GZV #13: Gen Z x NoCode, Social investing, and a new Battle Royale game
Startups. Trends. Markets. All from a Gen Z view.
Read time: ~ 6 minutes
Thank you to everyone who subscribed since last newsletter! I hope I get it right for you. Make sure to keep sharing so we can keep this newsletter going!
Follow me on twitter:
Themes of the week:
Social Investing š
Fraternity apps (Frapps?) š»
Next Fortnite? š®
NoCode š«š»
Recently Funded Startups
Scale:Ā Gen Z wonāt/may/will like <Company Name>.
Gen ZĀ willĀ likeĀ Commonstock.
Who are they?
āCommonStock is the Substack for investing: follow smart people, see their trades, learn and become better at choosing great companies.ā -@ZacharyDeWitt
Why the rating (Pros)?Ā
Investing has became a popular trend with college kids. I receive texts weekly from friends asking what stocks to buy or what platform to invest on. Iāve been involved in the market for 6 years and havenāt seen anything like this.
We arenāt investing alone either, group chats are now being lit up with texts to buy whatever stock is hot that day.
Commonstock can now direct these conversations to an actual platform and kids can copy their friends exact trades.
Why the rating (Cons)?
Multiple competitors trying to accomplish the same thing (ex. Public).
There will be some resistance at first in gaining traction, but this is a very social tool, so once one person likes it they will share with their friends.
š” Investment Idea š”: Watch out for new investing startups trying to jump into this changing landscape. Think 2-4 years down the road when these amateur investors start becoming smart, what brokerage will they use? What research tools will they use? (Hot Stock Research Startup: EEON)
Gen ZĀ mayĀ likeĀ Frap.
Who are they?
Frap is the all-in-one app for Greek life! Innovative event management, custom apparel, messaging, resources and more.
Why the rating (Pros)?Ā
Groupme is the main way Iāve seen greek life run communication, but itās a MVP (minimum viable product) at best.
A lot goes into managing a fraternity or sorority, and there may be a need for a platform that puts everything in one place.
For massive fraternities on campusā like OSU, Penn State, ASU, a management platform like this is music to their ears.
Why the rating (Cons)?
Greek life, at least on my campus, has been operating the same way for the past few years; Groupme for communication, and then when stuff is important, an email.
I think the main problem Frap will see is resistance to change from greek life who arenāt comfortable with changing a method theyāve been using for years, even if there is a better way.
š” Investment Idea š”: There is room for innovation on college campusā. Whether that be a new social app, a party planning app, an education app, many facets of the college experience can be improved through innovation. When you come across these investment opportunities contact me or another college student to gain some insight into whether the idea will work or not .
Read about my failed social app here.
Gen Z Trend of the Week - Fall Guys
Whatās Fall Guys?
āFall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a 2020 platformer battle royale game developed by Mediatonic and published by Devolver Digitalā. It was released on August 4th, 2020 for Windows and Playstation.
Fall Guys consist of 60-player games where players run through obstacle course-like tracks and the last few players in each wave get eliminated. This keeps going until there is a winner. And trust me, winning is not easy.
How is it doing?
Two days after launch they hit a peak of 260,000 players, but Fall Guys has yet to be released on Xbox yet, arguably the most popular gaming platform there is.
Why are Battle Royale games so popular?
They are super competitive. Winning a game of Fortnite or Call Of Duty Warzone is so rare for your average gamer that it becomes a brag. Same thing with Fall guys. My friend who has played for a little over a week hasnāt come close to winning yet.
How big can this game get?
Right now itās hard to tell, but once it gets released on the Xbox, the total players could grow 100% in a few days. The game is also very pleasing to play and watch, with colorful and sleek gameplay itās easy to be drawn in from just watching.
This graphic was released from the company a week after launch.
Whereās theš”investmentš”?
Tonic Games, a development & publishing group, owns the company who developed Fall Guys. On a wider scale, Battle Royale games are very, very popular. Watch for companies that try to put a new spin on battle Royale and have the ability to pick up extreme traction.
NoCode Platforms Could Result in Gen Z Being the Most Entrepreneurial Generation
Let me start off by saying, I have some experience in this field. If you missed it earlier, I actually co-founded a social media app myself, read about it here. My co-founder and I spent thousands on a developer to build our app that was at most a MVP.
This is the main barrier for Gen Z when starting a app-based startup, the costs are astronomically high to develop it unless you know how to code yourself. This is where NoCode becomes exciting. Instead of having to spend thousands of dollars to develop, you only need to spend a few bucks. This way kids like myself, donāt have to spend all this money to develop an app before finding out that their idea sucks.
For my startup, we hired our developer in June, and the app was pretty much finished in September, but then we had to go through 2 months of beta testing just to sort out all the bugs that the application had. In the end, our app took roughly 5 months to build.
With a NoCode platform I estimate it could have taken 3-5 weeks.
NoCode will revolutionize entrepreneurship in Generation Z. Itās scary to start a company, even scarier if youāre trying to build an app and have no clue how to even get started. Well, now kids can build out a rough model of what their app may look like in an easy and cost-effective no code platform. So instead of trying to raise an angel round with no product, you can build an MVP with NoCode, run a small beta group, and proceed to raise a seed round.
Of course, NoCode wonāt be able to build all ideas that kids have, but something is better than nothing. I also believe the platforms will keep becoming more sophisticated as the years go on.
Generations before mine werenāt able to experience this and only the most entrepreneurial kids would venture into the app building territory. Thanks to the invention of NoCode, walls are being broken down and innovation is going to grow.
Feel free to email or text with any questions or comments about the newsletter, Gen Z, or startups.
thomas@genzvoice.com
203-628-6006