Halal Maps is an iOS app (currently in beta) that helps users track and share updates on the Halal status of restaurants across London. It’s designed to simplify a challenge that’s deeply familiar to many in the Muslim community: figuring out which restaurants actually serve Halal food.
The idea was born from a principle I kept encountering in tech and product books — solve a real problem in your own life. So I stopped trying to build things I thought people might want, and instead paid attention to the friction I was experiencing myself.
As someone who has lived in London for over a decade and follows a Halal diet, I’ve often found it frustratingly difficult to verify whether a restaurant is genuinely Halal. Despite the city's large Muslim population and many Halal-friendly establishments, there’s no trusted or consistent source of truth. Most of us rely on a mix of Google searches, restaurant phone calls, scattered social media posts, and word-of-mouth — a process that’s inefficient and unreliable.
That’s where the idea for Halal Maps came in.
It started as a small experiment. I used ChatGPT and other AI tools to build the first version — nothing fancy, just something functional. But the more I played with it, the more I realised how powerful and accessible modern tools had become. My curiosity took over, and I kept building.
By chance, I came across a startup accelerator competition. I threw together a rough pitch deck and applied. In my second-round interview, the accelerator manager told me it was exactly the kind of idea VCs were looking for: a niche product solving a real, underserved need — with no serious competitors.
I didn’t win the final round, but the experience was a turning point. It validated the value of combining my personal lived experience with a growing interest in tech. It reminded me that sometimes, solving your own problem — especially one shared by many others — can be the best way to build something meaningful.
This is the (crude) pitch deck I put together for the competition.
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