GZV #3: Happy Monday! Here's your update from Gen Z.
Startups. Trends. News. All from a Gen Z view.
The Quick Punch 4/6
Zoom Happy hours, we saw our parents doing it now we are doing it.
It's getting lonely, on Friday my buddies and I got on zoom and playing an online card game to pass the time. Many are doing the same.
Most of us aren't going out of our way to watch news, either our parents tell us about what's happening or we see it through social media.
Whats the best way to reach Gen Z? Obviously social media, but it's not necessarily the marketing tools given to you. Find out more below in today's feature piece.
What we are seeing in the news
Notion x $1,388,888.89 per hour
One of the hardest problems for startups right now is raising money. Luckily, that's not the case for Notion, who raised $50 mil last week.
As many American's are working remote, they find themselves in need of a collaborative workspace to track their projects and keep up productivity. Notion is there for them, and with a record high user signs ups people are noticing Notion.
Let's dive into the numbers. Some startups spend months raising $50 mil. It took Notion 36 hours. That is equivalent to $1,388,888.89 per hour. That's pretty f***ing quick. Oh, and to put the cherry on top, they are profitable after just 5 years, take that WeWork. Also, just want to point out that this money put Notion's valuation at $2 bil. Before this valuation Notion was valued at $800 mil. So yeah, they increased their company value by about $1.2 bil. Thank you for making the rest of America who is sitting on the couch feel like shit. (Seriously though, stay home).
I thought this news was really interesting in the startup and venture capital world, but of course this is a Gen Z newsletter. So let's start with the app.
First off, the UI/UX for Gen Z users isn't the best. Most of us don't like to read directions and we kind of just hope that everything self explanatory. I messed around on the app for about 5 minutes and kind of have a grasp of it.
Here's the thing, the desktop version is amazing. I am able to navigate it easily as everything is in view. I personally will start using this to keep track of everything on my plate. If more Gen Z kids knew about this I would put money on it they would start using it to. It's clean and the UI/UX is simple enough for us to understand it without direction.
Cloudera x Internships
It recently came out that Cloudera, a cybersecurity company, would be doubling their summer internship program.
Can everyone else do this? Gen Z has seen so many of our internships changed in some type of way. The best situation one can hope for, is that their current internship becomes remote. For those who don't have internships, it has just become a hell of a lot more competitive. And for others, the worst has occurred and their internship has been cancelled and they need to get back on the networking trail and procure their future job, and pay check.
Internships are an amazing experience that allow us to learn what we like in a job and filter out what we don't like. Someone with that investment banking internship may realize that IB isn't their path, but maybe wealth management is.
It is a tough blow for the current class of interns, so when companies like Cloudera double their internship programs, I will bet good money that they are getting a flood of applicants. In reality though, it could be a good wake up call for Gen Z, we have to work to find those internship positions that are still open. On the other side, if we can't find those opportunities it will be a summer of unemployment, which we will remember for years and make sure it doesn't happen again.
Marketing to Gen Z
Tom Lombardozzi
Advertising on instagram and other platforms works, but is it truly the best way to reach Gen Z?
I'll start off by saying instagram ads, snapchat ads, and facebook ads usually will get the job done. In all honesty thought, I do not believe that they are the best way to spend your money.
Gen Z is PEPPERED with ads on these platforms. I just scrolled through 50 instagram posts and 12 of them were ads. That means roughly 25% of my feed is ads. This means we are immune, and we barely notice them anymore, unless they are done well enough to grab our attention.
So, what do we pay attention to on instagram? The pages that entertain us.
This means pages like @fuckjerry, @memezar, @nochaser, @barstoolsports, and many, many others. Some of these pages have funny videos, memes, sports videos, and other content. The point is we pay attention to what these pages post. Beyond these pages we pay attention to our influencers, these people are who we admire because we like how they live. To name a few for me it's @biznasty, @philmickelson, @stoolpresidente, and @rorymcilroy.
Those pages are your bread and butter, if they allow it, reach out to them and find out if you can work with them. For example, @biznasty is a host of the most popular hockey podcast in the world, Spitten Chiclets, they sell ad spots for their podcast and instagram stories, and the loyal fans will listen to what they say. I love the podcast and personally have bought products from 4 different companies who advertised with them. For someone like Phil Mickelson or Rory Mcilroy, it will probably be more of a partnership and harder to work with them.
I believe that the best way to reach your gen z customer is to advertise with pages and people who they follow. People call them influencers. This is because influencers have a loyal fan base and any product they show off, people are going to pay attention.
This isn't just restricted to instagram either, it's wherever Gen Z kids are. Sure, Instagram holds a large amount of the market, but youtube is also a great place to advertise. Tiktok is also gaining massive traction among Gen Z. Anywhere where Gen Z interacts with content, try to think of the people who produce the content they watch and partner with them. That's where your money is best spent.
Any questions email thomas@genzvoice.com
The Startup Scope
Episodes in 10 minutes or less
I mean $1.8 bil in funding pre-launch, what can go wrong?
Unless you are living under a rock like Patrick Star, you have probably seen an advertisement for Quibi. The platform is set to launch on Tuesday, April 7th and features a multitude of shows that are 10 minutes or less.
I see two sides of this, either Gen Z is going to love it or hate it. It's no secret that our generation has a shorter attention span than most, so an entertainment option that allows us to consume content in 10 minutes or less should make us love the platform.
The only problem I see is that when we enjoy content, we like to have a lot of it. So, if these shows are only 10 minutes long, how much are you going to fit enough quality content into one episode? Shows like The Office and Friends are popular because they fit in great content over a 20 minute span. How are you going to cut that down to 10 minutes?
It's definitely an interesting concept and the best names in media are behind it such as Warner Bros, Walt Disney, and Sony Pictures. If there is any combination that can make this work it's these guys.
If I were a betting man I would say Quibi is going to be a success in the long term. I will download the app myself along with a few of my friends and gather some feedback. I'll report back next newsletter.
Reach out to thomas@genzvoice.com with any feedback or thoughts.
-GZV