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...
alex_c•2h ago
This is almost 1:1 with a project we worked on several years ago. Unfortunately it never launched - founder ran out of money. It was one of my favourite projects we’ve done and I genuinely believed in the concept, so I was sad we couldn’t see it come to fruition. But glad someone else is giving it another go!
Without giving away anything confidential, I can say your cold start plan is very similar. Can’t say it’s a good or bad plan because we never saw it executed in practice… but it’s not unreasonable!
I think distribution and stickiness will be a challenge. Even if you get enough content that users will have a great first experience, most people don’t travel that often, so getting them to come back regularly won’t be easy.
Best of luck - would love to see this succeed!
knuaym9•1h ago
On distribution: agreed. Stickiness is the hard part for sure. Our angle is that the app should also work as a way for users to discover their own city through other people's POVs — not just for travel. We also built in a collaboration feature and private routes, so it doubles as a planning platform whether you're going solo or with a group.
We're hoping the creation side carries the retention we're looking for. Following a route is one side of the coin. Making the route, collaborating with friends, planning places you want to visit over weeks — that's where we're estimating (hoping lol) most of our retention will come from. Can't say for sure yet, not enough data. Thanks again for the comment!