New Delhi:- Fizz is a new social network created by two people who left Stanford University without finishing their studies. It quickly became popular among Stanford students because it allowed them to be anonymous and interact with others. The platform is becoming popular outside of Stanford, but it also has challenges like any other social media company.
Fizz works in a special way that lets people with a Stanford email address join its network. They can then contribute and comment without revealing their identity within the community. Other people can like or dislike these posts, which affects the score of the content and increases the influence of certain users, even if their identities are hidden.
Sunny Xun Liu, who works at Stanford’s Social Media Lab, thinks that Fizz is great because it allows people to talk about many different topics, like sex, drinks, drugs, and which classes to go to on campus. She thinks that Fizz's involvement in physical campus events makes it more attractive. It values privacy, which means that the content is more important than who wrote it.
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Even though Fizz started locally, it is now growing to reach more people. CEO Rakesh Mathur says the network is available at over 80 schools all over the country, and they want to increase it to 250 schools by the end of the year. The platform received more money from Owl Ventures and NEA, who invested $25 million in Series B funding. The platform's value increased because of this, although Mathur did not disclose the exact amount. The owl gave $10 million, and the NEA gave between $12 million and $15 million.
This round stands out because now VCs are paying a lot of attention to how much money a company is making. Danielle Lay, a partner at NEA and an observer on Fizz's board, admits that the business model is still being developed. However, she mentions that specialized vertical networks have been successful in existing alongside larger social platforms. For instance, on a larger social network, not many people would be aware that "Arrillaga" is the nickname Stanford students use for the university's gym. The big gym, which is 75,000 square feet in size, got its name from a very rich person who builds houses and gives money to help others, named John Arrillaga. He went to Stanford University and got money to play basketball there.
Lay also thinks that Fizz is really helpful for new students because they can use the app to easily understand what is happening at their school.
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Emily Bennett, a principal at Owl Ventures, is not worried about Fizz's current focus on college students alone when it comes to building a large social network in the future. Fizz is someone who knows how to help people from the Gen Z generation when they finish school. She explains that her past experiences at Meta, Spotify, and the New York Times, working as a product manager, taught her that when making apps for people to use, it's important to first make them helpful and useful for the people using them.
Despite Fizz's promising progress, there have been challenges along the way. Fizz has noticed that schools are showing interest in their affordable services. They achieve this by hiring students to distribute fliers and importantly, by offering donuts. But people have become worried about how the website is controlled and protected. Students who volunteer to moderate have the power to remove posts they think are not okay or disrespectful. People are saying that the moderators might be unfair.
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In 2021, Fizz had a breach of privacy caused by three Stanford students. The students were worried about Fizz's claims of being completely anonymous. A year later, Solomon told TechCrunch that they have improved their security practices and are still dedicated to protecting their users' privacy as Fizz continues to grow.
People are comparing Fizz and YikYak, which used to be a popular social network for college students. YikYak became very popular quickly, but people were worried about hate speech and threats on the app. This eventually caused the app to shut down in 2017, four years after it started. Mathur says that Fizz is different because it has better ways of getting new users started and is stricter about monitoring content. However, there are still challenges in dealing with content that users create.
Fizz is still growing, even though it has faced difficulties. The platform has received a total of $41. 5 million in funding from different investors. The founders, Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer, have mentioned their future plans for the network, which include testing a feature where students can sell things to each other on an online marketplace.
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Rakesh Mathur CEO also adds that there might be job openings at Fizz soon. Additionally, an important executive, whose name has not been revealed yet, will become Fizz's chief product officer next month.
Two students from Stanford University created the Fizz app but dropped out. The app is very popular among Stanford students. However, there are some issues with the company's shares. Despite this, the app is rapidly growing and being used on over 80 college campuses. The CEO, Rakesh Mathur, mentioned this information.