The teen market for apps is a tough nut to crack and stay relevant — just ask Snapchat. Going through stages of life that seem to bring. This explains in part why apps like SendIt, NGL and Nocapp (partly his Snapchat connection tool) have become popular as a way for teens to anonymously comment on each other. And AskFM probably wants us all to forget the various suicides that occurred when it was released in its original form at the time. …).
Meanwhile, somehow (somehow!?) a new app has emerged with the idea of helping this social interaction dumpster fire, but let’s hear what they have to say before jumping to conclusions.
“Slay” bills itself as “a positive social media network for teens.” The reason we’re talking about it today is because after it launched in Germany last year it grew like weeds and four days after launch he was #1 on his iOS App Store in Germany . It currently claims to have over 250,000 registered users, and claims to be gaining momentum in other countries, including the UK, where it recently launched services.
So what is the attraction here? When the user opens the app, they are presented with 12 questions. A user can only answer by choosing another user (from a school, class, or peer-her group) to pay (or “kill”) an anonymous tribute. For example, an app might ask a user, “Who inspires you to do your best?” They can then choose from her four other users at school to pay for this “kill”. When she logs on she answers 12 questions and can see the compliments from other kids. The identity of the person who sent the tribute remains hidden.
This is a reminder of how BeReal works where you can see other people’s BeReal photos only by uploading your own BeReal photos.
Slay also doesn’t look like Gas, a messaging platform popular with teens for its positive spin on social media, which was acquired by Discord yesterday. At Gas, anonymous voting is intended to increase user trust.
Another reason Slay has appeared on the TC radar is that its growth has attracted VC interest.
It has now raised $2.63 million (€2.5 million) in a pre-seed funding round led by Accel. 20VC also participated. Additional investors including Supercell co-founder and CEO Ilkka Paananen, Behance founder Scott Belsky, footballer Mario Götze, Kevin Weil (Scribble Ventures) and musician Alex Pall (The Chainsmokers).
Slay said it aims to reset teens’ relationships with social apps by normalizing giving compliments and readjusting things from negative emotions on social platforms. I’m here. He also says the design incorporates safety, content moderation and teen mental health.
If you dig into the app, you’ll find that it’s built very simply as a “compliment app”. Whether that’s enough to keep users coming back is hard to say. Teenage behavior is hard to guess. You can also send a “signal” when you get a zero, for example.
Slay claims that it “never sells or shares personal data with third parties.” Given the history of social apps, let’s see how long this will last.
There’s also no direct messaging functionality, but users can add links to their social media profiles so they can eventually message each other outside of the app.
Adults are probably not allowed to “join” schools and are asked for their approximate location to suggest nearby schools.
SLAY was founded in 2022 by a team of three 23-year-old Berlin-based co-founders: Fabian Kamberi, Jannis Ringwald and Stefan Quernhorst. The idea came from his Kamberi, who has been building consumer apps since he was a teenager, and his brother’s experience struggling with the negativity of his social media and his apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. said to have been inspired by
CEO and co-founder Kamberi said in an email: [referring to the aforementioned Gas], but as a go-to spot for teens to rediscover social interaction with different modes of play. ”
“Our app is like Gas, and their acquisition is great proof of what we have built and what the future holds in our space. Apps that rely on are at higher risk of cyberbullying, which in contrast is prevented by strict content moderation and specially designed game modes,” he added.
But the question is, why does he think social apps can improve mental health when many don’t?
“We have received thousands of feedback messages from users thanking us for making them feel valued in an era of rapidly changing negative social media interactions,” he tells me. rice field.
He said startups can successfully ship new features that could generate more engagement, but could also pose negative risks at the same time. content safety,” he said.
What is Slay’s business model? How does it make money? Kamberi said it will likely be a premium feature, service or tool that users pay for.
SLAY is available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the UK.
Accel principal Julien Bek said: Already he has seen that the SLAY team has almost half of his users active in school every day. ”
