Teddy Solomon had simply moved into a brand new home in Palo Alto, so he reached out to the Stanford neighborhood at Fizz to furnish his room.
“Each time I present as much as purchase one thing from somebody, I discuss in regards to the market as a result of I am actually fascinated with studying about their expertise,” Solomon, co-founder of Fizz, advised TechCrunch. He is particularly excited a few $100 TV he received from a graduate pupil who was going away for the summer time.
“Did you inform him who you had been?” requested Rakesh Mathur, a longtime entrepreneur and investor whom Salomon tapped to be Fizz’s CEO.
“Sure, as a result of I requested him 100 questions in regards to the market,” Solomon stated.
When TechCrunch first met with the Stanford co-founders of Fizz in 2022, the nameless social media platform, which has separate communities for particular person campuses, was at only a dozen schools. This system now operates on 240 faculty campuses and 60 excessive faculties, and the workforce has grown to 30 full-time employees and 4,000 volunteer moderators in faculties. Fizz has raised $41.5 million in a number of funding rounds, serving to to develop the app’s presence in campus tradition.
Even in these early conversations, Solomon talked about Fiz’s plans to open a market the place college students may purchase and promote issues like garments, textbooks, bicycles, and extra. Faculty college students usually make offers like this as a result of they transfer from one dorm to a different every year, and perhaps they wish to recoup their little-used calculus textbook.
Solomon believes the marketplace for a Gen Z-focused native shopping for and promoting platform is vast open.
“There’s this stigma, like if I promote one thing on Craigslist, I may get kidnapped,” Solomon stated. “And the Fb market… Gen Z does not use Fb.”
His guess appears to be correct. The Market characteristic was rolled out to lots of of Fizz campuses between March and Might this yr in preparation for the predictable end-of-semester gross sales frenzy. Solomon stated Fizz has revealed 50,000 listings on the platform with DM 150,000 despatched out in merchandise. The preferred class is clothes, which accounts for about 25% of adverts.
However Fb market is not going to be simple to beat the competitor. Some younger Fb customers say they arrive to the platform only for the market. Though fewer Gen Z customers are utilizing Fb, Meta is working to recapture this technology’s consideration.
Funds usually are not but built-in into Fizz, so customers are answerable for navigating gross sales. Solomon stated Fizz could create a fee construction to make the market extra user-friendly, however he isn’t serious about monetization but. Whereas Fizz could also be wealthy in enterprise funding, that basic Silicon Valley transfer of prioritizing progress over revenue is not fairly as potential within the subsequent technology of social media.
Fizz is totally nameless, even available on the market. However to get into the Fizz college neighborhood, it’s essential to confirm your college electronic mail account. So, whereas assembly a stranger is at all times a danger – even when they’re at your college – customers appear to be much less hesitant about shopping for from their classmates.
“One of many statistics that we actually like, and that we regarded on the different day, is that on common, each salesperson is approached by two individuals earlier than they make a sale,” Solomon stated. “If you recognize they’re within the dorm subsequent to you, you haven’t any cause to determine in the event that they’re legit or not. It is fairly simple.”
However, as with nameless social platforms earlier than it, Fizz struggles to take care of a secure atmosphere on all its campuses. In a single high-profile case, the Fizz neighborhood wreaked havoc on a highschool as college students hid behind anonymity to disgrace and torment different college students and school.
“We had two communities that we voluntarily closed simply due to suggestions from mother and father and directors,” Solomon stated. Fizz has since refocused its dedication to content material moderation. Up to now, Fizz paid part-time pupil moderators to watch their communities. The corporate now has a devoted employees engaged on belief and safety, and makes use of OpenAI expertise to make automated moderation extra dependable.
Nevertheless, these efforts will not be sufficient to mitigate the issues. In nameless apps, college directors have seen horror situations earlier than — keep in mind YikYak? The president of the 16-campus College of North Carolina has introduced plans to ban nameless apps like Fizz, Whisper and Sidechat from the college. Subsequently, these college students will be unable to purchase used textbooks on the Fizz market.
“We’re very conscious that as an nameless Gen Z platform, moderation needs to be at our core,” Mathur advised TechCrunch.
TechCrunch gained entry to at least one college’s Fizz neighborhood. The scholars posted about intercourse and medicines – subjects allowed on Fizz – however did not make enjoyable of one another or trigger dangerous dialogue. However this is just one neighborhood out of 100. Whereas Fizz’s momentum in rising its content material moderation workforce is promising, even the most important social platforms with essentially the most sources nonetheless battle with toxicity.
Fizz’s argument for the nameless nature of the platform is that it encourages college students to speak about how they actually really feel – when a pupil sees posts about how different individuals could also be confused throughout an examination or struggling socially, they’ll know they don’t seem to be alone. on this expertise. On the intense facet, customers can discover some nice campus memes. Or now that there’s a market, they may make some huge cash on TV.
Up to date 7/3/24 4:17 PM ET: Attire is 25% of Fizz listings.
