ℹ︎For confidentiality, company names, project names, and system images have been replaced with pseudonyms and mock-ups.
PlaceLink is a three-sided marketplace for transacting idle, unused spaces — meeting rooms, studios, event venues and more — by the hour or by the day. It is one of Japan's leading space-sharing platforms, connecting guests, hosts, and operations.
Monetization, space search, in-app payments, and trusted transactions — the story of launching a new platform that satisfies all four pillars the sharing economy needs at once, built in-house from scratch in nine months.
Toshi Share Inc. runs a space-sharing business that turns the city's idle, unused spaces into value. It offers a marketplace where diverse spaces — meeting rooms, studios, event venues, shops, and shared kitchens — can be transacted by the hour or by the day.
The business model is a three-sided marketplace. Hosts who want to lend space, guests who want to rent it, and the operations team that keeps transactions safe all meet on a single platform, completing search, booking, payment, and reviews end to end.
List vacant spaces with photos, pricing, and amenities.
Search by area, use, and capacity, pick a date and time, and book.
Complete card payment with Stripe.
Two-way reviews after use, with operations ensuring safety.
None of these were questions of technology choice; they were business requirements tied directly to revenue, customer satisfaction, and market competitiveness. Building anew from scratch demanded a design that made them all hold true at once.
Design a flow that lets hosts list idle spaces easily and earn recurring revenue, and bring buried inventory to market.
Get the design that instantly surfaces 'nearby, matching' spaces by area, use, and capacity wrong, and search abandonment rises.
Unless booking through payment flows seamlessly within the app, the hassle of inquiries and on-site payment means guests drop off midway.
Unless identity verification, reporting, blocking, and two-way reviews are built in from the start, trouble erodes trust in the platform.
We built all three surfaces — the guest app, the host app, and the admin console — entirely in-house from scratch on a shared API foundation. Location matching, Stripe payments, messaging, reviews, and moderation are bound into one seamless experience, crafting the core of the sharing business from the very start.
The need to instantly surface 'nearby, matching' spaces by area, use, and capacity.
Maximize discoverability with area × use × capacity filters and nearest-first ordering.
The need to complete hourly and daily bookings through payment entirely within the app.
Automatic fee and tax calculation with Stripe payments, integrated into the booking flow.
The need to keep pre- and post-transaction exchanges and reviews inside the platform.
Make trust visible through push-notification-linked chat and two-way reviews.
A mechanism is needed to remove bad actors and let operations keep the community healthy.
Establish identity verification, reporting, and blocking, plus an admin-console review flow.
React Native
Nuxt.js
Vuetify
Express
TypeORM
MySQL
Redis
Stripe
AWS S3
OneSignalThis foundation continuously produces business outcomes — monetization, a smooth booking experience, and transaction trust — rather than mere technical metrics.
Put unused spaces on the market so hosts can earn revenue.
Location matching can lift conversion from search to booking.
In-app payment removes process fragmentation and curbs drop-off.
Identity verification, reporting, and reviews sustain a healthy community.
Vacant spaces tend to stay dormant instead of generating revenue.
List in minutes and earn recurring revenue through hourly and daily rentals.
Idle inventory becomes a revenue source.
Guests easily give up booking due to the hassle of inquiries and on-site payment.
Everything from search to payment is completed in-app for instant booking.
Search-to-booking conversion improves.
Trouble handling lags behind, and trust is easily eroded.
Reporting, blocking, and CMS review keep the community healthy.
Scalable while keeping operational load low.
Search by area, use, and capacity, choose hourly or daily rental to book, and complete in-app payment.
Photo grid, amenities, map, host info, and user reviews — all on one screen.
Pre- and post-transaction exchanges via chat. Reproducing an experience linked to replies and notifications.