Grass: Independent Shop Map

An independent, local business map. Spend where it stays.

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Inspiration

A frustrating personal experience at the vet led us to make a short video about private equity's influence on vet clinics. It exploded on Instagram and the resulting series gained 4 million views and 50,000+ followers. The comments were filled with this question - "Awareness is great, but how can I take action?"

What it does

Grass is a map of independent local businesses so you can spend money where it'll stay - in your community.

How we built it

Sourced private equity and ethical ownership data through partnerships we built as a result of our content taking off, and put that into an open React Native maps app.

Challenges we ran into

Well, we were building something completely different before our newfound audience ripped us in a new direction. So adapting to that on the fly was challenging, but I think we're proud of the adjustment.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

50,000 followers on Instagram 5 million views $5,000 per month funding from WayToWin to keep building Grass and creating grassroots content Interviewed by the Guardian for a feature article on how creators are exposing Private Equity

What we learned

Your audience will tell you exactly what they want, you just have to listen.

What's next for Grass

Continuing to build our userbase, data source partnerships, and building out advertising tools for ethical local brands

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