School social app Fizz’s ‘serial failed retiree’ CEO steps down as founder takes helm | TechCrunch

Veteran entrepreneur Rakesh Mathur stepped down as CEO of the school social community Fizz, handing over the reins to 22-year-old founder Teddy Solomon.

It’s full circle for Fizz, the nameless platform that Solomon began along with his Stanford classmate Ashton Cofer earlier than they dropped out to work on the app full-time. Mathur has been working with the younger founders since late 2021, when his daughter – additionally a Stanford scholar – met Solomon at a celebration and proclaimed to her father that she had met “the subsequent Mark Zuckerberg.”

Perhaps Mathur’s daughter has a future profession in early-stage investing as a result of she was onto one thing. Fizz isn’t Fb, and fortunately, Solomon has not but needed to testify for his firm’s shortcomings on Capitol Hill. However three years later, he has made a reputation for himself. Fizz has raised over $40 million and unfold to 250 school campuses, the place college students have posted on the platform about 20 million occasions.

“From my standpoint, I get to the stage that I discover any individual who can do a greater job than I can, that has the correct stage of ardour, after which I step again and I’m a boss, a mentor,” Mathur advised TechCrunch.

Mathur determined that Solomon was able to take the reins of the corporate due to how a lot the corporate had gone via in such a short while interval.

“We raised cash ultimately of 2021, and every part was straightforward. 2022 was a catastrophe to boost cash in,” Mathur mentioned. “So he lived via that. That usually takes an entire cycle – six, seven years to undergo an upturn and a downturn.”

Fizz has additionally confronted the strain that can plague any social media platform when it features sufficient traction – what if individuals use the platform irresponsibly?

Fizz received into scorching water final yr when college students at a highschool in Vermont abused the platform, which was a hotbed for bullying. Moderately than doubling down on its plans to increase to excessive colleges, Fizz made the selection to cease catering to those youthful customers, who’re much less doubtless to make use of the nameless platform responsibly. However at this level, a number of the turbulence has settled for the corporate, which nonetheless has about $20 million in funding within the financial institution.

“The time to do one thing like that is when you may have as a lot momentum as you might presumably have, and we’ve unbelievable momentum proper now,” Solomon advised TechCrunch. “We’re seeing the quickest enlargement we’ve ever had, and we’re seeing simply the morale within the firm and across the app and the thrill round what we’re constructing greater than ever.”

Fizz has not too long ago began displaying commercials on the app in an try to drive some income, working with corporations like Perplexity. However now, Solomon has to learn to run advertisements in a manner that doesn’t detract from consumer expertise.

“Now we have a wait record of corporations who’re attempting to do promoting with us, and we’re taking it very slowly, studying as a lot as we are able to,” Solomon mentioned. “I stroll round Stanford’s campus and I see DoorDash ambassadors throughout campus and corporations which might be actually attempting to succeed in school customers, and what we are able to supply them is that they’re all on our platform.”

For Mathur, stepping down as CEO implies that he can get again to his retirement.

“I’m as a lot a serial failed retiree as I’m a serial entrepreneur,” he mentioned. However the intergenerational bond that the 2 entrepreneurs have shaped isn’t going away. The 2 spend a lot time collectively socially – Mathur even took Solomon on a visit throughout India – that his daughter, the Stanford scholar who first launched them, needed to warn him that he’s not allowed to go to Stanford events.

“My mates at Stanford love Rakesh, you haven’t any concept,” Solomon mentioned. However Mathur doesn’t have to relive his youth – he simply desires to get the coveted invite to Solomon’s weekly pancake breakfast along with his Stanford mates, which takes place each Friday at 6 AM.

“Rakesh will get mad as a result of he says I don’t invite him to pancakes anymore,” Solomon mentioned. “That’s not true. My mates graduated, Rakesh.”

“A part of this transition was that I might get invited to pancakes,” Mathur joked. “That was the ultimate step… I’ve received the pancake invite locked and loaded.”

Solomon realized run a startup, increase capital, and handle a workforce from Mathur. However what he values most from Mathur’s mentorship is his knack for preserving a hectic startup setting energizing.

“What Rakesh taught me most was have enjoyable whilst you’re doing it, as a result of Rakesh has by no means stopped having enjoyable to at the present time, after a dozen corporations and all he’s completed in his profession,” Solomon mentioned. “He has an eerily related power to me, given what number of years aside we’re, however we each simply love to like what we’re doing, and need to proceed loving what we’re doing.”