GZV #5: May the 4th be with you.
Startups. Trends. News. All from a Gen Z view.
the flow
Where's money been flowing?
April 30th, 2020
Plantible
Seed round of $4.6 mil
One liner: Plantible Foods is a B2B food technology company with the goal to develop the most functional and applicable plant-based protein.
Score: 6.8
At my school we have a little restaurant in our dining hall called Village Juice. They serve healthy smoothies, juices, salad, and other meals such as Avocado toast. Very healthy, and quality ingredients, but very expensive for the college budget. Yet, every lunch it is crowded.
Nowadays, Gen Z kids are aware of what we are eating. We know what is considered healthy food and really make an effort to enjoy a nice healthy meal. The point is this: Companies like Plantible have a growing market in Gen Z. In order to capture that market they need to do one thing really well; Branding.
Plantible's website boasts about how their protein is more efficient than traditional proteins. This is awesome to people who care about that. Gen Z doesn't. We want to know how healthy is it, will one bar provide the same protein and vitamins we get from a protein shake? Simplistic marketing will be the key to impacting the Gen Z market, if they do this, as well as have an easily accessible distribution market (Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, boutique healthy stores), they could be a great success.
ByIt Funding: Bootstrapped, but looking to start the conversation
Reach out to thomas@genzvoice.com for connection.
(Disclosure: I personally know the founder and believe in the idea myself)
One liner: Buy your Favorite Brands in Two Texts or Less.
Score: 8.6
I have long believed that email marketing toward Gen Z has been highly inefficient because all we do is delete them. What is the one means of communication that we always check? Text.
Byit is helping to make a frictionless e-commerce economy by building a product marketing system over text. This platform is unique because in order to buy a product, all you have to do is text “BUY”, click a confirmation link, then boom, your order has been placed.
Gen Z is some of the most impulsive buyers in the consumer market. Seeing a text for a product that we just viewed and all we have to do is text “BUY” to order it will drive up marketing sales for e-commerce companies.
Check them out here: https://www.byiteasy.com
May 4th, 2020
Hearo.live
Crowdfunding on republic.co
One liner: Turn solitary media watching into a live, social experience
Score: 3.3
In a Covid-19 world this app makes sense. Post Covid-19, will it still? Streaming tv shows, sports games, and esports has been a very popular activity in the last few weeks.
As for college, I don’t see this working. When we want to watch a sports game or tv show, we invite friends over to watch it. The only time we may use this is when we are seperated from our friends or significant other over breaks.
This may have a market in under 16 markets. When kids aren't able to drive easily to each other's house to watch the hockey game, they may want to hop on this app and talk because they physically can’t be together. Although I think this app won’t fail and could succeed, I do not envision mass market success.
May 4th, 2020
Acciyo
Crowdfunding on republic.co
One liner: AI-powered desktop extension that puts news in context
Score: 7.2
It’s no secret that not many gen z’ers read the news anymore. We have developed a really short attention span and long articles aren't really attractive to us.
Sometimes though, whether it be for class or personal interest, we will hop on the WSJ or NYTimes to see what’s happening. Current updates can be tricky though, not many articles are going to go all the way back to day 1 just to fill you in. For example, if you go to WSJ and want to read why oil is so low right now, you aren't going to be able to see the full story.
This is where Acciyo comes in. By providing meaningful context so readers can understand the full story. Overall, this will improve the user's experience on all news sites. Not many stories last for one day, think the US-China trade war, the oil crisis, even Covid-19. When stories span weeks or months, users may need context if they aren’t up-to-date. Gen Z isn’t one to follow along for the entire story, so when a class asks us to investigate the Oil crisis, we need some context.
April 22nd, 2020
Housemates (UK based)
Pre-seed round of $100k
One liner: We're a student accommodation platform, but unlike others, we're fast, secure and fun.
Score: 7.6
This UK-based startup is looking to solve what I feel is a broken system in some colleges. Essentially, they are making a platform for all landlords to list their student properties. This allows for students like me to just go on Housemates to find an off-campus apartment instead of having to call 4 landlords.
As we speak, I am currently trying to find an off-campus apartment for next fall and have been calling the same 5 landlords every week searching for availability. A platform that would just put all these listings in one place would be heaven for a student like me.
I spoke to a few different kids about their situations at their respective universities, one city school, one small city school, one school next to a city, and a few others just to make sure I got a good feel for the market. I found that roughly half of these schools have the same issue I do, dealing with seperate landlords. Housemates will allow us to have a more efficient and streamlined solution, I would watch for when/if this company expands to the US.
Why My Social Media App Failed
Tom Lombardozzi
Tom Lombardozzi’s Take:
Back in May of 2019, my good buddy and I ventured out to start our first startup. We had an idea to make a new social media platform exclusively for your campus. The app would feature 8 second videos, a top 10 page, and you could only access it through a .edu email.
After 7 months of development (3 months longer than expected), we launched on October 24th. We had 250 users in the first 24 hours and over 30% engagement rate. Yet, as the weeks went on we gained users and lost engagement. After 2 weeks we had 500 users, but had dropped to a 15% engagement rate. Finally, we realized what the problem was, no one wanted to post videos until they saw other people post videos. This resulted in a major catch 22. We tried to brainstorm ways to drive up engagement, such as making the app anonymous, but the legal implications of that can get way too complex.
The problem at the end of the day was the oversaturation of the social media market. Our app was meant to serve as a place for college students to post funny stupid videos. What we failed to realize was that snapchat and barstool accounts already served this purpose. Changing the Gen Z behavior when it comes to the social media environment is hard, and something that we couldn't achieve.
Dan Crocker’s (Co-Founder and CEO) Take:
In theory, CampU was a great idea. It was intended to be the hub for social media content that teenagers love most: wacky, wild, and funny college content. Almost anyone who we told the idea to before our launch thought it was a really cool idea. Things always sound better in theory though.
There were many problems we underestimated. For one, how do you get a bunch of kids with short attention spans to pay attention to a brand new app, when they are already using 3+ social media apps daily? It was hard, even though we got a few hundred people to sign up and at least 20-30 different people posting, that wasn’t enough to keep the content stream going.
Secondly, our lack of tech experience leads to a lot of poor planning and execution. With one fairly intermediate developer designing the entire app, timelines and due dates were often thrown out the window if he needed more time to figure things out. Bugs or problems that a development team could easily knock out in an hour or two would take us days, sometimes weeks.
Final thoughts:
Although CampU failed, Dan and I learned more life and business lessons than classrooms have ever taught us. We were able to take an idea for an app and bring it to life over 7 months. This is an experience that not many people are lucky enough to have. We also know what it’s like to work in a team, have tough conversations, deal with equity, gain feedback, work with lawyers, disagree on ideas, see a product through till the end, along with many, many other lessons.
What will be the next social media app?
Tom: The next big platform will have a new form of content or change the way we view current content.
Dan: The next big platform will be something we were trying to achieve, something with close social media groups. There are existing platforms, but one app will perfect it.
the lookout
We want to go back to college and will do anything to be there in the fall. If we have to download a Covid-19 tracking app, we will do it. Lookout for any Covid-19 apps or websites that are college specific and universities may require students to download.
Reach out to info@genzvoice.com with any feedback or thoughts.
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-GZV