It started behind the counter

Mandali did not start as a software idea. It started at Rangoli Paan, a convenience store in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Rangoli Paan, Jersey City

In late 2022, Miral Patel had just arrived in the US for his master's degree at Stevens Institute of Technology. The store was near his bus stop, and friends of his worked there. He was not an employee and it was not a research project. When customers piled up, he helped at the counter. He did that for 18 months.

One day a friend behind the counter mentioned that Costco had a big discount on Coca-Cola. Miral asked how he knew. The answer was WhatsApp. Miral asked what happens if you miss the message. The answer: if we miss, we miss.

That is how a lot of the business ran. Deals, hires and advice moved through group chats and phone calls. Nothing was organized, nothing was searchable, and the trust that held it together lived in people's heads.

300+ conversations

Miral's first idea was a better point-of-sale system. So he kept going: more than 300 conversations with owners, managers and employees across New Jersey, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Florida.

Those conversations changed the answer. The problems owners raised again and again were hiring people they could trust, getting fair prices from suppliers, and finding help they could rely on. And owners said they trust people from their own community far more than software sold by outsiders.

Mandali is not the product Miral started with. It is the product the community led him to build.

2026

Miral went full time on Mandali in April 2026. Aniket Bedwal joined as co-founder and CTO in May 2026 to build the product. Mandali is launching soon on iOS. Meet the founders.