When Pursarth Tuladhar set out to find his first few customers for a tech startup he had just launched, he didn’t expect to stumble upon a new mission. It is one rooted not in digital innovation, but in analog charm.
To attract those early users, Pursarth printed a handful of flyers and planned to post them on community bulletin boards around San Francisco. But first, he needed to know where those bulletin boards were.
“I figured there must be a list online,” he said. “I Googled. Nothing. I asked on Reddit. Still nothing. I even tried ChatGPT. No luck.”
Rather than give up, Pursarth decided to create the list himself, and better yet, to map it.
Armed with curiosity and a bike, he began canvassing the city, neighborhood by neighborhood.
“I’d schedule days to target specific areas,” he explained. “I’d walk the main streets, peek into coffee shops, and especially check laundromats—I knew they’d have bulletin boards.”
After several days of exploring, Pursarth had compiled a list of 100 bulletin boards. That number has since grown to nearly 200, and he believes there are still more to be found.
You can see all the locations Pursarth has mapped here: simbasite.com/bulletinboards.
Along the way, Pursarth began to reflect on the enduring appeal of bulletin boards in the digital age.
He came to understand that the bulletin boards were hyper-local and intensely personal in a way the internet only hopes to be. Standing in front of someone’s flier promoting their services, Pursarth can only assume the business owner themself stood in the same spot.
His appreciation has even deepened beyond their utility. He now sees bulletin boards as a form of community art.
“It’s like a blank canvas,” he said. “Everyone gets a little space to share something. When it’s full, you look at it and think—wow, this is a neighborhood art project.”
Pursarth continues to search for more bulletin boards and hopes others will join him in the effort. He’s inviting San Franciscans to share locations he may have missed—ironically, through the internet.
While bulletin boards may not be able to do everything, Tuladhar believes what they can do still matters.
“In a world pushing everything online, it’s easy to forget the value of these things,” he said. “They’re worth preserving.”
Source: NBC Bay Area
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