“Why I Started Giri: Building Honest, Affordable Software for Everyday Life.”
Dear friend,
If you have ever opened an app just to jot down a late-night thought, plan your family's monthly grocery budget, or prepare a simple school presentation, you probably know the sinking feeling I'm talking about.
Within moments of opening the app, a slick pop-up takes over your screen: “Your free trial has expired. Upgrade to Pro for $14.99 a month.”
To an executive sitting in California, fifteen dollars is just the price of a quick lunch. But here at home in India, ₹1,200 every single month is real money. It is a week of fresh groceries for a household, an electricity bill paid on time, a stack of textbooks for a student preparing for competitive exams, or hard-earned savings put aside for a rainy day.
I kept asking myself: why should an Indian college student, a teacher, a freelancer, or a parent have to pay exorbitant monthly fees in foreign US dollars just to organize their day or write their thoughts? Why should free tools be stuffed with intrusive ads, sneaky auto-debits, and trackers that secretly harvest private data?
I started Giri because I wanted something better for us.
India has some of the brightest engineers, artists, and problem solvers on earth. For decades, our minds have built the engines behind the world’s biggest tech platforms. I felt it was high time we directed that same energy toward building world-class, honest tools for our own people.
Giri is my personal commitment to a proud Make in India future, grounded in three simple promises:
1. Deeply affordable and honest pricing. Technology should lift people up, not trap them in expensive cycles. Our tools—Giri Drift for distraction-free writing, Giri Axis for clear family budgeting, and Giri Kinetic for simple visual presentations—are built to be free or priced in honest, transparent Indian Rupees (₹) that any student or working family can comfortably afford. No foreign dollar conversions, no auto-renew traps, and no paywalls on basic human creativity.
2. Engineered locally for real life. Every line of code is written right here at home. We test our software on budget smartphones, older family laptops, and spotty internet connections. It opens fast, stays lightweight, and works quietly in the background without draining your phone's battery or your monthly data pack.
3. Sacred respect for your privacy and peace. What you write in your journal, how you manage your savings, and what you dream for your family belongs solely to you. We do not track your digital footprints, we do not package your habits for advertisers, and we never spam you with noisy notifications.
We are not building a soulless corporate machine chasing investor hype. We are an independent Indian initiative taking the slow, careful path to build software you can genuinely rely on and feel proud to use.
If this resonates with you, I would love to have you with us. Please feel free to reach out to me personally on Instagram at @abhinavgiri45. Tell me what tools you need, what frustrates you about modern apps, or just say hello. I read every message myself.
Thank you for believing in homegrown Indian software.