We’re building Nearior because discovering and booking local services is still way more fragmented than it should be.

That's a very fair question, and I think the key distinction is that our goal isn't to become another Google for local businesses.

nearior is designed to be more of a personal local and travel assistant. The basic discovery layer is already covered — users can find businesses, restaurants and services around them, view information, and make appointments for free. We don't want to compete with Google simply by creating another business directory.

The bigger opportunity is helping people actually plan what they want to do, especially when they're in a city or place they don't know well.

For example, imagine I tell nearior:

“I'm visiting Paris with a few friends for three days. We have a budget of €500 per person, we don't have a car, and we're mainly interested in cultural experiences. We also really enjoy specialty coffee and local food.”

Instead of making me search Google Maps for museums, restaurants, cafés, activities, distances, public transportation and opening hours one by one, the nearior AI Planner can create a 3-day itinerary based on my budget, transportation, available time and interests.

It could tell me which museum to visit in the morning, where to have lunch, which café to stop at afterwards, what to see in the afternoon, where to have dinner, and how to get from one place to another — while keeping the whole plan within my budget.

And it can become much more personalized.

For example, I could say:

“I don't like tourist traps. I prefer local places, specialty coffee and small restaurants.”

The planner can adapt the entire itinerary around those preferences.

The same concept works beyond travel too. It could be as simple as:

“I have four hours free tonight. I'm looking for a good dinner, a coffee shop and something interesting to do nearby. My budget is €80.”

Instead of giving me a list of 20 businesses and leaving me to figure everything out, nearior can turn those preferences into an actual plan.

Reviews, ratings, location, availability and other business information are still important inputs. And if a business is a nearior member, the platform can prioritize that business when it is genuinely a good match for the user's needs, rather than simply promoting whoever pays the most.

There is also an important economic difference. We don't take commissions from restaurants for delivery orders or from businesses for appointments, which means our members can potentially offer their services at better prices than they would through traditional commission-based platforms.

So I would describe the difference like this:

Google helps you find places. nearior helps you decide what to do, plan it, and actually make it happen.

That's the direction we're building toward.

Exactly — and that balance is something we’ve been very intentional about from the beginning.

The user side is free, while businesses pay for the platform. We also don’t take a commission on transactions.

A big part of the problem we’re trying to solve is that local services have become fragmented across too many platforms. A restaurant might sell a meal for $20 directly, while the same meal can end up costing the customer $70 through a delivery platform — and after fees and commissions, the business may only keep a fraction of that.

We don’t want to recreate that dynamic. Nearior is designed to help businesses get discovered and bring customers in without taking a percentage of every transaction.

The other important piece is that we’re not trying to become the platform for one specific service. Food, repair, beauty, healthcare, local professionals, etc. are all fragmented across different apps and directories. We want to bring discovery into one place while keeping the actual relationship and transaction between the customer and the business.

The goal is pretty simple: free for users, predictable costs for businesses, no commission on transactions, and more value for both sides.