Day Weave

DayWeave transforms Google Maps into an AI discovery engine - turning 3-hour planning into 30-second surprises. My algorithms use Maps APIs to find hidden gems you'd never discover alone.

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Day Weave – Plan Less, Discover More

Inspiration

Day Weave was born from two deeply personal frustrations that I believe millions share.

While planning my boyfriend's birthday trip to Switzerland, I spent weeks researching activities, restaurants, and logistics. I had Excel spreadsheets, bookmarked pages, and a 4 page itinerary document. What should have been fun became exhausting. Despite living in our area for years, weekends began with aimless scrolling on Google Maps. With limited money and local knowledge, we always ended up at the same places. It felt uninspired and time-consuming.

This idea simmered for over two years. From education to tech, I wanted to explore how my creativity and AI integrations could solve everyday problems. Why should planning travel be so hard? Day Weave helps you plan less so you discover more.

What It Does

Day Weave is an AI-powered day-planning tool that creates instant, personalised itineraries. No spreadsheets, no stress, all fun.

Spontaneous Mode (Surprise me!) uses AI to uncover hidden gems over tourist traps. Your itinerary reveals one step at a time for real-world adventure. Perfect for spontaneous explorers who love surprises.

Planner Mode (Help me plan!) offers full customization of budget, timing, and interests. Get your entire itinerary upfront, ideal for organised travellers who like control (like me).

Smart Integration adapts to real-time weather, live events and dining availability, seamless Google Maps-powered directions, and booking links. Multi-API orchestration coordinates transport, events, and dining into one cohesive experience.

Social Features include secure user accounts, saved plans, and shareable itineraries, with future collaborative group planning capabilities.

How I Built It

Day Weave is built using modern, scalable tools to support rapid iteration and real-world use.

Tech Stack

  • Development Platform: Bolt.new for foundational development.
  • Frontend: React + TypeScript with hot reload capabilities
  • Database: Supabase with user auth and Row-Level Security
  • Deployment: Netlify with custom domain (dayweave.com via IONOS)
  • APIs: Google Maps, OpenWeather
  • AI: Google Gemini for intelligent itinerary generation

Thanks to the excitement I had foe this project, I was able to go from idea to working product so quickly that I even had the confidence to approach strangers in London and ask them to test DayWeave during their actual trips. Seeing tourists get genuinely excited about using something I built – that's when I knew we had something special.

Architecture

This system uses secure API orchestration with all sensitive keys protected server-side through Supabase Edge Functions. This ensures scalability while maintaining security. The responsive, mobile-first UI built with Tailwind CSS provides seamless experiences across all devices.

Key Technical Features

  • Multi-API coordination for real-time data fusion
  • Intelligent prompt engineering for personalized AI recommendations
  • Secure authentication with plan persistence across sessions
  • Weather-reactive planning that adapts recommendations automatically
  • Google Maps integration for real-world routing and POI validation
  • Deep use of Place Details, Directions, and Maps URLs APIs to ensure itinerary stops are relevant, reachable, and interactive

Challenges I Overcame

Learning Curve: Transitioning from education to tech, learning Edge Functions and coordinating APIs was daunting. I leveraged Claude.ai to ask educational questions about concepts I didn't understand (of which there were many), helping me learn complex topics like database schemas and API orchestration more efficiently. The breakthrough came when I realised each API failure was teaching me something new about robust system design.

API Complexity: Combining Google Maps, weather data, and event services while ensuring performance required careful orchestration. Getting Gemini AI to consistently generate quality recommendations demanded extensive prompt engineering and fallback handling.

Database Design: Designing robust schemas with Supabase and enforcing security via Row-Level Security required deep understanding of modern databases. Managing user sessions while preserving plan continuity across devices proved particularly challenging.

Perfectionism vs Progress: Learning to focus on "done" rather than "perfect" became crucial for hackathon success. The first time everything worked together — when a user got their first complete itinerary — I was absolutely ecstatic. It WORKED!

Accomplishments I'm Proud Of

Personal Growth: I'm incredibly proud of building and deploying a complete working application. Going from idea to reality, learning everything from frontend development to prompt engineering, represents a massive personal achievement. It's been amazing to share this journey with others who supported me.

Technical Wins: Live website with secure user authentication, multi-API integration with real-time data, fully responsive mobile-first UI, and production deployment at dayweave.com. The moment when all the APIs first worked together perfectly was pure magic.

User Validation: Real people are already using Day Weave for actual trips. When my first user said "Wait....I actually need this. I have a trip coming up, can I use it?" my heart absolutely soared. Knowing that an idea from my head has not only improved my days out and adventures, but other people want to use it too. That's everything.

User Feedback Results: Based on beta testing with real users:

  • 100% found Day Weave easy to navigate (5/5 rating)
  • 100% would use the tool in the future
  • 90% prefer the "Surprise Me!" feature over traditional planning
  • Average generation time: Under 2 minutes
  • Average accuracy rating: 4.8/5 for matching preferences
  • Zero reported bugs or errors during beta testing

Business Potential

Created a viable business model with clear revenue paths in the leisure and travel planning market. User feedback shows strong demand for premium features like multi-day planning, group collaboration, and integrated booking.

Revenue Model: Clear path to profitability through freemium subscription tiers

  • Free Explorer: 3 monthly plans (user acquisition)
  • Local Adventurer: £2.99/month unlimited local + group features
  • Global Explorer: £4.99/month unlimited international + premium support
  • Tourist Pass: £1.99 one-time for holiday travellers

This model reduces friction while maximizing lifetime value – free users experience the magic, then naturally upgrade as their planning needs grow.

What I Learned

Technical: API orchestration, rate limits, and fallback handling became second nature. Supabase schemas, authentication, and Row-Level Security provided deep database knowledge. Prompt engineering for personalized AI experiences taught me how to make AI truly useful. End-to-end development pipelines with Netlify showed me modern deployment practices.

Product: Translating personal pain points into scalable solutions requires constant user feedback. MVP-first thinking, build core value, then iterate, proved essential. The difference between building what's technically possible versus what users actually want became crystal clear when beta testers started providing real feedback. Letting go of perfection, and embracing the ever changing world of tech.

Personal: As someone with learning difficulties entering tech, this hackathon showed me there's absolutely space for people like me in the industry. The structure, tools, and community made all the difference. Every API integration that finally worked, every user who said they'd actually use Day Weave, built my confidence as a developer.

User testimonials like "Such a fun and genuinely useful idea! I'd use the hell out of this" and "This would be super cool for planning dates!" validated that solving my own problem could help others too.

What's Next

Immediate Roadmap: Collect feedback from early users, add group planning functionality, launch native mobile app, and expand API partnerships for booking and local businesses.

Growth Strategy: Reach 10,000+ users with 15% converting to paid plans. Day Weave already works globally – users are planning trips worldwide. Add multi-day trip planning capabilities. Launch B2B integrations with hotels, tourism boards, and travel agencies. Dual revenue stream through subscriptions and affiliate commissions.

Investment and Expansion: I'm actively learning about raising funding and turning this into a real company. The positive user response and clear market need give me confidence that Day Weave can become something much bigger than a hackathon project.

Long-Term Vision: From a weekend planner to a global discovery engine, Day Weave aims to become the future of serendipitous discovery. I'm building more than an app; I'm creating a new way for people to experience the world around them.

Final Thoughts

This hackathon helped me bring a long-standing idea to life and turn personal frustration into a working product that people actually want to use. Seeing real users planning actual trips with something I built from scratch has been incredibly fulfilling.

Day Weave isn't just a project, it's the beginning of my journey as a developer and entrepreneur. Every challenge overcome, every user who finds value in the app, every piece of feedback received has taught me something new about building products people love.

The fact that beta testers are saying things like "I love this. It made everything so easy to do. I'll be using this in my upcoming trip to Lisbon!" proves that sometimes the best solutions come from solving your own problems first.

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