People often ask me how EchonLabs started.
And every time, I smile a little—because the real beginning wasn’t glamorous. There were no investors, no buzz, no launch event. Just a quiet moment in March 2017, in my tiny boarding room near the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.
That’s when I invited Damith over.
We were both third-year Computer Science students, neck-deep in assignments, algorithms, and caffeine. But beyond the coursework, we had something else in common: an obsession with building things. We had already teamed up for inter-university competitions—and actually won a few. And with every win, our confidence (and curiosity) grew.
But I had something more to share with him that day.
For weeks—maybe months—I had been building something quietly in the background. A brand. A name. A little seed of a dream. I had designed a logo, played with colors (blue spectrum, of course), and tested domain names like a man possessed.
I originally wanted something that started with “A” (yes, for alphabetical reasons—guilty!). But every name I liked was taken, and after endless nights of brainstorming, I landed on EchonLabs. It sounded sleek, futuristic, and clean. And most importantly, the .com was available.
So that evening, when I showed Damith what I’d been cooking up, I wasn’t sure how he’d react.
But he didn’t hesitate. Not for a second.
“I’m in.”
And that was it. That moment—two friends sitting on a bed, laptops open, ideas buzzing—that was the real beginning of EchonLabs.
Looking back, this wasn’t the first time I dreamed of building something of my own.
My love for tech goes way back. I was just a kid when I first discovered Visual Basic 6.0. While others were playing games, I was learning how to make the things people clicked on. I fell in love with user interfaces and functionality. I even gave my dream company a name: DTek (a mix of Dulan + Technologies). No one knew it existed—except me.
By the time I left school, I had actual software uploaded on platforms like CNET and Softpedia. I still remember the thrill of seeing my projects live on the internet. Those tiny pieces of software were my early footprints on the web.
Even in school, leadership came naturally. I wasn’t afraid to start things. In Grade 6, I co-founded a student magazine that sold thousands of copies. I led the IT Society. I even helped organize an attempt at a Guinness World Record for the largest human mosaic.
So maybe EchonLabs was always going to happen—it just needed the right moment and the right partner.
Damith was different from me in a lot of ways, but we had a shared spark. He also had his own dream of starting a tech company. Looking back, it feels like we were always walking parallel paths that were destined to meet.
So yeah, EchonLabs didn’t start with funding. It started with friendship. With long nights, ridiculous ideas, and quiet conviction.
Sometimes, that’s all it takes.
And that’s the part of the story I’ll never forget.
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