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 someone, I grill them concerning the market, as a result of I’m actually inquisitive about their expertise,” Solomon, a co-founder of Fizz, instructed TechCrunch. He’s notably psyched concerning the $100 TV he bought from a grad scholar 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 concerning 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 school campuses and 60 excessive colleges, and the staff 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 should buy and promote issues like garments, textbooks, bikes and extra. Faculty college students are sometimes making these sorts of transactions since they’re shifting between dorms yearly, and perhaps they need some a refund for his or her frivolously used calculus textbook.
Solomon thinks that the marketplace for an area, Gen Z-focused shopping for and promoting platform is vast open.
“There’s that form of stigma round, like, if I promote one thing on Craigslist, I would get kidnapped,” Solomon mentioned. “And Fb market… Gen Z just isn’t utilizing Fb.”
His hunch appears to be correct. {The marketplace} characteristic rolled out throughout Fizz’s tons of of campuses between March and Could 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 clothes, which quantities to about 25% of listings.
However Fb market received’t be a straightforward competitor to beat. Some younger Fb customers say they solely go on the platform for {the marketplace}. Despite the fact that fewer Gen Z customers are on Fb, Meta is engaged on recapturing that technology’s consideration.
Funds will not be but built-in in Fizz, so customers are liable for navigating their gross sales. Solomon mentioned Fizz could construct out a fee construction to make {the marketplace} extra user-friendly, however he isn’t interested 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 totally nameless, even on {the marketplace}. However to get onto a faculty’s Fizz group within the first place, it’s worthwhile to 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 legit or not. It’s fairly straightforward.”
However as with the nameless social platforms which have come earlier than it, Fizz has struggled to keep up a secure surroundings 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 dad and mom and directors,” Solomon mentioned. Since then, Fizz has refocused its dedication on content material moderation. Previously, Fizz paid part-time scholar moderators to observe 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 sturdy.
These efforts is probably not sufficient to mitigate issues, although. On nameless apps, college directors have seen horrible situations play out earlier than — keep in mind YikYak? The president of the College of North Carolina, which has 16 campuses, introduced plans to ban nameless apps like Fizz, Whisper and Sidechat from the college. So, these college students received’t be capable of purchase pre-owned textbooks on Fizz’s market.
“We’re very conscious that as an nameless, Gen Z platform, moderation needs to be our core,” Mathur instructed TechCrunch.
TechCrunch accessed one college’s Fizz group. College students posted about intercourse and medicines — these subjects are allowed on Fizz — however weren’t bullying one another or sparking dangerous dialogue. However this is only one group out of tons of. Whereas Fizz’s momentum in rising its content material moderation staff is promising, even the most important, 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 scholar sees posts about how different individuals may be stressing over an examination or struggling socially, they’ll know they aren’t alone in these experiences. On the brighter aspect, customers may discover some nice campus-specific memes. Or, now that there’s a market, they could be capable of rating an excellent deal on a TV.
Up to date, 7/3/24, 4:17 PM ET: Clothes makes up 25% of Fizz listings.