VanJam

VanJam is the trusted social network for the van-life community. We solve the biggest challenge nomads face: safely connecting with like-minded travelers on the road.

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Inspiration

The project was inspired by the challenge of building meaningful relationships while constantly moving. In van-life communities, safety and credibility are essential. That shaped our core direction: invite-only access, richer profile context, builder help along with reporting as foundational product features.

What it does

  1. Invite-only onboarding to keep the network intentional
  2. Rich profiles that reflect travel lifestyle and intent
  3. Discovery flows for both friendship and dating
  4. Community and member exploration
  5. Real-time chat after connection
  6. Builder Posts for practical help on van projects
  7. Reporting and feedback mechanisms for safer interactions and faster iteration

Challenges we ran into

  1. Designing for two use cases at once: social connection and practical builder support
  2. Keeping discovery fast while preserving community safety and trust
  3. Creating profile depth without adding onboarding friction
  4. Balancing feature scope versus polish within hackathon timelines
  5. Turning a strong technical build into a story judges can relate to quickly

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Submitting on time :)

What's next for VanJam

Run closed beta testing with real van-life communities to validate what works and what doesn't and do more of what works!

Note: Invite code for testing is - VANJAM

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