About Plotline
An iOS app that turns the travel videos you save on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube into a real map, and a real plan.
Why we built it
Every traveler we knew had the same problem. Hundreds of saved TikToks. Instagram folders full of rooftop bars in cities you haven't visited yet. YouTube watch histories thick with "3 days in Lisbon" vlogs you binged before a trip and forgot a week later. Real recommendations from real travelers, and almost none of them ever turning into a real plan.
The gap between "I want to go there" and "I'm going there" was almost entirely organizational. Plotline is the bridge: share a video, and every place mentioned lands as a pin on your personal travel map. Build a Collection for your next trip, and your scroll becomes your itinerary.
Booking was never the hard part. There are plenty of platforms for that, because booking is where the money is. But in a world where supply is commoditized, it's no longer about just providing a service but around providing the RIGHT service that enables anyone to have their dream trip. It's not about providing a meal, a hotel room, or a rental car; it's about finding the right travel experience for you. Whether that's a hole-in-the-wall spot with the third-generation birria tacos or the Michelin-star, locally-sourced omakase dinner out of a family's courtyard, we'll help you make the experiences that make your trip unforgettable.
Our philosophy is to help people find the right experiences, not just help people book a flight or hotel.
That came from Mexico. The meals we still talk about weren't on anyone's top-five list. They were places we wandered into, or that a local mentioned in a video, and they'd never rank on Tripadvisor or surface in Google Maps. Those places exist everywhere and we're just helping you find and save them.
By the numbers
Who's behind it
Jeffery Gao
Jeffery has spent the past five years traveling and working remotely, accumulating exactly the kind of saved-folder graveyard that Plotline was built to fix. Before Plotline, he was on Capital One's internal corporate strategy team, working directly with the C-suite on premium card, travel, and airport lounge strategy. He then spent three years at Hopper leading Strategic Finance for Hopper Technology Solutions, its B2B arm, where he sized and negotiated nine-figure deals with multinational banks including RBC, NuBank, and HSBC, airlines including WestJet, Frontier, and Wizz Air, and suppliers across car rental and lodging. He graduated from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
John Li
John was a lead developer on Remitly's Trust Platform and Remitly Business, helping scale both from zero to one. Over his five years there, Remitly went public, grew revenue 5x, and became profitable. Before Remitly, he worked at Capital One. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University.
Brina Bodnar
Brina spent three years building Remitly's Trust Platform before joining Plotline. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz.