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Venture Local

Made by Brandon Foley and Drew Floyd

Inspiration

Venture Local grew out of wanting exploration to feel tangible, not another anonymous list of pins, but a personal “ledger” of where you’ve actually been. We were inspired by passport stamps, local discovery (small businesses and neighborhoods over chains), and the idea that friends could nudge each other toward places worth visiting without turning the app into a global popularity contest.

By helping people discover nearby parks, hidden gems, and independent local businesses, our app makes sustainability part of everyday life. Instead of encouraging users to travel farther or default to large chains, we nudge them toward experiences already close to home. This can reduce routine travel emissions while supporting local businesses and communities, which often have a smaller environmental footprint than large-scale chain logistics.

Rather than framing sustainability as a chore, the app turns local exploration into a game. Through badges, rewards, and discovery, we make staying curious about your own community feel fun, natural, and worthwhile.

What it does

Map-first exploration with category-tuned POIs, voice-assisted discovery, and road coverage that builds a sense of “unlocking” the city.
Explorer’s Ledger (Journal): level and XP, city completion for non-chain “locals,” category progress, recent discoveries, and unique road distance (miles or km from profile settings) derived from distinct OSM segments.
Passport: partner stamps and QR flows for curated local experiences.
Badges with secret and themed unlocks.
Social: friend recommendations (share a place from the map), per-user dismissals synced to Supabase, map-style category pins (Shop / Fun / Parks / Food / Gems), and a friends-only XP leaderboard.
Cloud backup (Supabase): profile, visits, friendships, recommendations, and dismissals—with RLS so users only see what they should.

How we built it

Stack: SwiftUI, SwiftData, MapKit, CoreLocation (including background where appropriate), Supabase (Auth + Postgres + RLS).
Data & sync: CloudSyncService binds to the signed-in session; recommendations and dismissals are first-class tables, not only local state.
Progress math: levels are driven by a piecewise-linear XP ladder, as to not progress too fast.
Geo: haversine / local tangent-plane helpers for snapping, distances, and polyline length for road stats.
UX polish: vintage paper theme, category-colored glyphs aligned between map pins and Social rows, and deep links from favorites and recommendations back to the map.

Challenges we ran into

Location truth vs battery: balancing background updates, road snapping tolerance, and not hammering Overpass when the map isn’t focused.
RLS product semantics: friends can see recommendations but shouldn’t delete another user’s row, so dismissals are modeled as (user_id, recommendation_id) rows instead of destructive deletes.
Schema drift: older recommendation rows missing category_raw forced client-side fallback (e.g. CachedPOI by osm_id) so Social still shows the right glyph and color when the cache has the place.
Sheet / map edge cases: keeping place presentation stable (e.g. sheet identity) when state updates quickly.
Hackathon time: shipping end-to-end auth + sync + social while keeping the on-device experience smooth when offline or misconfigured.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

A cohesive exploration loop: map → discover / claim → journal progress → badges → optional social proof.
Friend recommendations that are actionable (open on map) and respect privacy (friends-only, dismissals synced).
Consistent category language across filters, pins, and Social (including map-matched fill opacity and per-type colors).
Honest “local” completion separate from chains and traveler notes where it matters.

What we learned

Supabase RLS is powerful but you have to design policies for every real user story (including “hide this for me only”).
Map + SwiftData + cloud is tractable if you keep a clear source of truth per concern (device vs server) and merge conflicts predictably (e.g. max XP on profile pull).
UX details—pin grammar, typography, and success states—matter as much as features for a “delightful” exploration app.

What's next for Venture Local

Richer recommendation context (short note, photo thumbnail) and optional push or in-app events when friends share.
Smarter category rules and POI metadata (hours, accessibility, price hints) where licensing allows.
Seasonal / city-specific badge campaigns and partner tooling.
Deeper privacy controls (who can see home city, opt-out of leaderboard).
Optional Android / web companion using the same Supabase schema for true cross-platform crews.