Getting recommendations just got a major upgrade with the launch of NowYouKnow. Founded by brother-sister duo Krishna and Pia Shivdasani, who grew up in a family where travel was a way of life. Every year was a different country with different adventures for 30+ years. Their journeys have shaped a deep understanding of global travel trends, how consumers behave across different cultures, and what it takes to scale high-growth businesses. For them, every family trip began the same way: with a personal recommendation from someone they trusted, never from a stranger online.
That instinct hasn’t changed. Today, people still rely on their network, and increasingly on social media, to decide where to eat, stay, and explore. But those recommendations live scattered across WhatsApp chats, screenshots, shared notes, Google Sheets, and Instagram bookmarks. And as AI begins to reshape online content, making it possible to fabricate photos, reviews, and entire experiences, the need to rely on your own circle has never been more urgent. Unlike traditional platforms, NYK has no ads and no sponsored posts, ensuring that what you see is shaped purely by your people, not by paid placements. NowYouKnow brings together your friends’ favorite restaurants, cafés, bars, and hotels in one private, personal platform built around your own network.
Key features of NowYouKnow
1. One Home for Your Favourite Places: Save, Share, and Wishlist Easily
Add your favourite restaurants, cafés, bars, hotels, and travel spots in seconds, and share them effortlessly with your circle. Build a personal list of places you’ve loved, and bookmark new spots you want to try. Your recommendations, wishlists, and memories finally live in one organized place instead of scattered across chats, screenshots and hard to find instagram posts and stories.
2. Easy Discovery With Smart Search, Filters & Maps
Finding the right place becomes effortless with NYK’s simple search, multiple filters, and map-based discovery. Whether you’re looking for a brunch spot, a boutique hotel, a cozy café, a lively bar, or a new place in a city you’re visiting, NYK shows you recommendations from your circle, people whose taste you already understand and trust.
3. Ratings That Reflect Your Taste: Not the Internet’s
NYK treats taste as personal. A five-star place on NYK is an aggregated average of five-stars according to your network only. No strangers, no crowds, no paid reviews. Your world is defined by people whose preferences you understand and trust.
4. Your Food & Travel Diary: Mapped Beautifully
Turn your experiences into a visual diary. Every place you’ve visited is saved automatically to a dynamic map and an Instagram-style feed, giving you a living archive of your food and travel life, simple, personal, and beautiful.
5. No Ads. No Sponsored Posts. Only Your People (and Invited Creators).
NYK removes all the noise, no ads, no sponsored content, no algorithmic manipulation, and no public influence. You only see places shared by your friends, their friends, and a small group of invited, verified creators who earn their visibility through trust, not incentives.
6. Smarter Lists with AI: Import Anything Instantly
Already have lists saved in WhatsApp, Notes, Google Sheets, or Instagram bookmarks? Just paste them into NYK and AI will map and organize everything for you. One step, zero manual work.
Why is this App relevant in today’s World?
Even with their extensive travel experience, Krishna and Pia kept running into the same problem everyone else faces: finding reliable recommendations is far harder than it should be. Their research across India and abroad revealed just how fragmented discovery has become. 65% of people rely on WhatsApp for recommendations. 42% share Notes or screenshots. 23% depend purely on memory. And barely 3% use any dedicated platform.
At the same time, traditional review platforms have become increasingly unreliable — from review bombing to contradictory ratings to entire ecosystems built around paid reviews. In India, there are group chats where people are paid ₹100 or more to leave five-star reviews on Google. Add to that the rise of sponsored content, affiliate-driven posts, and filtered photos, and it becomes nearly impossible to know what’s real and what’s incentivized.
Taste also differs dramatically across people and regions. A single aggregated score can’t capture India’s diversity. What feels like the perfect dosa spot in Bengaluru may not resonate with someone in Delhi. What one person loves for a night out might not align with another’s idea of value or experience.
Commenting on the launch, Krishna Shivdasani, Co-Founder and CEO said, “We grew up in a family where every trip began with a call to someone we trusted. Even today, I don’t believe in ‘best lists’, because to me, best is subjective. I’m someone who prefers simple food; a good dosa will always outrank a Michelin-starred restaurant for me. Without knowing someone’s taste and preferences, their recommendations don’t mean much. NYK simply makes it easy to discover places through people who get yours.”
In addition, Pia Shivdasani, Co-Founder and CMO said, “India is incredibly diverse, our food, our tastes, our expectations vary city to city, family to family. A single aggregated rating can’t capture that. What matters is whose taste you understand. We built NYK to bring that diversity to life by giving everyone a private space to share the places they genuinely love with their own circle.”
And now, with AI making it possible to generate photos, reviews, narratives, and even entire travel experiences at the click of a button, the need for authentic, contextual recommendations from people you actually know has never been greater.
People don’t need more information, they need context. They need recommendations shaped by people whose taste they understand. NowYouKnow is built around that truth.
About:
NowYouKnow (NYK), founded in 2023 by brother-and-sister team Krishna and Pia Shivdasani, is India’s first recommendations platform built entirely on your social circle. Inspired by a childhood spent traveling and a family legacy in the travel industry, NYK brings together decades of exposure to global travel trends, consumer behavior, and high-growth businesses.
The platform offers a modern alternative to crowdsourced ratings and anonymous reviews by centralizing the places your friends love, restaurants, cafés, bars, hotels, and hidden local favorites into one private, personal home. NYK is designed around a simple belief: the best recommendations come from people whose taste you know, not strangers on the internet.
With a private-by-default design, personalized ratings, no ads, no sponsored content, and powerful AI tools for importing your existing lists, NYK creates a trusted space where your network’s memories, discoveries, and favourite places finally live in one place.
