gdj.ba

Overview

It all began on a sunny day, being out in a cafe working remotely. I got hungry and found myself thinking about places to eat. Realized I'm stuck in a loop with the same restaurants, and I've run out of new places to try. And that's how gdj.ba came to mind.

gdj.ba is a small app built with Claude & designed by me to help me & my friends stop being indecisive when looking for a place to eat. While I built it primarily for my friends and me, I had all the freedom in the world to make it whatever I wanted.

What am I solving?

The biggest problem I've been facing is the fact that we have WAAAAY too many options on Google Places & Maps, but we cannot filter per our needs. There's no filter per cuisine type, or price, or some other small details that make my experience 10/10. When I go out with friends, we always hit the same places where we actually memorized the menu.

Who am I helping out?

Two years ago, when I actually started with this idea, I spent some time doing boring stuff, such as gathering user research and collecting feedback on the idea, and I actually received plenty of useful information that helped me shape the product.

Some of the statistics I received are:

• 73 responses in total
• 45% rated indecisiveness as their primary issue when looking for a place to eat
• 96% said a tool like gdj.ba would help, whereas 55% of these said they'd definitely use it.

What I actually did?

While this app isn't huge, I still have solid plans on how to scale it in the future. Although it's a bit strange to someone that I am investing time and resources into something I don't expect any revenue from, the smile still beams on my face when someone actually uses the tool.

I've conceptualized the app to be user-friendly, and scale up the features on the go. While this is a vibe-coded tool, I've invested time in design with a goal to reduce the AI design slop online.

Overall, the app has 2 main branches:

User-facing branch

User-facing branch is what a guest user sees when they access gdj.ba. It's a front row of the experience, and I wanted to make it as simple as possible, but yet to keep the design on point.

The first thing users will notice is a wooden wheel that will show the food options, and when you filter, it will update the contents inside to match your selection.

The main action is Filter and spin which opens a modal, and the user has all the freedom in the world to click through whatever they want, and eventually land on a place that they always wanted.

I've managed to display the filters in the most intuitive way but yet to keep it simple for all sorts of users to choose between.

The reason why I used the modal here instead of a wizard or a sheet is because it's the best element for these purposes. If I'd used a wizard, I would've had to force users to go through some "defined by me" steps that would eventually result in a proper selection. It'd also be super slow, and it'd force people, which I don't like. Sheet would make more sense if I had some content in the background that I would want to see updating, but I didn't need that here.

The app is also fully responsive because 94% of visitors are visiting from mobile devices, therefore I had to ensure that the experience on mobile devices is seamless.

Backend branch

Backend branch is what I actually built first, because if I waited for a great idea to come to mind and begin with the actual app, I'd never start.

It's basically the backend where users (admins and collaborators) have access to add places, tweak filters, and some more stuff.

While we're adding places by hand, and curating the filters to be as accurate as possible, I wanted to introduce the Collaborator role that will help us out.

Collaborator role basically has to be invited by an admin, and they can only Suggest Places that are later approved by admins. Today we have a few collaborators that actually suggest places and they're daily improving our platform.

Both user groups are logged in through the same flow, but each role has permitted views.

Results, speak up!

I haven't advertised gdj.ba anywhere so far, it was just a link share with my close friends, and word-of-mouth marketing. Therefore, these numbers describe a small, real group of people using the app repeatedly.

• 180 visitors in the last 30 days,
• 4-10X weekly usage,
• organic traffic source.

My biggest achievement here is that I finally launched something that helps the local community. I always wanted to contribute to my people somehow, without ever thinking about revenue. I often tell myself:

“You don't need to make money from everything you do! Just enjoy the process, and have fun while creating, results will shine eventually.”