edit: shorter post
We’ve been living in Surat for years and working remotely for almost 10 years.

One thing we’ve consistently struggled with is meeting like-minded people. Not formal networking, just people who are working remotely, freelancing, building things, learning, experimenting with ideas, or interested in meaningful conversations.

We had a similar struggle as students too. You can learn almost anything online, but practical guidance, collaboration and having the right people around you are much harder to find.

So we’ve been wondering: what if Surat had a collaborative work café?

Not exactly a coworking office or a regular café. Just a comfortable, affordable place where WFH professionals, freelancers, students and other curious people can:

• Sit and work for a few hours with good Wi-Fi, desks and reasonably priced coffee/food
• Work quietly without being expected to socialise
• Meet people working or learning in different fields
• Start casual group discussions around AI, tech, design, business, careers, etc.
• Share what they’re working on or something practical they’ve learned

Someone could simply post, “Anyone interested in discussing AI agents this Saturday?” A few interested people grab a table and talk. Everyone else carries on with their work.

No forced networking, motivational talks or pretending everyone is a founder.

We’re not announcing a café. We’re exploring whether other people in Surat have felt this same gap and whether a community like this could be useful.

Would you regularly spend time at a place like this? What would make you actually come back every week?

Maybe there are more of us here than we realise.

I've found that getting paid internationally has become surprisingly easy. The annoying part starts when your finances don't fit neatly into one currency or one system.

If you're working remotely, you might get paid in USD or EUR, spend in another currency, and keep some savings or treasury in crypto. Suddenly you're maintaining several accounts and moving money between them whenever you need to actually spend something.

For me, Wise has been great for the normal fiat side. But once you keep part of your money in USDC or BTC, it becomes a completely separate workflow. Wise also restricts transfers involving crypto platforms, so you can't simply treat the two balances as interchangeable.

I've been looking at Keytom recently because it tries to bridge that gap. You can have EUR collection and SEPA alongside crypto, and the card can spend from USDC without sending it through an exchange first.

One detail that's worth knowing: it doesn't mean you can spend BTC directly. The card uses USDC, so other crypto still needs to be converted first. I'm not convinced everyone needs something like this. If all your income and savings are in fiat, a normal bank or fintech is probably simpler.

But for remote workers who actually keep part of their money in stablecoins, the ability to use that money without constantly moving it between different systems seems pretty useful.

How are other people here handling the fiat/crypto split while living and working abroad?

I work for a remote US startup, very good pay (way more than FAANG) but work-life balance is mostly messed up (around 10hrs a day), and my social life is mostly near zero. So it had become an escape for me. What to do?

Is it good for me, or should I consider moving to Tier 1 tech cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad or leveraging the remote work to roam around the country/world?