In 2012, my co-founders and I set out to solve a painfully simple problem — why was it so hard for college students to coordinate their academic and social lives? So we built Buzzn: an iOS, Android, and web app that let University of Michigan students share schedules, find friends in classes, and plan life together more seamlessly.
We had no idea what we were doing, and that was the beauty of it.
We pulled together angel funding from family and friends who believed in us more than we believed in ourselves. We hired a dev agency to build our beta. That spring, we launched to Michigan students and it actually worked. So naturally, we thought we could then take on the entire country at once.
We hired ambassadors at 25 universities who posted all over social media, hung flyers all over campuses, and bribed students with pizza to download the app. We shipped features weekly. We willed growth into existence.
And then reality hit: outside of Michigan, no one cared.
That was our first real heartbreak. All the late nights, the pitch decks, the late night calls — it felt like we were losing. And for a minute, we believed we had.
But instead of quitting, we did something harder — we humbled ourselves and started over.
We shut down the mobile apps. We rebuilt Buzzn as a web app so students could use it in class on their laptops. We restricted it exclusively to Michigan instead of chasing every campus. It felt like admitting defeat, but it was actually the move that saved us.
It worked. Students loved it again. And they were using it!
In our final semester (Jan 2014), we went for one last swing. We walked into the University IT department and pitched them: What if Buzzn wasn't just a standalone social app? What if it was embedded into the tools that students already use?
That kicked off three months of relentless pitching and climbing our way through layers of meetings until we finally landed in front of the CIO of the University of Michigan.
We gave it everything we had. And we eventually closed a deal.
The University of Michigan agreed to acquire Buzzn to integrate its social features into their learning platforms. We signed the deal after graduation and it closed shortly afterwards.
While it was only a small win, it meant a lot to us (and me). It was a success. It proved that we could fight through adversity and find a way to succeed.
And ultimately, it even helped me land my first job out of college as a Product Manager.
The rest is history, but I'll carry that grit and builder energy with me forever.
