Why I built maple

It started with a group chat. Someone asked for that little dinner spot from last spring, and the answer was buried under three hundred messages and a screenshot nobody could find. We were all hoarding the same recommendations — in notes apps, in saved posts, in our heads — and none of it lived anywhere we could actually share. I wanted one map: the places I love, the places my friends swear by, all in a spot I could open without scrolling past a single stranger.

So I built maple around what it would never be. No public feed to perform for. No strangers wandering through your map. No live location quietly broadcasting where you are. Every pin is placed by hand, because the places worth keeping are the ones you actually chose — and every map is private by default, shared only with the people you decide to let in.

maple is still early, and that’s the point. I’m building it slowly and in the open, shaping it around the people who use it rather than the other way around. If a private map shared with the people you trust sounds like something you’ve been missing too, I’d love for you to come along while it’s still taking shape.