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Fizz Bringing Connection Back To A Generation Raised On Highlight Reels

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Fizz: Bringing Connection Back To A Generation Raised On Highlight Reels

Fizz: Bringing Connection Back To A Generation Raised On Highlight Reels

Fizz is a campus-specific social platform, founded in 2020 by Stanford dropouts Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer, that allows anonymous posting—creating a digital environment where college students can interact without the pressure of personal branding. Having secured over $40 million in funding, Fizz has positioned itself as “the college platform” by directly addressing what mainstream social media increasingly abandons: genuine connection.

“Social media was not doing our generation justice,” explains Teddy, the 23-year-old CEO. “We were 18 years old. All of us were on Instagram, where Instagram is not a social platform — it’s entertainment. You post about the 1% of your life, the highlight reels, the moments where you’re in front of a waterfall. Not the moments where you’re breaking up with your significant other or the more real moments of life.”

Despite being the most digitally connected generation in history, Gen Z might also be the loneliest. Teddy witnessed this firsthand during the pandemic when incoming Stanford freshmen created a massive group chat to connect, but few actually participated. “There were 1,200 people in it, but maybe two or three would actually speak because our generation has grown up on social media where you’re expected to present the most perfect version of yourself. And if you can’t do that, well, don’t say anything at all,” Teddy recalls.

He believes that this culture of perfectionism has created a generation paralyzed by social anxiety online—unwilling to share genuine experiences for fear of judgment, yet desperate for real connection. 

“Gen Z is lonely but desperate to connect. Having lived through the pandemic. It’s unbelievable what Gen Z has been through and how it’s impacted their ability to socialize in person,” Teddy notes, adding that traditional platforms have made this problem worse by rewarding only the most polished, aspirational content while real-life experiences remain hidden.

These observations about social media’s separation from real human experience drove Teddy and his co-founder to create Fizz specifically for college students. The platform was designed to satisfy what Teddy calls “the 99% of things that do not make it onto Instagram and TikTok.”

How Fizz Works

The core of Fizz lies in its unique structure and features designed specifically for college communities. Users verify their identity with their .edu email addresses, ensuring each campus community consists exclusively of students from that school. Once verified, students can post content with or without revealing their identity, removing the social pressure that silences so many on mainstream platforms.

Fizz focuses on shared experiences rather than shared interests. “A platform like Reddit is interest-based. You might like Taylor Swift or some singer or athlete, but that’s an interest. An experience is much more meaningful,” Teddy explains. “If you go to school with people, for example, if you go to the same college as them, it’s very self-selecting. People have chosen to be in that environment. And you go to the same dining halls, the same parties, the same classes, you live in the same dorms.”

This experience-based approach creates stronger communities with deeper connections relevant to users’ daily lives. Students can post images, polls, GIFs, links, videos, direct message others, and engage with content about virtually any aspect of campus life. 

The optional anonymity feature complements this approach by removing the social pressure that prevents genuine expression. Teddy explains that it “strips away that social anxiety” that keeps many students silent on traditional platforms.

Daily Life on Fizz: How Students Actually Use the Platform

The typical Fizz experience centers around a main feed that displays posts from fellow students at the same school. With over 20 million posts made to the platform, content ranges from questions about classes and professors to dining hall reviews, party announcements, and relationship advice.

“People post about everything from parties, classes, memes, jokes, buying and selling things, events, really, whatever it might be, with respect to campus life,” Teddy notes.

The platform has expanded beyond simple social posting to include practical utilities that enhance campus life. A peer-to-peer marketplace allows students to sell clothing, concert tickets, textbooks, and other necessities to fellow students. “We built community and then we launched a marketplace into the platform,” Teddy explains, noting the importance of establishing community before adding utility features.

Events represent another major use case, with over 100,000 events posted on the platform. These range from parties to club meetings, study groups, and sporting events. Unlike traditional social platforms that might show events from anywhere, Fizz’s campus-specific approach ensures that all events are relevant to the user’s actual location and community.

From Stanford to Nationwide Campus Adoption

Fizz’s impact became evident immediately upon launch. When Teddy and his team dropped flyers under dorm room doors at Stanford in 2021, the app “had completely taken over the campus” by dinnertime. The platform achieved 95% adoption among Stanford students with “higher retention than every social platform that had ever existed.”

The true test came when Fizz expanded beyond Stanford. “Launching at Pepperdine in 2022, a very different school, a religious school, a much smaller school, a different location,” was a pivotal moment for Teddy. When Fizz “took over Pepperdine in three hours,” the team realized they had “cracked something for a generation and not for a school.”

This expansion continued without traditional marketing strategies. Rather than spending heavily on advertising, Teddy focused on getting “as close as possible to the user, to the consumer”—a contrast to what he describes as big brands being “far from the consumer, coming off as corporate or cringy.” This has enabled Fizz to expand to campuses nationwide while maintaining its genuine connection with users.

Creating Safety Through Community Understanding

One of the most practical aspects of Fizz is its moderation system, which combines AI with human oversight from students who understand campus context. This hybrid model addresses a challenge that has affected centralized moderation systems attempting to monitor local campus content.

“If somebody at Stanford were to post saying ‘Arrillaga sucks,’ a centralized moderation team would say they’re bullying Arrillaga and remove the post,” Teddy explains. “But if you’re a Stanford student, you know that Arrillaga is the name of the dining hall on campus.”

By employing approximately 4,000 volunteer student moderators across campuses, Fizz ensures content is evaluated with proper cultural context. The AI handles 80% of violations, with student moderators addressing the remaining cases that require a nuanced understanding of campus culture. Teddy notes that “anonymity can go one of two ways, either really positive or really negative,” but credits this moderation approach with steering Fizz “in the really positive direction.”

This attention to contextual understanding recognizes that campus communities are as diverse as the schools themselves. “If you go to [a prestigious university], you’re going to meet a bunch of billionaires’ kids. If you go to Eastern Kentucky, you meet people who grew up on coal mines. If you go to Abilene Christian, the entire campus goes to chapel together at 11 a.m,” Teddy observes. “Fizz communities are a direct reflection of real life, and they are very culturally different.”

Growing Beyond Siloed Communities

The success of campus-specific communities presented Fizz with a scaling challenge: how to grow beyond isolated campus bubbles without sacrificing the intimacy and relevance that made the platform successful. Teddy acknowledges this limitation: “The privacy of the community is a beautiful thing, but it limits the network effect. It limits our ability to move beyond the college space.”

Their solution, launched in December 2024, is Global Fizz—a feature that connects college communities around shared experiences and identities while preserving each school’s private community. 

“If I’m a student at Stanford, there’s no reason why I have nothing in common with a student who’s at Yale across the country,” Teddy explains. The new product allows cross-campus interaction on topics relevant to college students broadly, while maintaining school-specific spaces for local campus content.

Teddy considers the launch of Global Fizz one of his proudest moments, alongside the initial expansion beyond Stanford. “We all knew we had just cracked breaking out of siloed communities, which is something we had wanted to do for years,” he recalls.

The Business of Genuine Connection

After establishing its value to users, Fizz began exploring monetization approximately six months ago through targeted advertising. Rather than bombarding users with irrelevant ads, Fizz partners with brands that offer genuine value to students.

“We’ve been fortunate to work with companies like Perplexity, Quizlet, Kalshi—companies that really want to reach college students effectively,” Teddy explains. These partnerships often include tangible benefits for students, such as free Perplexity Pro or Quizlet Plus subscriptions, creating a positive advertising experience that users appreciate rather than tolerate.

This approach reflects Teddy’s broader belief about successful marketing to Gen Z: “The companies that are doing well are getting close to their users, whether it’s because they have Gen Z DNA within their company or they’re working with creators that are more like micro celebrities who might appeal to the target demographic.”

While advertising is just beginning for Fizz, Teddy sees potential in this revenue stream, noting that “Reddit’s been saying since 2021-2022, when ads were unpopular, that ads are the way to go. And I believe them.” The platform is also exploring additional monetization opportunities through its events and marketplace features, though advertising remains the primary focus.

In January, Teddy made another strategic business decision, relocating the entire company from Palo Alto to New York. “The Bay Area is dying, especially in consumer tech,” he asserts. The move was motivated by a desire to be closer to users, advertisers, and other consumer social companies. “In SoHo in New York, we’ve got consumer companies all around us, and there are way more people and way more energy,” Teddy explains. 

This environment has already opened up new opportunities, including partnerships with nearby companies and participation in events such as ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Reclaiming Social in Social Media

As Teddy observes the broader social media field, he sees a basic shift away from genuine connection toward entertainment. 

“Legacy social platforms are becoming entertainment platforms. My theory is that social media platforms don’t really exist anymore,” he notes. “If you ask anybody about their experience on Instagram, they’re seeing influencers and entertainment content. They’re not seeing their friends’ posts anymore.”

While this trend continues, Teddy sees an opportunity to fill the void. “All the other companies can move away from social, and we’ll jump in and we’ll proudly do it,” he states. When asked about the future of social media, his answer is tellingly simple: “Social.”

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