When I first visited San Francisco in the late 2000s, what stood out to me immediately were all the billboards from tech companies. They were everywhere around me, right from the moment I stepped off the plane.

Until then, I had only seen billboards for various lifestyle brands and they always felt distant to me. But not in San Francisco. Most billboards spoke to me directly as an engineer, and it felt like I had found “home”.

Decades later… I am ecstatic to announce that Typesense has joined this iconic club of tech companies that do billboards in San Francisco.

HUNDREDS of billboards.

When we started working on Typesense in 2015, I had no idea that we would get to do this one day. So this is quite literally an incredible milestone for me personally.

Typesense Billboard in San Francisco 1
Typesense Billboard in San Francisco 2
Typesense Billboard in San Francisco 3
Typesense Billboard in San Francisco 4

Why billboards though?

Two reasons:

  1. “Why haven’t I heard of Typesense before?!”

    We hear this a lot from new users. So we decided to fix that - LOUD and clear - starting with a dev market we were most familiar with, in San Francisco.

  2. Most VC-funded startups flex using fund-raising announcements, to build credibility with their user base. Since we have consciously chosen not to raise external capital, we wanted a tangible and highly visible asset that conveys our progress, growth and financial position to new and existing users. And hundreds of billboards, no less in San Francisco - which are expensive to pull off - help convey this message strongly. We’re here, we’re growing, and we’re here for the long haul.

Pure Disbelief (in a good way)

I’ve already received messages from several folks in San Francisco (thank you!), that they spotted our billboards (even before our official announcement came out) and couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw it -

That this “little open source project” they’ve been using is now all over the city.

Mission accomplished!

To Our Community - THANK YOU.

For your support, feedback, encouragement, questions, bug reports, feature requests, pull requests, and for sharing Typesense with a friend. None of this would be possible without you 🙏

To folks looking for a fast, modern site & app search solution (yes, with AI and all), go check us out.

We serve 10 BILLION searches per month, we’re fully revenue-funded and profitable, and we’re here to stay for the long haul! You’ll be in great company and in good hands.

More Videos

Here are a few more videos of our billboards:

If you spot our billboards

If you’re in San Francisco and spot one of our billboards at bus stops or transit shelters, snap a picture and DM it to me on X or LinkedIn.

I’d love to see it from your lens.