About

Our Mission

Thought GPS is building an audio layer for the real world, connecting stories, knowledge, and experiences to the places where they matter.

We believe the world becomes more interesting when the stories behind the places around us are easy to discover, whether they come from local experts, creators, communities, or people with something worth sharing.

Our Story

It started with a question in LA traffic:

“What were all these people thinking?”

Founder Johanna Topalian imagined a way for people to leave thoughts and stories behind in the physical world, and for others to discover them as they passed through the same places. Not buried in a social media feed, but connected directly to streets, campuses, parks, landmarks, and neighborhoods.

In 2025, Johanna began building Thought GPS, a location-based audio platform that connects digital stories to physical places.

Today, Thought GPS is a live platform where creators can publish individual audio stories and build multi-stop tours for people to discover as they explore the world around them.

Our Values

Community First

We give creators, local experts, historians, comedians, organizations, and everyday storytellers a new way to share what they know about the world around them.

Real-World Discovery

Thought GPS connects digital content with physical places, making discovery part of exploring rather than another feed to scroll.

Creator-Centric

We build tools that make location-based audio easy to create, publish, and discover, while developing new ways for creators to grow audiences and earn from their work.

Meet the Founder

Johanna Topalian, Founder & CEO
Los Angeles, CA • MBA, UCLA Anderson

Johanna is a product builder, entrepreneur, and longtime comedy producer who has taken Thought GPS from idea to live product. Drawing on her background in technology, go-to-market strategy, and storytelling, she is building Thought GPS to create an audio layer for the real world.

She also produces Dive Bar Comedy, a Los Angeles comedy series she has run since 2017. These two worlds come together through comedian-voiced audio tours and live events connecting technology, storytelling, and comedy.


Meet the Team

Rosita Safe

Partnerships

Rosita brings 13 years of business development experience and an engineering background from McGill University to lead strategic partnerships for Thought GPS.

Jonathan Padilla

Engineering

Jonathan is a backend engineer specializing in Java and Spring Boot, helping build, secure, and scale the code behind Thought GPS.

Thought GPS Intern Team

Product & Growth

Thought GPS is supported by a multidisciplinary team of student interns working across product, growth, creator partnerships, and business development.


Get in Touch

Support & Feedback

Questions, bug reports, or feature ideas? Email us at support@thoughtgps.com.


Partnerships & Press

Interested in partnerships, institutional use, licensing, or media inquiries? Reach out to partnerships@thoughtgps.com.


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