GZV #18: Win-Win-Win Models, Gen Z x Music, and the Disruption Coming To Social Apps
Startups. Trends. Markets. All from a Gen Z view.
🇺🇸 First things first. Happy Veterans Day. I want to offer gratitude and respect to our veterans who are currently home and those who are fighting overseas.
One thing that I love about this country is our appreciation for our vets, so let me tell you a quick story.
During my sophomore year at Elon University, a few friends and I decided to go to the Hurricanes Vs. Rangers at PNC Arena in Raleigh. I am an avid Rangers fan and so were 50% of the fans at the game. With each goal came divided cheers, some people sad, others happy, but then something awesome happened. During a commercial break, PNC recognized a local veteran.
Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, stood up and cheered and clapped. I’ve been to many hockey games, and there is never a louder cheer than when a veteran is honored. We are able to attend hockey games and go about our daily lives because of what these veterans do for us on a daily basis.
Thank you. 🇺🇸
During this past week we crossed 500 subscribers! This is huge, my first newsletter in high school only got to 25, so this one is doing a little better. THANK YOU!
P.s.- I highly encourage you to read the last piece about social apps this week. I believe it’s some of my best insights.
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As always feel free to contact me for any consulting or strategy work you need. Thomas@genzvoice.com
Enjoy!
Themes of the week
Affordable Sports Auctions 🏈
Fans becoming closer with influencers 📸
Apple trying to grab Gen Z 🎧
Decentralization and changing of social apps. 👨🏻💻
Startups 👀 👀 👀
“Mov is a sweepstakes company that helps to support the things that pro athletes are passionate about.”
✅Why it works:
Gen Z, specifically guys, love professional athletes and we all have our favorite ones. For me it’s Rory Mcilroy, Artemi Panarin, and Henrik Lundqvist.
We also don't have money to spend on game-worn jerseys that cost thousands. Mov allows anyone to participate in these auctions for as little as $1.
This is my favorite business model. Everyone wins. The athletes support a cause, fans get cool gear, and Mov makes money.
❌Why it could fail:
Both the consumer and the athlete have to opt into this platform, if there is resistance from either it won’t work.
You need big name athletes on this platform. Gen Z doesn’t care about the lower level athletes. Think people like Anthony Davis, Nathan MacKinnon, or Rory Mcilroy.
💡 Investment Idea 💡: Athletes are activity looking to do more off of the court, ice, or field. Remember last weeks piece about Juju Smith-Schuster? The point is, startup founders are also noticing this trend and are starting to take advantage. Athletes usually have a big following that they can use to drive organic growth to whichever platform they join.
“Fanhouse is a platform where fans subscribe to creators to engage with their exclusive communities and get a glimpse into their everyday lives.”
✅Why it works:
Like athletes, Gen Z looks up to famous influencers and wants to be apart of their lives.
Having fans feel “closer” to their favorite influencers is a key piece toward those influencers monetizing their audience.
Once again, this is a win-win-win model. The influencers make subscription money, fans get to be closer with their favorite influencers, and the company makes money while at it.
❌Why it could fail:
Fans may not be willing to pay money just to see the behind-the-scenes of their favorite influencers.
The content within this app may just be captured and shared, defeating the purpose.
💡 Investment Idea 💡: I think a large trend that we have been noticing throughout these newsletters is the large affect that influencers have on Gen Z. This trend is here and companies are innovating upon it. Most of them will be in seed to early series a, so try to catch them early.
Gen Z Trend of the Week: Apple Music adds 10 new playlists aimed at Gen Z, including one with TikTok hits
So what exactly did Apple do?
In its heated competition with Spotify, Apple took a step forward to try to grasp the Gen Z audience by curating playlists specifically for our interests.
What does Gen Z think?
In theory, this idea is good and it may attract some Gen Z users, but this is by no means a game-changer. Spotify already has similar playlists that users have been exploring for a while. Also- there is really no reason to make a Tik Tok playlist, the songs are all just the ones on the top of the charts.
How else can Apple and Spotify try to capture the Gen Z audience?
Something that seems so obvious that I’ve already talked about in a previous article is adding a social feature. Music to our generation has become very social, and the fact that major platforms like Spotify of Apple have not added this feature seems crazy.
💡Investment Idea💡?
It’s really tough, because the best way to innovate right now is for Spotify and Apple to build a social feature, which isn’t really investable. I would watch out for other startups that try to do something interesting in the music industry. Like the TechCrunch article said, Gen Z loves music, so there is a market here.
The Decentralization and Disruption Coming To Social Apps
I firmly believe that by 2025, social apps like the ones above will look completely different.
In particular, social media apps (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook), dating apps, and LinkedIn will see the most change over the next 3-5 years. Let’s look at each one of these individually.
Social Media Apps (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook)
Right now, these apps are already facing the most scrutiny by the government that they have ever seen. Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey already had a rough ride testifying on Capital Hill the other week, and it didn’t feel like it went well for him. As for Facebook, who owns Instagram, it looks like the FTC is very close to filing an antitrust case against the $775 billion company.
So no good news on their end, but for the consumers, this is a positive. Government regulation against both these companies could help stop the spread of disinformation, social media addiction, and depression linked to social media.
This will also open up the market. I believe in the next 3-5 years, we will see at least two new social media apps or networks come into the scene and take some of the market. They are probably being created right now and this is the perfect time.
Dating Apps
When Tinder and Bumble were released I believe this was the “first wave of innovation”. No one had ever seen dating apps on phones before like these two, but now they are kind of old. Soon, I think we will see the “second wave of innovation”. This new wave will be an drastic improvement on the existing products, which by no means are the best. These new applications will remove the stigma from “meeting on a dating app”, they will improve the post match experience, and they will overall make the experience more comfortable for users.
Oh boy, I’ve been waiting to write this sentence. LinkedIn sucks. LinkedIn is like trying to put a person who speaks German, a person who speaks French, and a person who speak Spanish in a room and telling them all to speak English. The incentives are not aligned, and all those people have different objectives. LinkedIn is a place where millions of users have different jobs with different objectives, yet the tools are all the same.
What we are going to see is a decentralization of Linkedin. In 5 years there will be 3-6 smaller “Linkedin-like” platforms that will each be worth $10 billion each. They will each fit a different niche within the professional market and the users will be happy.
⭐️ Partnered Companies ⭐️
🗣
Vintro- Imagine getting paid to be a shark on shark tank, or better yet, being able to pitch renowned business leaders, CEO’s, political figures, and founders.Well this is how I see Vintro. They allow everyday founders to pitch to people like Gary Cohn, Barbara Corcoran, or Jim Mckelvey.
They also allow for you to be a “Gary Cohn”, just join as a leader and get paid to be pitch to.
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Public.com- I’ve been investing for over 5 years and now more than ever, investing is a social creature.This is why I work with Public. They have created a social investing app where you can make groups with your friends, buy stocks, and talk about why you believe they are a good buy. The best part, you can debate with people why you think you’re right, which I love to do.
Download the app here.
Special thanks to my editor, Cristina Lombardozzi
Feel free to email or text with any questions or comments about the newsletter, Gen Z, or startups.
thomas@genzvoice.com
203-628-6006