Show HN: Bathroom App – Find bathrooms near you

[george-costanza]

https://www.bathroom.app/

Hey HN! We created Bathroom App - a free webapp to find bathrooms. Currently live in San Francisco.

I've lived in SF, NYC and Vancouver and while all of these cities are very different, one thing that's shared is that it's a struggle to find bathrooms. I've had close calls where I've ran to 2-3 different places asking to use their bathroom before finally finding one. It's stressful and COVID has made it even harder.

A "toilet finder" is not a new idea but the existing apps are disappointing. I've tried them all and they're either littered with bad data or don't have important information like access details (e.g. codes), cleanliness ratings, amenities(tampons, baby changing table etc.) and bathroom type (gender neutral, private or shared etc.).

The challenge is for this to be helpful, the data needs to be there and it needs to be reliable. Our playbook is to launch in a major city > collect seed data ourselves > allow user input > manually verify new bathroom submissions or edits.

For example, in San Francisco, we added publicly available data. Then, we added chains that have free bathrooms like Target, Safeway etc. And finally, we identified bathroom deserts, walked around those areas and mapped free bathrooms (we did that for 100+ bathrooms...it took a while). The result is a map that's valuable to people on day 1 - and we've already had locals contributing to it since we've launched.

I've found that people who are particular about cleanliness, travel a ton or have IBS appreciate this product the most. But for most people, it's the kind of product you may not need daily, but when you DO need it, you'll be thankful for its existence :)

[1970-01-01]

It's been done before: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeisaac/2010/12/09/public-bat...

George Costanza had this startup idea in his head: https://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/anywhere-in-the-city-anywhe...

[george-costanza → 1970-01-01]

In all seriousness, you’re absolutely right. I can name 10+ apps, it is not a new idea.

But I have found existing apps have been abandoned, lack data or a system to keep data accurate over time. That’s partly my motivation for doing this today.

And people seem to value it already! I had gotten a ton of positive feedback.

[fancyFox]

Really like the brand identity you went with as well as the methodology to guarantee the quality of your data.

I'm sure you're already aware but my guess is that this methodology could be a friction to scale to other locations. Really curious to see how you'll go around this challenge as well as what solution you'll find for monetizing the project.

All the best for this cool unconventional app

[george-costanza → fancyFox]

Thanks! You're on the money with the challenges for this product.

For scaling, it's a fair question when you start thinking about this on a global level. The current plan is to launch in the high-value cities like NYC, Portland, Chicago etc., which isn't unrealistic. We have to put in sweat equity before we can expect any user contribution and maybe we can reach an inflection point where user contribution takes over for us over time.

We also need keep the site free for consumers to encourage contribution, so I don't have a good answer for monetization yet.

[siamese_puff]

Id be more interested scaling this into Europe. In Italy I couldn’t find bathrooms anywhere and had to pay a euro to use anything public.

In the US, I can usually always find something close. Also life hack, but you can waltz into almost any hotel lobby and use the restroom.

Congrats on the launch! I also realized this sector is lacking good apps

[gregjor]

Not to crap on your idea, but convenience apps like this seem to mainly allow people not to simply ask. In my six decades I have learned both where I might find a toilet (Target, Safeway, gas station) and how to ask people when I need help.

Encouraging and enabling people to disengage and stare at a phone screen rather than talk to people seems corrosive to me.

I met a “founder” in Chiang Mai, Thailand who was developing this same app. He had the same rationale with the additional problem of language barrier. Travelers visiting Thailand should probably learn how to ask for the nearest hong nam on the flight over. The actual problem he intended to solve was social anxiety, not difficulty in finding toilets. When I told him that hotels usually have toilets in the lobby he said “Yeah but you have to ask to use them.” I can’t recall ever getting denied but I’m not anxious about talking to strangers either.

[george-costanza → gregjor]

Hmm, I did not think about it this way. Personally, I have no problem asking to use the bathroom.

The problem happens in places like NYC, where a sit-down restaurant with less than 9 seats is not legally required to have a bathroom. Or in SF where the TJ's next to my apartment has had an "out of order" bathroom forever. Or if you have IBS (5-10% of Americans) and need to use the bathroom right away, all of a sudden.

This is not typically as much of a problem outside of major cities though, more of a nice to have in that case.

[rocksalad]

What the hell.. :DD