When I started building BeThere, I wanted to solve a problem I kept running into: social events in Switzerland are still organised through chaotic WhatsApp groups, scattered Instagram posts, or word-of-mouth — with no central place to actually manage or discover them.
BeThere was a privacy-first event app that allowed people to create, discover, and join events in a structured way. Private events stayed private through invite codes, while public events could be discovered on a map — without turning social plans into an ad-driven feed.
Tech Stack#
- React Native (Expo) — cross-platform mobile with a single codebase for iOS and Android.
- Supabase — PostgreSQL database, authentication, row-level security, and real-time subscriptions.
- Row Level Security (RLS) — access control for private events, invitations, and host permissions enforced directly at the database level.
- MapLibre — open-source maps for event discovery without Google Maps.
The Hard Part#
Designing a data model that supports both public discovery and private invite-only events without leaking information between them. The solution was combining Supabase authentication with strict RLS policies: the frontend stays simple, and all the critical rules live in the database.
Why It Stopped#
The idea had real potential, but the app required enough people using it to be useful — the classic cold-start problem for social products in a small market. I decided to stop and redirect my time toward projects that don't depend on network effects to work from day one. The codebase stays as a reference.
