North is like a Pokédex for your favorite places. Easily save, (privately) review, and organize your spots, from coffee shops to restaurants to hotels. Get trusted recommendations from friends, collaborate on lists, and easily share your recs with others.
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Hey folks! Devon here, and I’m one of the founders of our small team at North. We built North because we’re big “place” nerds. We love great coffee shops, new restaurant openings, and boutique hotels. But we couldn’t find the perfect place to organize favorites, share them with others, and discover new gems. If you’re similar to us, you probably save pins on Google Maps; see travel TikToks and IG posts and promptly forget about them; share rambling texts with friends when they ask what to see in Paris; and you’ve downloaded a half-dozen apps that sound similar to North. So, we decided to do something crazy, and launch a new product in a crowded space that’s littered with failed startups. Apparently, we’re stupid. 😆 But to us, there were 3 ingredients needed to make the perfect app in this category: - - - - - - - - 1. 🗄️ Flexible and Fast Organization. Each of us has over 2k places saved in North. We can add detailed (private) ratings, quickly find places with flexible filters, and save our most useful filters for later—making it easy to build a lasting and useful catalogue of the best places to spend our time, at home or abroad. Plus, North is for all sorts of places. Most of our users start with restaurants, shops, coffee, and bars. But it’s also great for remembering world-class hotels, cataloguing art museums, or saving great hikes, beaches, and parks. - - - - - - - - 2. 😊 Social; But Good Friends Only. Some of the best places come via recs from friends; they know us well, they have similar tastes, and it’s fun to compare notes once we’ve been. In North, you can easily build collaborative lists together, follow what friends are discovering in realtime, and browse each other’s personal maps. There’s no FOMO—it’s not about bragging, it’s about finding great places, together. No one is posting algo-optimized content that suffers from the “Instagram vs. Reality” problem. And there’s no fake reviews and angry strangers; reviews are private to you and your close friends, so you can feel comfortable sharing your honest and helpful thoughts. - - - - - - - - 3. 💎 Crazy Attention to Detail. We use North every, single, day. And, North should help you explore the world, not suck you into your device. So it needed to be a delight to use, and, frankly, get out of the way so you stop using your phone and check out a new coffee shop instead. It is lightning fast, has beautiful animations, and we’ve been refining the design for over a year. - - - - - - - - If any of this sounds exciting, we’d love it if you’d give North a try. It’s completely free—we’ll add some paid premium features eventually—but we’ll always keep the core product at no cost. Some tips for getting the most out of North: 1. 🗺️ If you use Google Maps, import your saved pins. We built an in-app importer if you are a heavy Google user. Don’t worry—all that hard work hasn’t gone to waste. 2. 👯 Add friends. North is at its best when you can scroll your friends’ activity and find great places they have added. 3. 🌐 Publish some lists. We made published lists the easiest way to send your recs to someone else when they ask: “what are your favorite places in Paris?”. Recipients don’t need North—published lists are beautiful, responsive websites. Here are a few of my favorites: Top of Paris (by me!): https://north.industries/list/23... Top Cocktails in NYC: https://north.industries/list/5b... Favorite Hotels: https://north.industries/list/a0... We’re proud of this launch, but we’re also just getting started. Your feedback matters so much to us. We respond 100% to every comment or piece of feedback you have for us 💬❤️! Devon, Sam, and Kate
Comment highlights
Incredible attention to detail and beautifully designed app! LOVE that you include Google reviews and details compared to what a lot of other apps using other service. I know it’s early days but would be awesome to eventually have Lists in Australia (happy to even share the 100 or so places I have saved) Good luck to you guys and congrats on the launch! :)
Amazing product, and beautiful UI, You can also checkout nomadlist which is along the same line but with a wider view. You can take inspiration on how they scaled it $3m ARR including incentivizing users.
Love this! As a big fan for good food - it's very difficult to know which restaurants are good. Friends on the other hand can have their own taste, but at least they aren't writing fake reviews for money or push reco based on algo. Love how this integrates with other apps to bring in valuable metadata - would try to see if I can replace my thousands of pins in Google Maps. Big props for trying to build something new! I'm curious how would you monetize? Honestly, if this takes off, it would be an app that could charge a monthly fee? Honestly, I wouldn't mind if the quality is there. Congrats on the launch @devontivona and team!
This sounds like an awesome idea, Devon! I've definitely struggled to keep track of my favorite places across multiple apps. The collaborative lists feature is a game-changer—can't wait to try this out with my friends! 🚀 Looking forward to seeing how North evolves.
Congrats, North team! 🎉 This is such a fantastic idea, especially for those of us who love discovering and sharing our favorite spots. The attention to detail and focus on genuine recommendations from friends is a game-changer. Can’t wait to start organizing my places and collaborating on lists with my buddies. Kudos on the launch! 🚀✨
I end up using North literally every day. I see a TikTok of a new restaurant- save it in North. I am trying to find a coffee nearby- look it up in North. I am planning a trip to the coast next month- make a list of places in North. It is so nice to have everywhere I love and want to explore in one place that is beautiful and easy to use.
North has been a total game changer for me. I used to use a variety of other tools including itinerary tools and saving things on Instagram. But mostly I just felt frustrated and/or gave up on trying to remember the places people were recommending to me. Since using North, there have been a few magic moments where using the product really paid off. First was the pay off for saving places whenever they were coming my way. I find myself saving recommendations that someone shares in conversation, but also things I see on the internet. I save from travel articles, instagram stories, and more! By saving places when I get recommendations along the way I'm able to solve "what should we do for date night" all the way to the cold start problem when planning a trip. Now I start planning for a trip with places I really want to visit based on real life recommendations and can build around that. Another magic moment was when an international colleague came to visit my hometown and asked for recommendations. All the places I had been rating nearby were easy to put into a smart list and send over. For the first time this was organized, personal, and represented my real opinions. I'm so excited to see where the product evolves!
it's so clutch being able to share a list to answer the inevitable "where should I go?" when friends come to visit: https://north.industries/list/be... and they don't even need to download the app (looking at you, mom) to see it!
Wow, what a cool product, it will definitely help you find cool and recommended places and will save you a lot of time✨
I have had the chance to use this app for a while now and got to test it during our recent trip to Japan. It helped us find so many amazing places that I would have completely passed by otherwise. I am not always the best at planning ahead so the ease that this app brings to making a trip plan and then finding everything with quick filtering abilities has made planning much easier for me already. It also helps me find new places quickly if I don’t have a plan ahead of time. Need a place to eat? See what’s nearby on North. Need the highlights of a spot that you’ve never been to but your friends have? Get ahold of their North list of personal favorites.
I’ve been using North in beta and I’m obsessed. It’s great for planning upcoming trips, but I’m also loving it for exploring locally more thoroughly. By keeping places that aren’t in my usual rotation top of mind, it’s encouraged me to try new places more often. I’m super excited by where the social features are going and have had a lot of fun recently seeing what friends are saving in North.
@devontivona This is such a fantastic idea! North feels like the ultimate tool for anyone who loves discovering new places and sharing their experiences. I can already imagine how useful it will be for planning trips and finding hidden gems based on trusted recommendations from friends. The collaborative lists feature sounds particularly exciting—perfect for group trips or even just a night out with friends. Kudos on creating something that brings people closer through shared experiences! Can't wait to start using it. 🚀
Congrats to the North team 😋 This sounds like the perfect tool for organizing and sharing favorite spots with friends—excited to see how it enhances travel and local discovery!
I have had a chance to use North since early beta. It’s dreamy for the tons of moments where someone raves about a place or thing that I know I will be near eventually, but not in a timeframe that will be remembered by my memory. Now I take those recos and place them contextually in North lists for future reference. I also do this with memorable spots or itineraries that I want to hold on to for the future or to share with friends the next time someone asks something random like “where should we stay in Indy” (there is a place! It’s amazing!). Great UX, upbeat, loving tone and a huge solve for the increasing number of use cases that arise for me that coincide perfectly with North.
Great timing as it seems that Foursquare City Guide has finally shat the bed!
I've been looking for something like this. I've tried Google Maps, a custom Notion template, and a couple other trip apps but hope this really works well. Will put North through its paces for my upcoming Asia trip.