Crowdy

Background

Our story

We started with a simple idea: help Singaporeans avoid crowds by crowdsourcing real-time data about how busy places are. But we quickly discovered the fatal flaw in traditional crowdsourcing - you need lots of people consistently reporting everywhere for it to work. While this might succeed at popular spots like Orchard Road, your neighbourhood clinic or hawker stall would likely have no data when you need it most. So we pivoted: instead of focusing solely on crowd data, we built a "Reddit on a map" where users can ask for any real-time location intelligence when they actually need it - from crowd levels to store closures to unexpected sales - ensuring every question has someone who cares about the answer.

User flow illustration of Crowdy

Velocity

In just one month, we built a working app where Singaporeans can check what's happening at any location. You can search for places, start conversations about current conditions (e.g. "Stall is having usually long queue time of 30 minutes!!!"), and get notified when others post updates. At our prototype demonstration, we had >150k searchable location pins across Singapore that allowed thread creation.

Welcome page that users are greeted with

Opportunity

Every day, Singaporeans waste time arriving at crowded hawker centres, closed shops, or busy clinics without knowing what to expect. You might queue 20 minutes for lunch when you only have 10, or travel across town to find a shop unexpectedly closed.

Existing apps that try to solve this fail because they need lots of people constantly reporting from every location. Most places don't have enough regular visitors to keep information fresh, so these apps become unreliable and people stop using them.

Better real-time information about crowds, closures, and what's happening at local businesses could save millions of Singaporeans time and frustration every day, while helping businesses plan better too.

The app includes safety features to keep information reliable - discussions automatically expire after 2 hours (Pinned locations set by system lasts longer) to stay current, and our systems moderate inappropriate content. Users can upvote or downvote posts like on familiar platforms.

During our internal testing sessions of ~10 users, 95% successfully posted updates within 30 seconds

In the future, we would like to further our work with combining community posts with official data like shop opening hours, which will provide reliable information even when fewer people are posting.

Pinned location selected on Crowdy

Traction

We haven't launched publicly yet, but early testing shows promise. When we showed the app to people, they immediately got it and started sharing ideas: "I'd check if my bubble tea shop has a queue" or "I could see if that store is actually open before travelling there."

On Demo day of HFPG26, we had ~7 threads with about ~50 comments.

How user threads and pinned threads are seen from app

The real test comes next: will people actually help each other by sharing real-time location updates? Our upcoming user trials will show whether Singaporeans are ready to build a community around sharing local intelligence together. The goal remains the same: Provide more geo-based and relevant intelligence for Singaporeans to make smarter decisions about when and where to go.

Our team! :)