Skip to content

Foodpoint

In beta

Why we built a food app that turns businesses away.

Foodpoint is a map-first app for finding food in Malaysia — hawker stalls, kopitiams, cafes and street food vendors. It lists local-owned businesses only, and that is the product, not a policy.

Visit foodpoint.to(opens in a new tab)Ask us about it
  • iOS
  • Android
  • 4 languages

The problem we narrowed to

Finding good local food in Malaysia is not a discovery problem in the usual sense. The places worth going to are already known — by a neighbourhood, by a family, by the queue outside at 7am. What is missing is somewhere that knows them at that same resolution.

International listing apps optimise for coverage and for whoever pays to be seen. That surfaces the chain outlet in the mall before the stall that has been there for thirty years, which is precisely backwards for how people in Malaysia actually decide where to eat.

The editorial line, enforced in code

Foodpoint lists local-owned businesses only. Every food app has community guidelines; guidelines get diluted the moment growth targets arrive.

So the rule is enforced in the product itself rather than left to moderation. It puts a hard ceiling on how large the listing database can ever be, and we consider that the feature — a directory that excludes the right things is more useful than one that includes everything.

Map first, in four languages

The app opens on a map, because deciding where to eat is a question about distance before it is a question about anything else. Discovering, reviewing and checking in all happen from that one view.

It ships in four languages on iOS and Android. For an app about Malaysian food that is table stakes rather than a milestone: a product that only speaks one of the languages its users eat in is describing a different country.

In its own words

A map-first mobile app for discovering, reviewing and checking in at food places across Malaysia — hawker stalls, kopitiams, cafes and street food vendors. It lists local-owned businesses only, and that editorial line is enforced in the product itself, not just the guidelines.

foodpoint.to

Also from Mavis Digital