An introduction to Highstreett

Hi, I’m Alex, and this is a short introduction to what Highstreett is, why I’m building it, and what I hope it becomes.

What Highstreett is

Highstreett is a platform for finding independent local businesses.

When I say independent, I mean locally and privately owned. Not a national or multinational chain, not a franchise, and not owned or controlled by private equity.

That means cafés, restaurants, shops, barbers, salons, bookshops, plumbers, florists, and all the other businesses that give a place its texture. Some people will use Highstreett like a directory. Others will use it more like an AI-powered local search tool. Both are the point.

How the product works

At the simplest level, you can browse it like a directory. Search by place, filter by category, open a business page, and decide where to go.

The second layer is the AI side. When you ask Highstreett where to go, the search is LLM-powered, but it is grounded in Highstreett’s own database first. If we do not yet have enough verified coverage in a place or category, we can fall back to web-based sources where appropriate. The aim is not to generate fluffy answers. It is to help people find somewhere genuinely useful, with local ownership still front and centre.

The recommendations also get better when they have more context. That can include your profile preferences, dietary needs, religious requirements, allergies, previous visits, and saved places. If you want somewhere good for a group, somewhere quieter, somewhere vegetarian-friendly, or somewhere that fits your habits instead of the average person’s habits, that context matters.

I also want Highstreett to be something you can build a relationship with over time. You can log places you’ve visited, keep track of where you’ve been, and gradually complete your city. That part is inspired by products like Goodreads and Letterboxd, but applied to local places instead of books or films.

Why it is different

The first difference is product-level. Most local discovery tools either behave like directories with weak search, or like generic AI chat with thin grounding. I think there is room for something more AI-native, where recommendations improve because the system actually has context about what you want, what you avoid, where you’ve been, and what local ownership standard it is applying.

The second difference is the mission. Highstreett is built around local ownership. I care about local businesses, local character, and the idea that high streets do not have to drift toward the same mix of chains and private-equity-backed firms in every town.

That is not the same as saying every chain is bad or that scale is immoral. It is just a different product choice and a different civic instinct. I want it to be easier to support places where the ownership, decision-making, and more of the economic value stay local.

The local multiplier idea

One of the core ideas behind Highstreett is the local multiplier effect.

In plain English, it means money spent with a locally owned business is more likely to circulate locally. Staff live nearby. Owners are nearby. Suppliers are more likely to be nearby. More of the money gets re-spent in the same place before it leaves.

By contrast, when spending goes through a national chain or a multinational chain, more of that value can leave the area faster through centralised purchasing, head office costs, external ownership structures, and profit extraction. The exact difference depends on the sector, the place, and the method used to measure it.

The maths here should be read as simplified and illustrative, not predictive:

If £100m of existing consumer spending moved from national chains to locally owned businesses, the local retention effect could be materially different. Using the simplified figures behind our Two Realities work, local spending can retain far more value in the local community than equivalent spending through national or multinational chains. This is not a forecast. It is a way of showing why spending choices matter.

I do not want to overclaim this. Highstreett is not a magic switch, and I am not presenting a guaranteed economic outcome. I am saying that ownership matters, and spending patterns matter, and it is worth building products that make those choices easier to act on.

Business-side value

On the business side, the case is simpler. Independent businesses need distribution.

If people cannot find you, they cannot choose you. If discovery gets easier, more independents should have a better shot at being found, compared, shortlisted, saved, and visited.

That should mean more customers, more revenue, and more money staying in local circulation. But it is important to say this carefully: Highstreett cannot promise outcomes, and I am not going to pretend a listing or a recommendation engine guarantees footfall. The job is to improve the odds by making good local businesses easier to discover.

The long-term vision

The long-term vision is simple to say and hard to build well: I want one place on your phone where you can shop local online, book a restaurant, hire a plumber, book nails, discover a café, and support local people without having to fight through a wall of chains first.

I want Highstreett to make local feel normal, convenient, and modern. Not worthy, not niche, not something you do only when you have extra time. Just the easier default.

In Bristol, buy Bristol. In Manchester, buy Manchester. Wherever you are, make local the easier default.

That is the ambition.

Closing

Thanks for reading, and thanks for giving a new idea your time.

Alex