Erin KositzkeContact
← Selected Work
Founder-Led Product Build

Designing a Trust-Based Camping Platform for Families

Kindred Campers is a founder-led family camping platform I created to help parents find compatible families camping near them — connecting family profiles, campground plans, trip intent, trust-aware visibility, and practical planning tools into one product system.

Live product
kindredcampers.org
Type
Founder-led marketplace / community platform
Role
Founder, product strategy, UX/UI direction, prototyping
Scope
Onboarding, family profiles, trip planning, discovery, safety logic, planning tools
Status
In active product build
Tools / Methods
Lovable, Claude Code, Supabase, Vite, product strategy, UX/UI design, AI-assisted prototyping

Public founder project. Product is currently in active development.

Context

Families often end up camping near strangers even when what they actually want is community. Existing campground tools help people book sites; they don’t help families find each other. The product opportunity is to make family camping more intentional — without making it feel unsafe, overexposed, or socially performative.

Product landing page
The public experience frames Kindred Campers around intentional family connection before a trip begins.
Summary

What I shaped

Founder / product strategy
Defined the product concept, audience, positioning, and launch path.
Onboarding + profile logic
Designed family profiles around useful compatibility signals without exposing sensitive details too early.
Trip discovery
Created flows for browsing planned trips, campground interest, and compatible families.
Trust + safety
Set visibility rules, safety acknowledgments, and connection flow boundaries.
Planning tools
Designed practical trip tools including packing lists and meal planning.
AI-assisted build workflow
Used AI tools to prototype, iterate, and move quickly from concept to working product.
Product ecosystem overview
Core
Kindred Campers
Family Identity
Parent account
Family profile
Kid age ranges
Camping style
Home region
Trip Discovery
Browse trips
Campground pages
Plan to go
Compatibility signals
Trust + Safety
Visibility rules
Safety acknowledgment
Mutual connection flow
Contact sharing boundaries
Planning Tools
Packing lists
Meal planning
Grocery list
Trip prep
Growth / Launch
Founding families
Beta onboarding
Community outreach
Paid membership path
A high-level view of how family identity, trip discovery, safety logic, and planning tools connect inside Kindred Campers.
The problem

Camping creates connection — but families still leave it to chance.

Parents want familiar faces and compatible families, especially when camping with young kids. Current tools are built around reservations, campground info, or broad social groups. The missing layer is compatibility around dates, campground plans, family style, kid ages, and comfort level.

  • ·Campgrounds are social, but discovery is fragmented.
  • ·Facebook groups are noisy and not structured around actual trip overlap.
  • ·Existing booking platforms do not help families find who else is going.
  • ·Safety and privacy matter because families and children are involved.
Product strategy

The product had to balance connection with caution.

The core challenge wasn’t matching families. It was deciding what should be visible, when, and to whom. A few principles drive every flow:

  • ·Parents first, no child accounts.
  • ·Broad region before exact location.
  • ·Compatibility before contact sharing.
  • ·Planning intent before personal access.
  • ·Mutual connection before direct contact.
Membership + launch

Designing a low-friction path into a paid community.

  • ·Explorer access lets families browse and try planning tools without overcommitting.
  • ·Founding Family access creates the first engaged cohort.
  • ·The first 25 families help shape the early community.
  • ·Supports a future paid membership path without making the product feel transactional too early.
Membership model
The membership model separates low-commitment exploration from full founding-family participation.
Onboarding + profiles

Profiles are built around useful compatibility, not oversharing.

  • ·Parent-led account creation
  • ·Lightweight first step before deeper profile
  • ·Kid age ranges, not child identities
  • ·Home base at broad region level
  • ·Camping style, hookup preferences, pace, dog status, radius
  • ·Progressive profile completion
Account creation
Initial account creation keeps the entry point lightweight so families can start browsing before completing a deeper profile.
Family compatibility setup
Early onboarding collects compatibility signals like kid ages, camping style, pets, and home base without requiring sensitive family details upfront.
Capturing compatibility beyond basic demographics.

The deeper profile is not about collecting more data for its own sake. It captures the practical constraints and social preferences that determine whether a family camping trip will actually feel like a fit.

Site needs
Families can define practical camping requirements like hookups, bathrooms, cell service, and flexibility.
Campsite fit
Preference fields capture the kind of site and social environment that make a trip feel comfortable.
Trip constraints
Travel distance and sensory-friendly preferences help surface trips that fit a family’s real-world limits.
Discovery + trip intent

Turning campground plans into family discovery.

  • ·Browse trips by date and region
  • ·Campground directory with planned-trip context
  • ·“Plan to go” as the lightweight intent signal
  • ·Family overlap surfaced by campground and date
  • ·Real profiles hidden until enough trust and profile completion
  • ·Safety acknowledgment before sensitive actions

The campground directory supports planning by narrowing the search to family-friendly, recommended places. It gives families a practical starting point before they share a trip or look for compatible families going nearby.

Curated campground list
A curated list of family-friendly campgrounds helps families find trusted places to camp without starting from a blank search.
Browse Trips
Browse Trips turns campground plans into a compatibility surface, showing dates, distance, family fit, and who else is planning to go.
Share Your Trip
The Share Your Trip flow captures where and when a family is camping, plus just enough context to help other families decide whether it is a fit.
Trip detail
The trip page gathers campground context, family intent, coordination prompts, and planning tools in one place.
Trust + safety flow
01
Profile basics
02
Browse limited previews
03
Plan to go
04
Safety acknowledgment
05
View fuller profile
06
Request connection
07
Mutual approval
08
Optional contact sharing
Guardrails
  • No child accounts
  • Broad regions before exact details
  • Contact sharing only after mutual connection
  • Safety acknowledgment before sensitive visibility
Trust logic controls when families move from broad discovery to fuller visibility and optional contact sharing.
Planning tools

Practical tools make the product useful before the network is large.

Planning utility is deliberately separate from social density. Families get value from the product on day one, even before they have matched with anyone.

  • ·Packing lists with default templates by trip type
  • ·Meal planning with editable meals
  • ·Auto-generated grocery list
  • ·Trip prep utilities
  • ·Autosave, duplicate, delete
Packing list
Packing lists give families immediate utility and make the product useful before the community network is dense.
Meal planning
Meal planning extends the product into practical trip preparation with editable meals and grocery-list generation.
Build + iteration

Using AI-assisted prototyping to move from concept to working product.

AI didn’t design the product. It accelerated the path from concept to a working build — letting one founder cover ground that would normally need a small team.

I used AI-assisted development tools, including Lovable and Claude Code, to move from product strategy and UX decisions into a working application faster — while owning the product direction, interaction model, content, safety logic, and design system.

  • ·Lovable for rapid iteration on flows and UI
  • ·Supabase + Vite app structure
  • ·AI-assisted prototyping and decision testing
  • ·Founder-led product definition and prioritization
  • ·Active balancing of legal, safety, product, and UX concerns
Visual system

A brand that needed to feel warm, practical, and trustworthy.

The visual system supports the product without becoming the point. It signals outdoors and family without leaning childish, and community without leaning performative.

  • ·Outdoor and family-oriented tone
  • ·Warm without leaning childish
  • ·Community without oversharing
  • ·Practical planning, not lifestyle fluff
Outcome / current state

From idea to active product build.

Kindred Campers is currently in active product build. The work has moved from concept and positioning into a working product foundation with defined onboarding, discovery, safety, planning, and membership logic.

  • ·Product concept and positioning defined
  • ·Core flows designed end-to-end
  • ·Safety model established
  • ·Legal and privacy decisions shaped
  • ·Beta and founding-family positioning developed
  • ·Active build underway
  • ·Next phase: beta users, real trip data, feedback, paid membership path
Why it matters

Kindred Campers shows how I move from problem definition to product strategy, UX architecture, interface design, and working implementation — using modern AI-assisted tools without giving up product judgment.