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Teddy Solomon just move to a fresh house in Palo Alto , so he work to the Stanford biotic community on Fizz to provide his room .
“ Every fourth dimension I show up to buy something from somebody , I grill them about the marketplace , because I ’m really funny about their experience , ” Solomon , a co - founder of Fizz , distinguish TechCrunch . He ’s particularly psyched about the $ 100 television set he got from a grad bookman who was about to move out for the summertime .
“ Did you tell him who you were ? ” asked Rakesh Mathur , the longtime enterpriser and investor that Solomon brought in to be CEO of Fizz .
“ Yeah , because I asked him like , 100 interrogation about the market place , ” Solomon deadpanned .
When TechCrunchfirst metFizz ’s Stanford dropout co - founders in 2022 , the anonymous societal media platform — which has disjoined community for single shoal campus — was only at about a dozen college . Now , the app is operating on 240 college campus and 60 high schools , and the team has expanded to 30 full - time staff and 4,000 unpaid worker moderator across schools . Fizz has raised$41.5 millionacross multiple funding rounds , power the app ’s maturate presence in campus acculturation .
Even in those other conversations , Solomon mentioned Fizz ’s plans to open a marketplace , where student can buy and sell thing like clothes , textbooks , bikes and more . College students are often get these variety of dealing since they ’re be active between student residence every year , and maybe they want some money back for their gently used infinitesimal calculus text edition .
Solomon thinks that the market for a local , Gen Z - focussed buying and sell platform is wide open .
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“ There ’s that sort of stigma around , like , if I betray something on Craigslist , I might get nobble , ” Solomon articulate . “ And Facebook marketplace … Gen Z is not using Facebook . ”
His hunch seems to be exact . The marketplace feature article rolled out across Fizz ’s hundreds of campuses between March and May of this year , in preparation for the predictable end - of - semester rush to sell . Solomon pronounce Fizz has had 50,000 listings posted on the platform , with 150,000 DMs ship around point . The most popular category is clothing , which come to about 25 % of listings .
But Facebook marketplace wo n’t be an promiscuous competitor to beat . Some young Facebook user say theyonly go on the platformfor the mart . Even thoughfewer Gen Z users are on Facebook , Meta is puzzle out onrecapturingthat multiplication ’s aid .
payment are not yet integrated in Fizz , so users are responsible for navigate their sale . Solomon said Fizz may build out a defrayal anatomical structure to make the market place more user - friendly , but he is n’t thinking about monetization yet . While Fizz may be productive in venture funding , this classic Silicon Valley move of prioritizing outgrowth over profit is n’t as executable in the next generation of social media .
Fizz is fully anonymous , even on the market place . But to get onto a school ’s Fizz residential area in the first place , you need to verify a school email score . So , while there ’s always a risk in meeting up with a stranger — even if they go to your schooltime — users seem less hesitating about buy from their schoolmate .
“ One of the statistic we really fuck that we were looking over the other day is that on ordinary , every vender has two masses reach out to them before they trade , ” Solomon said . “ If you know they ’re in the hall next door to you , you do n’t have any reason to calculate out if they ’re legitimate or not . It ’s moderately easy . ”
But as with the anonymous social platforms that have come before it , Fizz has contend to maintain a safe environment on all of its campus . In one high - profile case , a Fizz communitywreaked havoc on a high schooltime , as student hid behind namelessness to shame and torment other students and module .
“ We ’ve had two residential district that we ’ve voluntarily shut down just because of feedback from parents and administrators , ” Solomon said . Since then , Fizz has refocus its consignment on message moderation . In the past , Fizz paid part - time pupil moderator to monitor their community . Now , the society has dedicated stave that function on trust and safety , and it ’s using technology from OpenAI to make its automated moderation more racy .
These efforts may not be enough to mitigate business organization , though . On anonymous apps , school administrator have see frightening scenarios play out before — rememberYikYak ? The United States President of the University of North Carolina , which has 16 campus , announcedplans to bananonymous apps like Fizz , Whisper and Sidechat from the shoal . So , those educatee wo n’t be able to buy pre - owned textbooks on Fizz ’s marketplace .
“ We ’re very mindful that as an anonymous , Gen Z platform , easing has to be our core , ” Mathur told TechCrunch .
TechCrunch accessed one university ’s Fizz community . scholar send about sexual urge and drugs — these subject are allow on Fizz — but were not bullying each other or sparking harmful dialog . But this is just one biotic community out of C . While Fizz ’s impulse in produce its content moderation squad is anticipate , even the largest , most resourced social platforms still shinny with perniciousness .
Fizz ’s argument in favour of the anon. nature of the chopine is that it promote students to open up about how they ’re really feeling — when a student sees posts about how other people might be accentuate over an test or struggling socially , they ’ll know they are n’t alone in those experience . On the shiny side , user might find some great campus - specific memes . Or , now that there ’s a marketplace , they might be able to mark a great deal on a TV .
update , 7/3/24 , 4:17 PM ET : Clothing makes up 25 % of Fizz listings .
