CrossRoads

Meet people who move like you. See who’s nearby and who’s heading where you’re heading, then connect through activities, events, and shared interests.

Comment

Inspiration

We joined RevenueCat Shipyard: Creator Contest because we genuinely love building and the moment we saw the creator-brief format, we knew we had to try it. There’s something really fun about taking someone’s vision and turning it into a real product, especially when it’s for a specific community with real needs. We wanted to build something the community would use everyday.

With CrossRoads, we feel we found a simple, enjoyable way for people in the van life/nomad community to connect in a way that also solves the influencer’s core problem: creating meaningful engagement without it turning into chaos or risk. A big focus for us was making it feel safe and respectful, not just social, so we designed with privacy-first and safety-first flows in mind.

What it does

CrossRoads is a dating + friends app built for nomads who don’t stay in one place.

  • Swipe for Dating or Friends depending on what you’re looking for
  • Interests-based matching to connect with people who share your vibe
  • Events + Route Dashboard to find people at events nearby or on your route
  • Daily Activity Posts: share what you want to do today and match based on shared plans
  • Builders Hub: ask for help or offer skills to support each other on the road

The goal: turn “passing through” into real connections.

How we built it

We built CrossRoads using:

  • TypeScript / JavaScript
  • Expo (React Native) for iOS, Android, and Web
  • Supabase for Auth, PostgreSQL Database, and Storage
  • Google Maps API for location, route planning, and nearby discovery
  • RevenueCat for subscriptions/monetization
  • EAS for builds and releases

Challenges we ran into

  • Safety + privacy design: balancing location-based discovery with protecting users’ exact whereabouts
  • Route-based discovery UX: making “nearby” and “on your route” feel simple and intuitive
  • Hackathon scope control: so many good ideas—keeping the MVP focused enough to ship
  • Cross-platform quirks: maps + permissions across iOS/Android/Web
  • Matching + feed modeling: swipe state, mutual matches, daily posts, and events under time pressure
  • RevenueCat integration: adding paywall/subscription flows cleanly without breaking UX

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Shipped a working MVP that feels like a real product
  • Built multiple ways to connect: swiping, events, daily plans, and skill-based community support
  • Designed with a safety-first mindset (control over sharing, respectful flows, privacy considerations)
  • Integrated a production-grade stack (Expo + Supabase + Google Maps + RevenueCat) in hackathon time

What we learned

  • Location-based social products require extra care around trust, privacy, and UX clarity
  • In community apps, safety is not a feature—it’s part of the core experience

What's next for CrossRoads

  • Safety Check-In: choose a trusted contact to notify if anything goes wrong, plus an automatic 2-hour check-up
  • Badges + gamification: earn badges through positive interactions, events, and helpful Builders Hub contributions
  • Scratch Map: a fun travel layer that “scratches off” parts of the map where you’ve been
  • Smarter matching: improve recommendations using interests + route overlap + daily activity intent
  • Polish + launch: refine onboarding, improve safety flows, and strengthen performance for real-world release

Built With

Share this project:

Updates