# Building a Community Platform from the Ground Up

URL: https://www.milesroxas.com/works/building-a-community-platform-from-the-ground-up
Published: 2026-10-12T18:16:27.383Z
Updated: 2026-10-15T00:17:10.126Z

A product design and engineering case study for Buzlee, a local events app with map-based discovery, business flyers, and human content moderation.

Buzlee is a digital bulletin board for small towns: one feed and one map for discovering local events, posted by local businesses and approved by a person. No ads, no ratings, no ranking algorithm.

Client: Buzlee

Consumer App

Product, Design, Engineering

Capabilities: Mobile App, Product Design

Buzlee is a digital bulletin board for small towns: one feed and one map for what is on this week, posted by local businesses and approved by a person. No ads, no ratings, no ranking algorithm.

## Background and Context

The founder approached me with an idea to create a hyper-local app out of frustration from the noise and clutter of social media and ads when trying to find events and activities nearby.

## Establishing the key differentiator

Social platforms bury local events under ads and ranking. 

My MVP defined and positioned Buzlee as a platform that did not run on algorithms, ranking, or reviews. 

## The Vision

Give every resident one feed and one map showing what's happening this week

## One map, ordered by date

The app opens in Westchester County focusing on the user's hometown. Flyers are clustered based on zoom level and distance. 


Buzlee's experience was designed for people who just want to get the info on what's going on nearby. 

Residents filter by tag, date and town, save a flyer, add it to their calendar, or share a link that opens the app.

## A robust geolocation and auto-complete system

One of the more challenging aspects of the build was finding the right service provider for geolocation, map rendering, and auto-complete. 

From the start, I focused on portability and cost at scale. I landed on using [Maptiler](https://www.maptiler.com/) and [Geoapify](https://www.geoapify.com/). This kept our infra costs low with incredible rooftop address coverage. 

## One flyer, many dates

Just as you would see in the real world, I implemented flyers to be able to support multiple events. This reduced the workload for businesses and made discovery effortless for residents.

## Admin Workflow

The success of an early dual marketplace app like Buzlee heavily depends on a robust admin experience. 

I spent a month building out approval and content moderation features including a NextJS web app to ensure admins are able to onboard new businesses and perform data entry at scale. 

## Results and Impact

## 3 Months

App and Playstore approval and publish

## 50 Local Businesses

Onboarded within 3 weeks

## 80 Flyers

Published since launch

## 100

Daily Active Users and climbing steadily