Plott

Inspiration

I built Plott because I realized how chaotic planning hangouts had become for me and my friends. We were constantly creating new WhatsApp groups for every event, dealing with endless back-and-forth about who to invite, who could make it, timing conflicts, and location changes. The process was exhausting and often led to people missing out or events falling apart. I wanted to create something that would streamline all of this chaos while also opening up opportunities to meet new people through public events. The goal was to make social planning effortless and safe.

What it does

Plott transforms the messy world of group event planning into a smooth, organized experience. Users can create both private plotts for friends and public plotts for meeting new people. The app handles all the coordination automatically - from managing RSVPs to sending reminders to updating locations.

Key features include:

Creating private plotts for friends and family with full control over who joins. You can invite your friends who are already on the app straight from your contacts.
Creating public plotts for meeting new people with built-in safety features.
Required identity verification for creating public plotts to ensure the safety of everyone.
Application system for public plotts where organizers can review and approve users who want to join a public plott.
Smart reminder system that sends notifications to keep you updated with your plotts
Event discovery to find interesting plotts or activites in your area.

The safety aspect is paramount, public plotts require identity verification with a government issued ID.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest technical challenge was working with react-native-maps and navigating the different versions of the library. The map functionality was crucial for location-based features, but getting it to work on iOS was a nightmare. Different versions had conflicting APIs, spent countless hours debugging map rendering issues.

The App Store review process was equally challenging. Our app was rejected over 10 times due to the permissions it required - location access, contacts access, and notification permissions. Each rejection meant revising the requests and resubmitting. The app was finally accepted just 8 hours before the submission deadline during the submission extension, making it one of the most stressful parts of the entire development process.