I made a local shopping search engine for people who want to shop local but don't always know where to start. I thought I knew this neighborhood well, but I honestly had no idea that Shag carried incense. Dropping it here in case y'all find it useful, too. Feedback always appreciated...especially if I'm missing your favorite store!
Started this because every time I tried to find something local, like candles or clothing, I'd end up scrolling Amazon results or a Yelp page that tells me a shop exists, but not what they carry. This lets you search at the product level and see what local businesses actually have in stock.
I launched in Maine but wanted to try tackling NYC - how am I doing? What local brands will you go out of your way to find? I'm still trying to add neighborhoods (BK is BIG), are there also any retailers or categories I'm missing?
As someone who often builds by myself on limited budgets, user testing ends up being a huge time/cost burden that I really want to overcome. Are there any other viable approaches in the early stages where expensive human testing is not feasible? Can agentic testing help at all?
For reference, I really enjoyed the few User Brain sessions I've done (although $50/session hurts after a while), and I enjoyed Synthetic Users purely for the entertainment value of watching an agent struggle with a touch-oriented website.
edit: can't decide if my flair should be strategy or junior question...