both founders were already running Joistic full time, so every feature, improvement, and decision had to fit around existing responsibilities. The product was entirely self-funded, built without outside investment and developed because they genuinely believed Indian small businesses deserved technology designed specifically for them. Rather than chasing rapid expansion, they concentrated on creating something practical and easy to use on a mobile phone. Still, building the product was only one part of the journey. Helping people understand what MeraLink actually was soon became an even bigger challenge than writing the software itself.
Standing Apart From Link-in-Bio Tools
During the early months, the biggest obstacle was distribution. Whenever people heard the phrase "one link for your business," many immediately assumed MeraLink was another link-in-bio tool. The founders repeatedly explained that it was far more than a page of links. MeraLink allowed businesses to accept UPI payments, sell products through WhatsApp ordering, manage bookings, run live token queues, collect customer leads, and gather reviews from one place. Communicating that difference required persistence, but the strongest proof did not come from presentations. It came from real business owners who quietly started using the platform in their everyday work.
Growing Through Real Customer Experiences
One of the earliest signs came unexpectedly close to home. Shashank created a MeraLink page for his sister's crochet business, bringing together her products, Instagram presence, and crochet class bookings into one place. Watching customers interact with that page showed how much easier the business became to manage. That experience gave the founders confidence that the same approach could help many different businesses.
A Simpler Future for Every Small Business
As more businesses adopted MeraLink, the founders noticed that owners consistently preferred simplicity over endless features. Every time the product became easier to use, adoption improved. That learning continues to shape their long-term vision of making MeraLink the normal starting point for every small business in India—a single page that grows with an owner from the first sale to a full business without requiring a website or technical expertise. They also plan to expand integrated payments and marketing capabilities while remaining focused on the people they serve.