Originally reported and written in January 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.

After losing a Rs 40 crore revenue company overnight, Vinay Singhal returned to his village Noonsar Haryana’s Dhiwani district in search of subsequent adventure. 

He recalls that his viral content company WittyFeed, which he had started with Shashank Vaishnav and Praveen Singhal, was abruptly pulled down online, which unwittingly forced the three friends to start over. But a return to his village also made him privy to an opportunity to develop a hyper-local OTT platform that caters to vernacular audiences.

In conversation with The Better India, he explains, “In India, there are more than 40 OTT platforms. They broadcast language based content in the name of vernacular content, like in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu.” 

“We found that there is no cinema or web series focused on local dialects. This is despite a large chunk of the population speaking it. In Rajasthan, about 70 million people speak Rajasthani, Marwari. Similarly, in Bihar, people speak Bhojpuri, Maithli, Angika, Bajjika. In UP, Awadhi, Braj, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, and so on and so forth,” Singhal notes. 

Growing up speaking Haryanvi led Singhal to wonder why there wasn’t any content available in the dialect. 

“In Haryanvi, there are 11 different dialects. And there are around 700-800 dialects used by people across the........

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