Teddy Solomon simply moved to a brand new home in Palo Alto, so he turned to the Stanford group on Fizz to furnish his room.
“Each time I present as much as purchase one thing from any person, I grill them in regards to the market, as a result of I’m actually inquisitive about their expertise,” Solomon, a co-founder of Fizz, advised TechCrunch. He’s notably psyched in regards to the $100 TV he obtained from a grad pupil who was about to maneuver out for the summer time.
“Did you inform him who you have been?” requested Rakesh Mathur, the longtime entrepreneur and investor that Solomon introduced in to be CEO of Fizz.
“Yeah, as a result of I requested him like, 100 questions in regards to the market,” Solomon deadpanned.
When TechCrunch first met Fizz’s Stanford dropout co-founders in 2022, the nameless social media platform – which has separate communities for particular person college campuses – was solely at a few dozen schools. Now, the app is working on 240 faculty campuses and 60 excessive colleges, and the group has expanded to 30 full-time workers and 4,000 volunteer moderators throughout colleges. Fizz has raised $41.5 million throughout a number of funding rounds, powering the app’s rising presence in campus tradition.
Even in these earliest conversations, Solomon talked about Fizz’s plans to open a market, the place college students can purchase and promote issues like garments, textbooks, bikes and extra. School college students are sometimes making these sorts of transactions since they’re shifting between dorms yearly, and possibly they need some a refund for his or her calmly used calculus textbook.
Solomon thinks that the marketplace for a neighborhood, Gen Z-focused shopping for and promoting platform is broad open.
“There’s that form of stigma round, like, if I promote one thing on Craigslist, I’d get kidnapped,” Solomon mentioned. “And Fb market… Gen Z isn’t utilizing Fb.”
His hunch appears to be correct. {The marketplace} characteristic rolled out throughout Fizz’s lots of of campuses between March and Might of this yr, in preparation for the predictable end-of-semester rush to promote. Solomon mentioned Fizz has had 50,000 listings posted on the platform, with 150,000 DMs despatched round gadgets. The preferred class is ladies’s clothes, which quantities to about 75% of listings.
However Fb market gained’t be a straightforward competitor to beat. Some younger Fb customers say they solely go on the platform for {the marketplace}. Although fewer Gen Z customers are on Fb, Meta is engaged on recapturing that technology’s consideration.
Funds usually are not but built-in in Fizz, so customers are accountable for navigating their gross sales. Solomon mentioned Fizz might construct out a cost construction to make {the marketplace} extra user-friendly, however he isn’t fascinated by monetization but. Whereas Fizz could also be wealthy in enterprise funding, this traditional Silicon Valley transfer of prioritizing development over revenue isn’t as possible within the subsequent technology of social media.
Fizz is absolutely nameless, even on {the marketplace}. However to get onto a faculty’s Fizz group within the first place, that you must confirm a faculty electronic mail account. So, whereas there’s at all times a threat in assembly up with a stranger – even when they go to your college – customers appear much less hesitant about shopping for from their classmates.
“One of many statistics we actually love that we have been wanting over the opposite day is that on common, each vendor has two individuals attain out to them earlier than they promote,” Solomon mentioned. “If they’re within the dorm subsequent door to you, you don’t have any motive to determine in the event that they’re reputable or not. It’s fairly simple.”
However as with the nameless social platforms which have come earlier than it, Fizz has struggled to keep up a secure atmosphere on all of its campuses. In a single high-profile case, a Fizz group wreaked havoc on a highschool, as college students hid behind anonymity to disgrace and torment different college students and college.
“We’ve had two communities that we’ve voluntarily shut down simply due to suggestions from mother and father and directors,” Solomon mentioned. Since then, Fizz has refocused its dedication on content material moderation. Previously, Fizz paid part-time pupil moderators to watch their communities. Now, the corporate has devoted workers that work on belief and security, and it’s utilizing know-how from OpenAI to make its automated moderation extra strong.
These efforts might not be sufficient to mitigate issues, although. On nameless apps, college directors have seen horrible eventualities play out earlier than – bear in mind YikYak? The president of the College of North Carolina, which has sixteen campuses, introduced plans to ban nameless apps like Fizz, Whisper and Sidechat from the varsity. So, these college students gained’t be capable to purchase pre-owned textbooks on Fizz’s market.
“We’re very conscious that as an nameless, Gen Z platform, moderation must be our core,” Mathur advised TechCrunch.
TechCrunch accessed one college’s Fizz group. College students posted about intercourse and medicines – these matters are allowed on Fizz – however weren’t bullying one another or sparking dangerous dialogue. However this is only one group out of lots of. Whereas Fizz’s momentum in rising its content material moderation group is promising, even the biggest, most resourced social platforms nonetheless battle with toxicity.
Fizz’s argument in favor of the nameless nature of the platform is that it encourages college students to open up about how they’re actually feeling – when a pupil sees posts about how different individuals could be stressing over an examination or struggling socially, they’ll know they aren’t alone in these experiences. On the brighter facet, customers would possibly discover some nice campus-specific memes. Or, now that there’s a market, they may be capable to rating an important deal on a TV.
