When Anamika Bhoyrul and Tawishi Dogra met through a mutual friend last year, neither could have predicted that random introduction would become the foundation of a startup revolutionizing how Gen Z connects. That single connection sparked an obsession with one question: what if the introductions that change your life didn’t have to depend on luck?
Today, the duo has turned that question into Six Social, an AI-powered platform that's facilitated over 1,000 introductions across four major cities and secured partnerships with Y Combinator AI Startup School, Lovable, and Flite City.
Bhoyrul's journey to startup founder took an unexpected turn. After graduating from the London School of Economics with a law degree and qualifying for the New York bar, she made a decision that surprised many: she walked away from a big law career to build Six Social.
Dogra took an equally unconventional path, turning down lucrative big tech offers to focus full-time on the startup while pursuing engineering studies at Columbia. "Neither of us are employed in the traditional sense," Bhoyrul explains. "We essentially chose the unconventional route to build a startup instead of going corporate."
The two complement each other perfectly. Dogra handles the technical side, coding the algorithms that power Six Social's social graphing technology. Bhoyrul brings product management, investor relations and business strategy. But more importantly, they're best friends building something together.
Their first experiment was audacious: create an Instagram group chat with 100 strangers connected through mutual friends, invite them to a house party, and map everyone's social connections on a massive wall display. The pitch was simple: "Come to our party, and we promise your name will be mapped on the wall to someone else you might like, or we'll buy you a drink."
The social graph parties became a phenomenon. Word spread rapidly across social media, and suddenly companies and brands wanted in. The algorithm attracted serious commercial interest, including from Thursday Dating, which explored licensing the technology for deployment across more than 100 cities.
"We were going to license our algorithm to even bigger companies," Dogra recalls. "But then we realized there was a fundamental problem: events don't really scale"
That insight prompted the pivot to Six Social as a mobile application. After extensive market research and building a substantial waitlist, they've now completed beta testing and are ready for national expansion.
The problem Six Social addresses is deeply personal. Both founders have experienced the awkwardness of scrolling through thousands of Instagram followers or LinkedIn connections, trying to remember who might be able to help with a specific need.
“You follow thousands of people on Instagram. You’re buried in LinkedIn connections. Yet when you actually need something: Who do I know at NYU Econ? Who’s in SF this week? Who could I ask for startup advice? Your brain stalls.” Bhoyrul puts it bluntly: “You’re scrolling this giant list of names and selfies, and you’re still thinking: who do I actually know?”
Dogra adds: “And honestly, it’s cringe to randomly DM someone for a favor. Six makes that warm intro for you, so it feels intentional, not desperate.”
Six Social's AI chatbot solves this by functioning as "social memory" for Gen Z. Users can ask questions in natural language like "who do I know at NYU?" or "who likes Japanese fashion?" The platform then opens a group chat between the user and their mutual connection, explaining shared interests and why they should connect.
Investors have started comparing Six Social to professional CRM platforms, but Bhoyrul is quick to differentiate: "We're that, but we're social. Instead of asking for professional favors or career networking, we help you in your day-to-day casual life. Like, who can I grab coffee with today?"
The founders envision Six Social becoming as ubiquitous as Uber, a default app that people open whenever they have a social need. Their immediate focus is expansion across college campuses nationwide, starting with successful tests at universities in New York.
"We took dating into our own hands when dating apps were created," Bhoyrul reflects. "What about connections in general? Why should valuable introductions through mutual friends still depend on random fate instead of intentional technology?"
For two best friends who met through exactly that kind of random introduction, building technology to make those connections less random feels like destiny. The waitlist is now open at sixsocialapp.com.