Group Nom

Building a Real Product with AI-Assisted Development

Try It

Group Nom is live at groupnom.com. Grab some friends, start a session, and find your next favorite restaurant.

What I Learned

AI dramatically accelerated my ability to ship. I handled product design, branding, development, and marketing as a solo builder. But the speed only matters if you're pointed in the right direction. Every decision still required critical thinking about user needs, system architecture, and business viability.

What's Next

Continued improvements based on customer feedback. Finishing touches on the owned data system, then launching with a real marketing push. The product thinking, design work, and technical foundation are in place. Now it's about getting it in front of people.

The Brand

Part of building a complete product is crafting an identity that feels cohesive. I developed Group Nom's brand system to match the app's personality: friendly, social, and a little bit hungry. The playful fork-and-spoon logomark, warm orange gradient palette, and bold typography all reinforce that vibe.

The Problem

Every friend group knows the struggle: "Where should we eat?" turns into an endless back-and-forth of rejected suggestions, dietary constraints, and decision paralysis. Traditional solutions like group chats, polls, and taking turns rarely satisfy everyone and often lead to the same default choices.

I wanted to solve this problem in a way that felt fun rather than frustrating, and use it as a vehicle to explore what's possible when you combine AI-assisted development with solid product thinking.

The Solution

Group Nom is a web app that helps groups discover restaurants together through collaborative swiping. The mechanics are simple and familiar:

• Create a session and share a 6-digit code with your group
• Swipe together on nearby restaurants (right for yes, left for no)
• Match instantly when everyone agrees on a spot

Early on, I leaned on the Google Places API to get to market quickly. It worked, but I learned it wouldn't scale: costs add up fast, and Google's terms prevent caching their data. I considered launching as a waitlist beta to control costs while gathering feedback.

That feedback changed my trajectory. Users requested features that simply weren't possible with third-party data constraints. It became clear: to build something truly differentiated, I needed to own my restaurant data. So I pivoted to building Group Nom's own data layer, which opens up unique features that weren't possible before.

No app download required. No sign-up friction. Just quick, collaborative decisions that end in everyone eating somewhere they actually want to go.

Group Nom represents what's possible when AI accelerates execution, but product thinking, design, and systems thinking guide the direction.