Editor's note: In our 2023 Startups to Watch feature, the Silicon Valley Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times present startups and founders doing unique things in the Bay Area. Fizz is one of 15 we profiled this year — to read more about our mission and the other startups we're featuring, click here.
Those who were around for the early days of social media may remember that Facebook began as a social network at Harvard University, where founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched it as TheFacebook. Now with 3.7 billion users who at least one of the apps under parent company Meta, Facebook dominates social media and the internet around the world.
But that hasn't stopped much smaller competitors from trying to grab a slice of the attention economy. Nextdoor is for neighbors. Mastodon is for Twitter expats. Truth Social is for Donald Trump supporters. Reddit is for meme lovers. 8kun is the current incarnation of its seedy predecessor 8chan. Parler is a refuge for right-wingers.
And with Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, many people are looking for new alternatives, but at the same time, are realizing that once a service becomes sticky, it's hard to leave. It's called network effects: the more users there are, the more valuable it becomes.
Fizz is entering a crowded field, but the social media upstart is bringing the industry full circle with a newly reimagined social network that's designed specifically for college students. It launched at Stanford, though, not Harvard.
- Founded: 2021
- Founders: Teddy Solomon, COO; Ashton Cofer, CTO
- What it does: Developing a social media platform for college students
- HQ: Palo Alto
- Employees: 25+
- Total funding: $16.5 million
Describe what your business does for someone from Mars? Fizz is a social media platform exclusively available for college students that aims to be a safer, private and more engaging space to share authentic content. Fizz has become the go-to destination to stay up to date on all things campus life.
How different is the company today compared to when you launched? We envisioned the company would fill the void of students yearning to connect during the height of Covid-19 when on-campus classes were not allowed. Now we are an addition to campus connection by continuing to serve as a platform that can adjust to students' ever-changing needs and be a source for open discussion on school topics, on-campus events and even relationship building.
Who are your target users? We created it for college students, and the business model is continuously growing to meet the needs of what those students want to see. It was important that the app was only available for college students so that the content would be hyper local and users could the trust it to be their authentic selves.
How do you plan to weather this tough economic climate? We recently had a fantastic Series A round, and we plan to use the new capital to meet the demand of more colleges wanting to be a part of the Fizz movement and will continue to scale methodically.
How will you scale? We’re preparing for more campus launches this year at the start of the new semester. We’re continuing to listen to the feedback from our communities and are working on a few new features to provide further value.
Does your team work in the office, remotely or in a hybrid setup? We have an office in Palo Alto that serves as our headquarters. We don't have a strict policy on in-office versus remote work, so we leave it up to our employees to choose. We do have a high rate of employees that come in person.
