How Two Siblings Are Set To Disrupt India’s Travel Industry, With The Launch Of NowYouKnow, India’s First Social-Led Travel and Food Recommendations Platform
Tired of endless scrolling through fake reviews and sponsored posts to find a decent restaurant? A brother-sister duo just launched a platform that’s about to change everything. NowYouKnow (NYK), India’s first social-led travel and food recommendations platform, is here to prove that the best recommendations have always come from people you trust—not strangers on the internet.
Founded by Krishna and Pia Shivdasani, who grew up exploring a different country every year for over three decades, NowYouKnow is solving a problem that’s plagued Indian travelers and food lovers for years: where exactly do you save all those amazing recommendations from your friends?
The Problem They’re Solving
Your WhatsApp is cluttered with recommendations. Your Google Sheets has outdated lists. Your Instagram bookmarks are a disorganized mess. Meanwhile, traditional review platforms like Google Maps and Zomato are drowning in paid reviews, fake ratings, and sponsored content. In India alone, review manipulation is rampant—some group chats actually pay people ₹100 or more to leave five-star reviews.
Krishna and Pia’s research revealed something striking: 65% of Indians rely on WhatsApp for travel and food recommendations. 42% share notes or screenshots. 23% depend purely on memory. And shockingly, barely 3% use any dedicated recommendation platform. The recommendation experience is broken, fragmented, and increasingly unreliable.
NowYouKnow: Your Private Circle, Your Taste
NowYouKnow strips away the noise by creating a private, ad-free platform where recommendations come exclusively from people whose taste you understand and trust. Unlike traditional platforms, there are no sponsored posts, no algorithmic manipulation, and no paid placements. What you see is shaped purely by your network.
The platform is built on a simple philosophy: taste is personal. A five-star rating on NowYouKnow represents an aggregated average from your circle only—not from strangers or crowds. This approach respects India’s incredible diversity, where a perfect dosa spot in Bengaluru might mean nothing to someone in Delhi.
Key Features That Make It Different
| Feature | What It Does |
|---|---|
| One Home for Favorites | Save restaurants, cafés, hotels, and travel spots in seconds |
| Smart Discovery | Search, filter, and map-based discovery from your trusted circle |
| Personal Ratings | Five-stars from your network, not the internet’s crowds |
| Visual Diary | Auto-mapped food and travel experiences in Instagram-style feed |
| Zero Ads | No sponsored posts, no algorithmic manipulation, no noise |
| AI List Import | Paste WhatsApp, Notes, or Google Sheets lists—AI organizes everything |
| Invited Creators | Only verified, trusted creators earn visibility through merit, not incentives |
Why This Matters in 2025
In an era where AI can fabricate photos, reviews, and entire travel experiences, authenticity has become precious. The rise of deepfakes and AI-generated content makes it nearly impossible to distinguish real experiences from fabricated ones on traditional platforms.
Krishna Shivdasani, Co-Founder and CEO, captures the essence perfectly: “I don’t believe in ‘best lists’ because best is subjective. I prefer simple food; a good dosa will always outrank a Michelin-starred restaurant for me. Without knowing someone’s taste, their recommendations don’t mean much.”
This insight drives everything NowYouKnow does. The platform recognizes that India’s diversity—from food preferences to travel styles to value expectations—can’t be captured by a single aggregated score.
How It Works: Simplicity at Its Core
Adding your favorite places takes seconds. Found an amazing café in Mumbai? Save it. Want to share it with close friends? Done. Already have recommendations scattered across WhatsApp and Google Sheets? Paste them in, and NowYouKnow’s AI organizes everything automatically—zero manual work required.
Your experiences are beautifully mapped and displayed in a visual diary format, creating a living archive of your food and travel adventures. It’s Instagram-style sharing, but private, personal, and focused on genuine experiences rather than engagement metrics.
The Founding Team’s Philosophy
Co-Founder and CMO Pia Shivdasani emphasizes the platform’s core truth: “India is incredibly diverse. Our food, tastes, and expectations vary city to city, family to family. A single aggregated rating can’t capture that. What matters is whose taste you understand.”
Growing up in a family where every trip began with a call to someone trusted, the Shivdasanis understand that recommendations have always been personal. NowYouKnow simply makes that age-old tradition digital, organized, and accessible.
The Timing Is Perfect
Traditional recommendation platforms have become ecosystems built around incentives rather than authenticity. Affiliate-driven posts, filtered photos, review bombing, and contradictory ratings plague every major platform. Meanwhile, India’s fragmentation problem persists—recommendations remain scattered across messaging apps and note-taking apps rather than unified in one trusted space.
NowYouKnow arrives at exactly the right moment, offering a refreshingly honest alternative that prioritizes trust over traffic, authenticity over engagement metrics.
What This Means for Users
For food lovers, travelers, and anyone tired of fake reviews, NowYouKnow offers genuine relief. Your recommendations come from people whose tastes you already understand. Your ratings reflect your circle’s preferences, not worldwide crowds. And your data stays private, shared only with people you explicitly choose.
Whether you’re planning a weekend getaway, hunting for the best biryani in your city, or building a visual diary of your travel adventures, NowYouKnow transforms discovery from overwhelming noise into trusted, contextual information.
The Bigger Picture
This launch signals an important shift in how Indians approach recommendations and discovery. As AI-generated content becomes indistinguishable from reality, platforms that prioritize authenticity and personal trust will gain traction. NowYouKnow isn’t trying to be the biggest or the loudest—it’s simply trying to be the most honest.
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Last Updated: December 2025 | NowYouKnow is now live for users in India.
