I built MapMates because I moved to Bangkok and realized how hard it is to find your people when you're new somewhere. LinkedIn felt too formal, dating apps weren't right, and Facebook groups are just noise.
The idea is simple: drop a pin where you are, say what you do (founder, developer, designer, etc.), and see who else is nearby. If someone looks interesting, send a connection request with a message. If they accept, you can chat.
Some technical decisions:
- No signup required. I use Supabase anonymous auth combined with a device fingerprint hash. Your pin is tied to your device. If you clear your browser, you can recover it via email (if you added one) or a recovery code.
- Location is intentionally fuzzy. Pins are snapped to ~1km precision. Close enough to find people, not precise enough to be creepy.
- Rate limited connections. 10 requests per day. Forces you to actually read profiles instead of mass-messaging.
- Built with Next.js, Supabase, and Mapbox. Deployed on Vercel. The whole thing is pretty lightweight.
The target audience is digital nomads and expats - people who move a lot and need to rebuild their network every few months. Would love feedback from anyone who's been in that situation.
Happy to answer any questions about the tech, the target audience, or why I made certain decisions. Would love feedback on what's working and what's not.
thank you!
Show HN: MapMates – A map for expats to find people in new cities · HackerTrans
I built MapMates because I moved to Bangkok and realized how hard it is to find your people when you're new somewhere. LinkedIn felt too formal, dating apps weren't right, and Facebook groups are just noise.
The idea is simple: drop a pin where you are, say what you do (founder, developer, designer, etc.), and see who else is nearby. If someone looks interesting, send a connection request with a message. If they accept, you can chat. Some technical decisions:
- No signup required. I use Supabase anonymous auth combined with a device fingerprint hash. Your pin is tied to your device. If you clear your browser, you can recover it via email (if you added one) or a recovery code.
- Location is intentionally fuzzy. Pins are snapped to ~1km precision. Close enough to find people, not precise enough to be creepy.
- Rate limited connections. 10 requests per day. Forces you to actually read profiles instead of mass-messaging.
- Built with Next.js, Supabase, and Mapbox. Deployed on Vercel. The whole thing is pretty lightweight.
The target audience is digital nomads and expats - people who move a lot and need to rebuild their network every few months. Would love feedback from anyone who's been in that situation.
Happy to answer any questions about the tech, the target audience, or why I made certain decisions. Would love feedback on what's working and what's not.
thank you!