My co-founders and I have been building GridTravel, a free iOS app for planning and sharing travel routes with turn-by-turn GPS nav. We just launched yesterday after App Store approval.
We're three 21-year-old cofounders and best friends since middle school. We built GridTravel after years of frustration navigating new cities on every trip we took together.
The idea: most people either search Google for "top 10 places to visit in…" lists or go on social media to get inspiration on where to go. GridTravel is built around user-generated routes — actual paths someone walked, that you can follow, save, download, and discover from other travelers. Users also have the ability to create private routes and collaborate with their friends.
Tech stack: Mapbox (Nav SDK + maps), Supabase (auth, DB, storage), and Swift. Native iOS for now, Android coming soon.
Our two real cost drivers are Mapbox Search (hit when users create routes) and Mapbox Navigation (hit when users use live navigation). Both have free tiers, then scale with MAU. We launched fully free to remove the barrier to entry. Revisiting pricing in Year 2 once nav costs start burning a hole in our pocket.
Current state: we're in the UGC cold-start hole. The app's value scales with route density in a given city, but route density requires users, who require routes. Classic chicken and egg. Our current plan: 1. Manually seed 25–30 routes per city, starting with 5-10 priority cities where we have personal networks rather than spreading ourselves thin. 2. Short-form content as the primary social channel (TikTok, reels, shorts). Doing A/B testing: whether route walkthroughs convert better than informational/skit videos. 3. Partnering with micro-influencers in those cities (5k-50k following) for in-app routes plus cross-posts on their channels
Curious what HN thinks. Especially anyone who's shipped a UGC product. What worked for you on cold start? What do you wish you'd done differently? Happy to answer any questions about the app, costs, etc.
App link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gridtravel-local-routes/id6762...