Ansh Talrani
Ansh Talrani is the technical co-founder of LockIn and the person who makes sure we're building the right thing, not just building fast.
What He Means to Me
If Yash is the business brain and I'm the builder, Ansh is the researcher. He's the one who goes deep — not just "how do we build this?" but "should we build this? what does the Screen Time API actually allow? what are competitors doing? what if we skip the app download entirely?"
Ansh asks the questions I forget to ask because I'm already coding. That's invaluable. When I'm heads-down in Xcode, Ansh is mapping the landscape — figuring out what iOS and Android actually support, what NFC can do without an app install, whether iPhone Shortcuts could replace a full download.
He also does something I genuinely admire: field research. He surveys his friends at school about real-world behavior. "Do you have NFC on by default?" "Would your school use this?" That ground-level validation is what separates a shipped product from a side project.
Role at LockIn
Ansh handles architecture research, competitor analysis, and platform-level technical decisions.
Technical Focus
- Screen Time API research across iOS and Android
- NFC technology — can tapping trigger automations without an app download?
- Multi-device management — controlling iPad, Mac, iPhone, Android from one NFC tap
- Auto-detection of apps via Screen Time API
Competitor Research
Ansh identified Blok.so, GetBrick, and Bloom.inc as key competitors — and the critical insight that changed our pitch: they're all B2C. LockIn's B2B focus on schools is a genuinely differentiated position. This research shaped our KHDA pitch.
School Validation
Ansh takes on real field research — surveying friends about NFC defaults on Android, testing assumptions, validating product decisions with actual students. This is the stuff that turns an idea into a product.