Why I Founded HangOn — A Note From Aditya Jaiswal

I'm Aditya Jaiswal, and I founded HangOn in New Delhi in 2026. I want to explain why, because the reason shapes every decision we make.

The problem I kept running into

I play games, and I wanted to play with people near me. That turned out to be strangely hard. There was no good way to find out who plays BGMI or Valorant in my area, which café had a free PS5 tonight, or where a local tournament was happening this weekend. Everything lived in WhatsApp groups that went quiet after a week.

In the West, Discord became the place gamers gather. India has a huge gaming population, but no equivalent social layer built for how we actually play: on phones, at cafés, with friends from the same neighbourhood.

Discovery first, not another chat app

Chat apps are good at keeping groups together. They're bad at helping you find the group in the first place. So HangOn starts with discovery: players near you who play the same games, cafés you can book, and tournaments that show their prize split up front. Chat and squads come after.

Why venues matter

Gaming cafés are where online friends become real ones. But most cafés are hard to find online and run on paper registers. That's why we built HangOn Partner, so venues can list themselves, take bookings and payments, and host tournaments from a phone.

And why Deckon

Deckon came from our own desks. Streamers and creators wanted stream deck buttons without buying more hardware, and almost everyone already has a phone. It's free, local and needs no account.

What I want HangOn to be

Gamers can play, but they can't discover. They can compete, but they can't connect locally. HangOn is built to fix that.

We're starting in Delhi and growing city by city. If you're a gamer, a venue owner, or someone who believes India's gaming scene deserves better, I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on X and LinkedIn, or book a call on the founder page.

— Aditya Jaiswal, Founder & CEO, HangOn