The idea
The internet never learned to organize trust.
None of them organize recommendations by the one thing that actually drives a decision: who it came from. Beenlist is building that missing layer — a network where recommendations are ranked by trust, starting with the category people ask their friends about most.
Why travel first
Travel is the first dataset, not the last.
Travel is where the trust problem is most expensive and most emotional — you only get the trip once, and the difference between a friend’s pick and a stranger’s review is the difference between a memory and a regret. It’s also where people already text each other constantly. Get the trust graph right here, and it extends to everything people ask their friends about: where to eat, who to see, what’s worth it.
Restaurants today. The rest, when the graph is ready.
Why now
This couldn’t have been built well three years ago.
Beenlist is built on what actually works in 2026 — not a 2015 idea retried.
The founder note
Why we’re building this.
For years, I was the friend everyone texted before a trip. Where should we stay in Mexico City. Is that hotel in Lisbon worth it. Who do you know in Tokyo. I’d dig through old messages and half-finished notes, and send back the one place I’d swear by.
I spent a decade as an attorney and operator, and the pattern never changed: the best recommendations I ever got didn’t come from a five-star average. They came from a name I trusted.
That network already exists. It’s in your group chats, your camera roll, the friends you’d call at midnight in a city you don’t know. It just never had a home. Beenlist is that home — built slowly, by invitation, with the people who made me believe in it.
For press.
A network that makes the recommendations you trust — from the people you know — searchable. Open to anyone, seeded by invitation, starting in Austin. Founder available for interviews.