Upon relocating to Palo Alto, Teddy Solomon embarked on a journey to decorate his new living space, enlisting the aid of the Stanford community via Fizz.
“I seize every opportunity to buy something as a chance to dive deep into the seller’s experience with the marketplace. It fascinates me,” shared Solomon, one of the pioneers behind Fizz, during a conversation with TechCrunch. He expressed particular enthusiasm for a $100 television he bought from a graduate student who was preparing to leave for the summer break.
Rakesh Mathur, an experienced entrepreneur and investor whom Solomon had brought on board as Fizz’s CEO, queried, “Did you reveal your identity to him?”
“Indeed, because I bombarded him with countless queries about the marketplace,” Solomon retorted with a straight face.
When TechCrunch initially encountered the duo of founders, college dropouts behind Fizz, in 2022, the app, an anonymous social network carved out for individual university communities, was active in merely a dozen colleges. Presently, it boasts a presence on 240 college campuses and 60 high schools, with a team that consists of 30 regular employees and 4,000 volunteer moderators across educational institutions. Fizz has accumulated $41.5 million through various rounds of funding, cementing its growing influence in campus life.
Solomon had hinted at plans to launch a marketplace within Fizz from the early days, aiming to facilitate transactions among students for items such as apparel, textbooks, bicycles, and more. These transactions are commonplace among college students who find themselves relocating residence halls annually and are often in search of a return on their gently used items, like a calculus textbook.
Solomon is convinced there’s significant demand for a local marketplace tailored to the Gen Z demographic.
“There’s this stigma, like venturing into a sale on Craigslist might end up in an abduction scenario,” Solomon joked. “And with Facebook Marketplace, it’s evident Gen Z doesn’t frequent Facebook.”
Solomon’s speculation appears well-founded. Fizz’s marketplace was unveiled across its vast network of campuses between March and May, just in time for the seasonal surge of students eager to sell. According to Solomon, Fizz has seen 50,000 item listings with 150,000 direct messages exchanged about those listings, the majority pertaining to clothing, which represents about a quarter of all listings.
Nevertheless, overtaking Facebook Marketplace is no small challenge. Some younger users of Facebook confess they visit the site exclusively for its marketplace service. Despite a dwindling Gen Z presence on Facebook, Meta is strategizing on attracting that demographic back.
Currently, Fizz hasn’t integrated a payment mechanism, leaving users to orchestrate their sales. Solomon mentioned that introducing a payment feature to simplify the marketplace is on the agenda, though monetization isn’t an immediate priority. Despite the influx of venture capital, the usual Silicon Valley strategy of valuing expansion over immediate profitability seems less viable for upcoming social media ventures.
Fizz operates on total anonymity, even within its marketplace. Accessing a Fizz community for a specific school first requires verification via a school email. This necessity adds a layer of safety for users who might otherwise be wary of purchasing from strangers, even if they are fellow students.
“An intriguing statistic we recently stumbled upon is that sellers typically receive inquiries from two users before finalizing a sale,” Solomon elaborated. “Knowing a potential buyer is just around the corner in the same dormitory significantly lowers the barriers to trust.”
However, anonymous social platforms, including Fizz, have encountered challenges in ensuring a safe environment across campuses. In a notable incident, a Fizz community caused substantial disruption at a high school, with students leveraging anonymity to engage in harmful behavior towards peers and faculty.
“After receiving feedback from concerned parents and school administrators, we voluntarily shut down two communities,” Solomon remarked. Since those events, Fizz has doubled down on content moderation efforts. Initially relying on part-time student moderators, the company has now invested in dedicated full-time staff and incorporated OpenAI’s technology to enhance its automatic moderation capabilities.
Despite these initiatives, challenges persist. Anonymous platforms have historically presented difficulties for school administrators, who recall previous incidents with apps like Yik Yak. The University of North Carolina, boasting 16 campuses, has announced plans to ban anonymous apps such as Fizz, Whisper, and Sidechat.
“Given our platform’s anonymous nature and our target demographic, moderation remains our highest priority,” Mathur told TechCrunch.
TechCrunch’s review of a university’s Fizz community revealed posts on sensitive topics like sex and drugs — content deemed permissible on Fizz — with no evident bullying or harmful discourse. However, this account pertains to just one of the many communities on Fizz. Despite strides in content moderation, the battle against toxic behavior remains an uphill challenge, even for the most well-equipped social networks.
Fizz advocates for its anonymity feature, suggesting it fosters an environment where students feel more comfortable sharing personal struggles—whether academic or social. They hope this openness helps students realize they’re not alone in their challenges. Additionally, the platform’s marketplace offers a unique opportunity for users to find deals on goods like televisions within their campus communities.
Updated, 7/3/24, 4:17 PM ET: Clothing accounts for 25% of all listings on Fizz.
Compiled by Techarena.au.
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