Eliza Wu and Jake Xia – Corner

Eliza Wu and Jake Xia are the co-founders of Corner, an app launched in 2022 that functions much like Google Maps but with a highly personalized touch. Corner is a social map that uses your input (which places you frequent the most or enjoy) and curates a comprehensive list of nearby areas that other people, including those you may choose to friend on the app, are recommending. The app is unique in that it only displays locations that other users have vetted themselves. As of now, there are currently over 275,000 places saved in the system’s database. The platform has been designed to cater mainly to Gen Z users to facilitate new experiences and give people a chance to put their phones down and explore.

With no star rating system and the opportunity to be expressive with recommendations, Corner has the potential to stand out amongst its competitors. In an interview with Business Insider, Eliza Wu stated that “If Google describes this place as a ‘$$ cocktail bar with tapas,’ Gen Z might describe it as a ‘performative male wine bar to break someone’s heart.'” Instead of bland reviews, Wu and Xia strove to give Corner some authentic flair – categories are curated to look like a mix between an Infatuation list of best spots in a city and Pinterest moodboards. There are 55,000 users across 450 cities worldwide.

Wu and Xia met in 2021 through Twitter after Wu had recently left her job in private equity. Once Corner got its first term sheets from venture capitalists, Xia dropped out of college. The two of them moved from San Francisco to a shared apartment in New York that also serves as the company’s office.

Eliza has said that the point of Corner is not to “get you socializing” on the app; rather, it is designed to get you to “make a plan to go somewhere with the actual people that you want to be social with.”

https://www.corner.inc