Teddy Solomon simply moved into a brand new home in Palo Alto, so he turned to the Stanford neighborhood on Fizz for assist furnishing his room.
“Each time I purchase one thing from somebody, I ask them concerning the market as a result of I’m actually inquisitive about their expertise,” Fizz co-founder Solomon advised TechCrunch. He was particularly excited a few $100 tv from a graduate pupil who was transferring out for the summer time.
“Have you ever advised him who you might be?” requested Rakesh Mathur, a longtime entrepreneur and investor employed by Solomon to function Fizz’s chief govt.
“Yeah, as a result of I requested him 100 questions concerning the market,” Solomon deadpanned.
In 2022, when TechCrunch first met Fizz’s Stanford dropout co-founder, the nameless social media platform (with separate communities for every campus) solely coated a few dozen faculties. Now, the app is operating on 240 school campuses and 60 excessive colleges, and the crew has grown to 30 full-time workers and 4,000 volunteer directors throughout colleges. Fizz has raised $41.5 million throughout a number of rounds of funding, fueling the app’s rising affect on campus tradition.
Even in these earliest conversations, Solomon talked about Fitz’s plans to open a market the place college students may purchase and promote garments, textbooks, bicycles and different objects. Faculty college students typically make a majority of these trades as a result of they transfer between dormitories annually and perhaps they need to get some a refund for a not often used calculus textbook.
Solomon believes the market is open for native shopping for and promoting platforms targeted on Gen Z.
“There is a stigma right here, like, if I promote one thing on Craigslist, I would get kidnapped,” Solomon mentioned. “There’s additionally the Fb market…Gen Z does not use Fb.”
It appeared that his hunch was correct. {The marketplace} function was rolled out throughout a whole lot of Fizz campuses between March and Might this yr, in preparation for the foreseeable end-of-term gross sales growth. Solomon mentioned Fizz has posted 50,000 listings on the platform and despatched 150,000 personal messages about merchandise. The most well-liked class is clothes, accounting for about 25% of listings.
However Fb Market will not be a straightforward competitor to beat. Some youthful Fb customers say they use the platform only for advertising and marketing. Though there are fewer Gen Z customers on Fb, Meta is working to regain the eye of this technology.
Funds are usually not but built-in into Fizz, so customers are liable for directing their gross sales. Solomon mentioned Fizz might construct a funds construction to make the market extra user-friendly, however he hasn’t thought of monetization but. Whereas Fizz could also be wealthy in enterprise capital, this traditional Silicon Valley transfer of prioritizing progress over income will not work within the subsequent technology of social media.
Even in the marketplace, Fizz is totally nameless. However to get into your faculty’s Fizz neighborhood first, you may must confirm your faculty e-mail account. So whereas there’s all the time a threat in assembly strangers — even when they go to your faculty — customers look like much less hesitant to purchase from classmates.
“We actually appreciated the statistics we have been wanting on the different day, that on common each vendor has two folks contacting them earlier than they promote,” Solomon mentioned. “If you already know they’re within the dorm subsequent to you, you haven’t any Causes to inform if they’re official.
However like earlier nameless social platforms, Fizz has labored onerous to take care of a secure setting on all campuses. In a single high-profile case, the Fitz neighborhood wreaked havoc on a highschool, with college students hiding in anonymity to humiliate and torture different college students and academics.
“We voluntarily closed two communities merely due to suggestions from dad and mom and directors,” Solomon mentioned. Since then, Fizz has refocused its efforts on content material moderation. Previously, Fizz paid part-time pupil moderators to observe their neighborhood. Now, the corporate has workers devoted to belief and security and is utilizing OpenAI’s expertise to make its automated audits extra highly effective.
Nonetheless, these efforts will not be sufficient to alleviate considerations. On nameless apps, faculty directors have seen scary situations earlier than — keep in mind YikYak? The president of the 16-campus College of North Carolina has introduced plans to ban the varsity from utilizing nameless apps akin to Fizz, Whisper and Sidechat. Subsequently, these college students won’t be able to buy second-hand textbooks on the Fizz Market.
“We’re very clear that as an nameless Gen Z platform, moderation must be on the core of who we’re,” Mathur advised TechCrunch.
TechCrunch visited a college’s Fizz neighborhood. College students posted content material about intercourse and medicines—matters which can be allowed on Fizz—however didn’t bully one another or spark dangerous conversations. However this is only one neighborhood amongst a whole lot. Whereas Fizz’s momentum with its content material moderation crew is encouraging, even the most important and most well-resourced social platforms nonetheless wrestle with toxicity.
Fitz’s argument for the platform’s anonymity is that it encourages college students to open up about their true emotions — college students will know after they see posts about others who could also be pressured about exams or struggling socially They aren’t alone in these experiences. On the plus facet, customers might discover some nice campus-specific memes. Or, now that there is a market, they could have the ability to make some huge cash on tv.
Up to date 7/3/24 at 4:17pm ET: Clothes makes up 25% of Fizz’s merchandise checklist.
