Zipper — The Social Media Map

Overview

Zipper is an iOS social media application I founded and built from the ground up. The core idea: an interactive, map-based feed that surfaces places and events happening near you in real time, connecting people to their physical surroundings in a way traditional social feeds don't. I designed the product, wrote over 30,000 lines of Swift, integrated a Firebase NoSQL backend, and shipped it to the App Store.

Key Features

• •Interactive map-based feed surfacing nearby places and events in real time
• •Full-stack iOS application with 30,000+ lines of Swift
• •Firebase NoSQL database for real-time data sync
• •User onboarding, profile management, and content creation flows
• •Beta testing program with structured focus groups to guide iteration

Challenges

Building and shipping a consumer social product solo meant wearing every hat simultaneously — engineering, design, marketing, and ops. Balancing feature development against user feedback loops while maintaining code quality across a 30k-line codebase was the central challenge.

Outcomes

Reached the Top 100 Social Media apps in Canada within one week of release. Ran a 250-person launch party and grew to 1,000+ users. Beta testing and focus groups directly informed product iterations post-launch.

Screenshots