TownHubs

Turn local services, activities and experiences into bookable tiles. From pet sitting to hikes and tea parties—discover, book and pay in one place. Don’t swipe for a date. Swipe for real value.

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TownHubs

Inspiration

Many online platforms ask people to list their interests, hobbies, or services, but those interests often remain static profile information rather than leading to meaningful action. Someone may enjoy hiking, dog walking, fitness, outdoor adventures, community events, tutoring, or local workshops, yet existing platforms rarely help them seamlessly discover, organise, book, and participate in those experiences.

TownHubs was created to bridge that gap.

Originally developed through Outdoor Hounds, a marketplace for pet care and outdoor experiences, TownHubs evolved into a configurable AI-powered platform capable of supporting virtually any local service, activity, event, or experience.

Rather than replacing human interaction, TownHubs uses AI to remove administrative overhead so providers can spend more time delivering exceptional experiences and less time managing bookings, calendars, customer enquiries, marketing, scheduling, and day-to-day operations.

Our vision is simple:

Don't just browse experiences. Discover them, book them, and let AI handle the work behind the scenes.

What it does

TownHubs is an AI-powered marketplace platform for discovering, booking, and managing local services, activities, and experiences.

Customers can discover providers through a swipe-based interface, browse listings, select available times, make bookings, and complete payments online.

Unlike a traditional marketplace focused on a single industry, TownHubs provides a flexible platform capable of supporting providers across numerous categories, including:

  • Dog walking and pet sitting
  • Guided hikes and outdoor adventures
  • Fitness sessions
  • Workshops
  • Private tutoring
  • Community events
  • Local markets
  • Personal coaching
  • One-on-one experiences
  • Group activities

Each listing supports configurable:

  • Pricing
  • Availability
  • Booking windows
  • Capacity limits
  • Locations
  • Recurring schedules
  • Privacy settings
  • Public, private, group, or one-on-one bookings

Outdoor Hounds serves as the first production marketplace built on TownHubs, demonstrating how the platform can support an industry-specific community while remaining flexible enough to power many others.

Beyond marketplace functionality, TownHubs integrates AI throughout the business lifecycle.

AI assists providers by:

  • Generating listings
  • Writing descriptions
  • Recommending pricing
  • Optimising booking schedules
  • Answering customer enquiries
  • Managing availability
  • Sending reminders
  • Producing operational insights
  • Generating marketing content
  • Analysing customer demand

Customers enjoy a streamlined booking experience while providers gain an AI assistant that continuously helps operate and grow their business.

Innovation

TownHubs combines three capabilities that are traditionally delivered by separate platforms:

  • Marketplace discovery
  • Intelligent booking management
  • AI-powered business operations

Most marketplaces stop once a customer discovers a service.

TownHubs continues beyond discovery.

AI agents actively assist providers by automating repetitive administrative work while allowing humans to retain control over strategic and customer-focused decisions.

Rather than becoming another listing website, TownHubs is designed to become an AI-powered operating system for local service businesses.

The platform combines:

  • AI-assisted operations
  • Real-time booking
  • Payment processing
  • Customer engagement
  • Provider management
  • Intelligent scheduling

within a single configurable platform.

This enables independent providers, community organisers, and small businesses to operate with capabilities that would traditionally require dedicated administrative staff.

AI-Native Operations

TownHubs has been designed around the principle that AI should actively operate business workflows rather than simply assist users.

AI agents perform tasks including:

  • Creating provider listings
  • Improving listing descriptions
  • Categorising services
  • Recommending prices
  • Managing provider calendars
  • Optimising bookings
  • Responding to common customer enquiries
  • Detecting booking conflicts
  • Generating reminders
  • Creating marketing campaigns
  • Producing operational analytics

Human users remain responsible for:

  • Strategic business decisions
  • Exceptional customer situations
  • Financial oversight
  • Final approval of critical actions

This creates an AI-first operating model where routine business operations are continuously managed by autonomous systems while providers remain in control.

How we built it

TownHubs is built as a modern cloud-native platform designed to support multiple marketplace implementations from a common architecture.

Outdoor Hounds is the first marketplace powered by this platform.

Frontend technologies include:

  • React
  • React Native
  • Expo

Backend services include:

  • FastAPI
  • Express
  • tRPC

Data is stored using:

  • MySQL

Authentication uses:

  • Google OAuth

Payments are processed through:

  • PayPal

Infrastructure includes:

  • Docker
  • Docker Compose
  • Kubernetes
  • Google Cloud

The platform separates business logic across independently deployable services while sharing a common database architecture.

This modular architecture allows new marketplace categories to be introduced without requiring major architectural changes.

Challenges we ran into

One of the largest engineering challenges was designing a marketplace flexible enough to support many different business types.

A dog walking booking behaves differently from:

  • A hiking event
  • A private lesson
  • A recurring service
  • A workshop
  • A community activity

Rather than creating separate applications for every industry, we designed a configurable booking architecture capable of supporting multiple business models using shared business logic and configurable metadata.

Another significant challenge involved authentication, payments, and permissions.

Users unlock different platform capabilities through verified payments.

Ensuring these permissions remain secure across:

  • Google OAuth
  • PayPal
  • Web
  • Mobile
  • Backend services
  • Database records

required careful implementation of authentication, authorisation, session persistence, and payment verification.

The backend remains the single source of truth for all permissions, ensuring secure entitlement management regardless of the client platform.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that TownHubs has evolved from a pet-focused marketplace into a configurable AI-powered platform capable of supporting almost any local service-based business.

Outdoor Hounds demonstrates the flexibility of the platform while validating the architecture for broader marketplace applications.

Key accomplishments include:

  • Full-stack web platform
  • Mobile application
  • Swipe-based discovery
  • Flexible booking engine
  • Google OAuth integration
  • Secure payments
  • Provider management
  • AI-assisted workflows
  • Cloud deployment
  • Containerised infrastructure
  • Kubernetes deployment
  • Modular marketplace architecture

Most importantly, we've created a reusable platform capable of powering multiple industries while remaining intuitive for both customers and providers.

What we learned

Building a configurable marketplace platform requires significantly more than creating listings.

A production-ready platform must solve challenges involving:

  • Authentication
  • Authorisation
  • Scheduling
  • Payments
  • Security
  • Availability
  • Notifications
  • Infrastructure
  • Deployment
  • User experience

We also learned that AI delivers its greatest value by removing repetitive operational work rather than replacing human judgement.

Combining AI automation with human oversight enables providers to operate more efficiently while maintaining control over important business decisions.

Designing TownHubs as a reusable platform rather than a single marketplace has also reinforced the importance of modular architecture, extensibility, and configurable business workflows.

What's next

TownHubs is evolving into an AI-native operating platform for local service businesses and community marketplaces.

Future development includes:

  • AI booking optimisation
  • Autonomous scheduling agents
  • Dynamic pricing recommendations
  • Customer support agents
  • AI marketing automation
  • Intelligent provider analytics
  • Location-aware recommendations
  • Ratings and reviews
  • Secure messaging
  • Provider verification
  • Customer loyalty features
  • Calendar synchronisation
  • Automated refunds
  • AI-powered fraud detection

As the platform matures, additional marketplaces will be built on TownHubs in the same way that Outdoor Hounds demonstrates its capabilities today.

Our long-term vision is for TownHubs to become a configurable AI marketplace platform that enables entrepreneurs, independent providers, community organisations, and small businesses to launch and operate AI-powered marketplaces with enterprise-level automation while making it easier for customers to discover, book, and participate in meaningful real-world experiences.

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