Corner Is The New Social Travel Map That “Digitizes Word Of Mouth”
Corner is a new social media app that turns your memories into recommendations you can share with friends with a personalized social map.
The brainchild of Eliza Wu and Jake Xia, Corner aims to move away from the negativity and complaints of traditional review platforms and focus on sharing memorable experiences.
Meet the co-founders
Wu has an impressive background with a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Southern California and worked as an Investment Intern during her time there.
She became an investment associate at JPMorgan for two years before joining Pantheon Ventures from 2019 to 2021, where she was a VC and PE investor at the $89B fund of funds.
Before founding, Wu had to take on a lot of credit card debt and liquidate her 401k to found Corner.
After growing up with her parents as small business owners, Wu grew up in a Chinese restaurant where she packed take-out orders and cleaned tables.
In an interview, she said businesses and trying places have always been at the core of her identity due to this and living in seven different cities growing up.
Wu recognised the importance of having a community and loyal customers, stating that they kept the family business going.
After she and her co-founder, Jake Xia, realised that most review platforms are over 20 years old without any innovation, they created Corner.
Xia is a full stack engineer and in-house R&D department who started a design agency at age 13.
He taught himself how to code at 14 and spent time in high school and college building robots before dropping out of The University of Waterloo.
Xia spent time as a software engineer at Clearco and then Adeptmind; he currently works as an Amazon Web Services CTO Fellow alongside the CTO of Corner.
Making the world smaller with Corner
Corner is described as the next big social media app that will help you explore and discover the world and there current growth goal is to get 100,000 curators on Corner.
Xia said in an interview, “It helps navigate you in any city that you go to. You can now find the place for yourself.”
Their mission is to help people get off the phone and into the world through the highly user-focused app.
On the app, you can make your profile, and from there, you can build your list based on your location, a location you want to try or a location you have been.
You can add what you liked about the location, a bucket list of places you would like to try or things you would like to do and also add photos.
The app also gives a community list where users can see other members’ favourite places and get inspiration for themselves.
Moving away from biased complaints
Both Wu and Xui stated that the review landscape is currently biased against immigrant businesses that don’t necessarily provide the best service, but that isn’t necessarily what those businesses are about.
These businesses are about the authentic food and the culture they’re bringing.
That’s why Corner allows users to understand the person who has added their place or note on the location.
“Our lives are shaped by the places we go: the local cafes that become weekly rituals. Family-owned restaurants that remind us of home. Bars where we dance until our feet hurt,” Corner’s website states.
“Corner is a home for people who take places as seriously as we do.”
Wu announced that their next milestone is truly understanding the core of each business and pairing that with users’ tastes.
“My ideal version of society is that people just enjoy life more. We want to make exploring the world and going out fun,” she said.
Feature Image Credit: Jason Carman, Saturday Startup Stories
