BridgeTheGapSF

Inspiration

San Francisco experienced the steepest decline in the number of business establishments among American cities after the Covid-19 pandemic. Many small businesses were forced to close, leaving many ground floor vacancies, especially in the Financial District and in the Union Square and Mid-Market areas. Not only are they affected by vandalism and shoplifting, but other issues such as homelessness, poor safety and dirtiness have reduced foot traffic on the streets, decreasing the amount of available customers. The idea behind our website is to bridge the gap between consumers and local businesses, by creating a space where, whether you are an owner or you just stumbled upon a hidden gem in the city, you can share your experience with a small business to enhance their visibility. Aided by the forum-like interface, business owners can open up about the challenges they have had to face and advertise their activity. As many small entrepreneurs, especially those belonging to minorities, are struggling to sustain themselves, we also decided to provide a space where they can locate some resources for free food and clothes.

What it does

This website allows businessowners to proudly display their businesses to the local community who can in turn engage with and discover new businesses and help them succeed.

How we built it

Using Supabase, React, TailwindCSS, NextJS

Challenges we ran into

Getting authentication to work and deployment...

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Getting authentication to work!

What we learned

We learned to use databases and work with NextJS.

What's next for BridgeTheGapSF

Adding more functionalities to the website. Moreover, an idea came up about implementing a chatbot to help people find the ideal small business to go visit based on what they were looking for specifically, but we did not have much time left for it. Also, getting the GoogleMaps API to work so users can quickly view how far these businesses are.