Organize places you want to visit on a map.
Discover favorite spots through community posts.
Find and connect with people who share your tastes.
Organize favorite spots into curated lists and share them.

Inspiration

Today, there are countless ways to discover restaurants—from search engines to review sites and social media. Yet even after scrolling through endless options, we often find ourselves wondering, “Is this place really right for me?”

That led us to a simple question: What if, instead of chasing the most popular spots, we could find places that match our unique tastes? And what if, instead of relying on generic ratings, we could discover places through people who share our preferences?

That idea became SAMI MAP—a social platform for discovering food and spots. On SAMI MAP, you can discover new favorites through others, while passing along your own favorite spots to the next person.

What it does

SAMI MAP is a social platform built around a simple idea: discovering places through people. Users can: ・Discover restaurants and spots through other users’ posts ・Connect with and follow people with similar tastes ・Bookmark places they want to visit or revisit ・Organize saved spots into personal collections ・Build their own personalized food map ・Share favorite spots and curated collections with others ・Engage with the community through likes and comments

We aim to create a continuous loop where one person’s “favorites” become someone else’s next discovery.

How we built it

SAMI MAP is a full-stack application available on both web and iOS.

Frontend: React, Vite, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn/ui Backend & Database: Spring Boot and MyBatis, paired with PostgreSQL hosted on Supabase Auth & Maps: Supabase Auth for authentication, Apple MapKit for mapping and location data Infrastructure: Hosted on Google Cloud Run Mobile: Capacitor to bring the web app into a native iOS experience Monetization: Integrated RevenueCat to manage in-app subscriptions

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was designing an intuitive UI for an experience fundamentally different from traditional search tools like Google Maps. We wanted users to explore places through multiple lenses—people, posts, areas, food categories, and occasions—without feeling overwhelmed. Achieving this balance required constant UI iterations and simplification.

We also faced the technical and operational hurdles of launching a production-ready iOS app, including authentication, App Store guidelines, user-generated content (UGC) moderation, and subscription management. Seamlessly tying maps, location data, social feeds, auth, and payments together into a single fluid experience was a major undertaking.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

Building SAMI MAP taught us that for a social product, merely stacking features isn't enough—it's all about how seamlessly each user action flows into the next.

At the core of SAMI MAP is a simple loop: Discover → Save → Visit → Share → Inspire

We also gained invaluable hands-on experience navigating the complexities of shipping a real-world product, from cloud infrastructure and map integrations to App Store submission and subscription workflows.

What's next for SAMI MAP

Next, we want to make discovery even more personalized by refining our recommendation algorithms to connect people with similar tastes.

We also plan to expand our Collections and Map features and bring SAMI MAP beyond Japan to users worldwide.

Your “favorites” can become someone else’s next discovery. We want SAMI MAP to be the platform where people connect through food and explore the world through each other.