Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

• Name and email — used to create and secure your account.
• Profile details — what you choose to add, such as your persona (builder, investor, mentor, or business), what you are working on, and your links.
• Approximate location (~1km) — if you turn it on, so we can show you people and meetups near you. We only ever use a rounded, approximate location (see below).
• Usage analytics — basic, mostly aggregated data about how the app is used, so we can fix problems and improve it. On the website we use PostHog and Google Analytics for this, and only after you accept the cookie banner.
• Sign in with Google or Apple — if you use one, we receive your name, email address and your account ID with that provider (and, from Google, your profile photo). From Apple we also keep a token that lets us disconnect your Apple sign-in when you delete your account.
• Invite codes — if you join with an invite code, we record who invited you so they get the credit. If you invite people, we keep the codes you create and whether they have been used.
• Messages — the messages you send to other members, so they can be delivered and shown in your conversations.
• Photos you upload — before we store a photo, we remove its location (GPS) and other metadata, such as camera details.

2. Your location is always approximate (~1km)

We never store or share your exact location. Before your location is saved or shown, it is rounded to roughly a 1-kilometer area. Other users only ever see this approximate area — never your precise position, and never a live pin on your exact spot. You can turn location off at any time in your settings.

3. How we use your information

• To create your account and keep it secure
• To match you with relevant builders, mentors, investors, and businesses
• To show you meetups and activity happening near you
• To operate, maintain, and improve the Service

4. What we don't do

We do not sell your personal data. We do not show your exact location to anyone. We do not share your information with other users beyond what your profile and approximate area already show.

5. Service providers

We host The Build Nation on Railway. Account emails, such as sign-in codes, are sent through an email delivery provider. The analytics tools named above run on the website only after you accept the cookie banner.

6. Public profiles

Every member has a public profile at thebuildnation.com/your-linkthat anyone can open, including people without an account. It shows your work only: your name, photo, headline, role and stage, what you're building, what you've shipped, your proof-of-work grid (with your public GitHub contributions if you've linked GitHub), when you joined, the profile links you added, and your approved community posts. Comments on your posts are never shown publicly, only how many there are.

A public profile never shows your email, your location (exact or approximate), your meetups, your connections or your messages.

Public profiles are on by default. In Settings → Public profile in the app, or on your Profile page on the web, you can turn yours off, which hides your profile and all of your posts, or keep it on but hide it from search engines such as Google. Hiding it from search engines asks them not to list it; a page that was already listed can take a little while to drop out. You can also change your link once every 30 days.

7. Builder cards

We publish a small number of public builder cards (thebuildnation.com/b/…) about people who haven't joined yet, built only from information they've published publicly, such as a LinkedIn profile. Each card lists its sources and is hidden from search engines. The person can claim their card after confirming an email address listed on it, or ask us to remove it from the card's ‘Remove this card’ page; no account needed.

8. Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time. When you do, we remove your account and the personal data associated with it. Some records may persist briefly in backups before they are cleared.

In the iPhone app, go to Settings → Delete account, or email hello@thebuildnation.com and we'll delete it.

9. Contact

For privacy questions or to exercise your data rights, contact us at hello@thebuildnation.com.