Van Lifers Club

Inspiration

As a team pursuing independent product development full-time, we aspire to build products that enable location-independent work and the freedom to travel the world. Among all the hackathon ideas, Van Lifers Club resonated with us the most because it reflects freedom, mobility, and intentional living, values we strongly connect with.

The nomadic community is growing rapidly, yet it lacks a safe, structured platform built specifically for its lifestyle. We are motivated to create products that serve real communities and solve meaningful problems, rather than optimizing for short-term engagement metrics.

We would genuinely love to connect with people living the nomadic lifestyle. If this app helps them feel safer, less isolated, and more connected on the road, it would be incredibly meaningful for us. Building something valuable for a community we admire aligns perfectly with both our personal aspirations and our long-term vision as product builders.

What it does

Van life has grown significantly across the United States, with thousands choosing full-time or seasonal mobile living in vans, RVs, and converted vehicles. While the lifestyle offers freedom and flexibility, it often brings isolation, lack of structured community, and safety concerns when meeting new people. Existing platforms do not adequately serve this audience. Traditional dating apps are designed for static urban users and do not support travel timelines. Social media groups are noisy and unstructured. General travel communities lack identity verification and safety measures. Solo travelers, especially women and non-binary individuals, face heightened safety risks when connecting offline. Van lifers need a platform designed specifically for mobile living - one that prioritizes safety, mobility, and intentional connection. They need a way to meet others based on shared travel plans, compatible activities, and mutual goals such as dating, friendship, or van build collaboration. There is currently no dedicated, verified, timeline-aware platform solving this need.

How we built it

We built Van Lifers Club as a modern serverless application using SwiftUI on iOS and Firebase Cloud Functions for backend infrastructure.

The frontend uses Firestore for real-time data, Firebase Storage for media, FCM for notifications, and RevenueCat for subscription management. Identity verification is powered by Didit, while authentication and OTP flows are handled via better-auth and Twilio.

The backend is built with TypeScript + Express.js, with Zod for strict request validation and structured APIs for feed ranking, likes, matches, and notifications. The architecture is designed to be scalable, secure, and optimized for rapid iteration.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was building a trust-first system from day one. Integrating identity verification, OTP authentication, webhook handling, and session management required careful backend design.

Another challenge was designing the matching and feed logic in a way that feels intentional rather than gamified, especially for a niche nomadic community.

Balancing monetization (RevenueCat subscriptions) with early network density was also a key product decision.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a fully functional, scalable MVP with real-time chat and matching Implementing identity verification to increase safety and trust Designing a clean, modern SwiftUI experience Setting up a monetization system with introductory offers and founding member strategy Delivering a production-ready backend with structured APIs and validation

What we learned

We learned that building for a niche community requires deeper empathy than building for mass engagement. Trust and safety features cannot be an afterthought, they must shape the architecture from the beginning. We also reinforced the importance of clean backend structure, validation, and scalable infrastructure even at MVP stage.

What's next for Van Lifers Club

Next, we plan to: Improve feed ranking using smarter location and timeline overlap logic Introduce advanced filters and travel-based discovery Strengthen verification layers and moderation tools Expand beyond iOS Onboard early founding members and gather real-world feedback

Built With

• better-auth
• cloud
• didit
• express.js
• firebase
• messaging
• node.js
• revenuecat
• swift
• swiftui
• twilio
• typescript
• zod