FuzeMee, the social media appcreated by Tufts acceptant Christopher Tsetsekos and beta-tested in March 2021, has raised over $800,000 in seed round investments, and recruited over 350 Tufts students as ambassadors for the platform.
According to Tsetsekos, FuzeMee allows students to meet new friends, find compatible roommates and discover events around campus. Tsetsekos was originally accepted to the Class of 2024, but has now opted to take a second gap year to pursue FuzeMee’s development.
In detailing his inspiration for the app, Tsetsekos described the lack of a centralized communication platform that caters to college students and how FuzeMee can bridge that gap.
“It's just mind boggling how some leaders still use email lists or post the same message in multiple Facebook groups," Tsetsekos said. "On FuzeMee, it's a lot more efficient. If a student wants to just select one class year’s [events], they can do so right on FuzeMee rather than having to enter a whole new different page on Facebook."
Currently, FuzeMee also has an extended ambassador network that works to spread its reach across college campuses nationwide, including over 350 Tufts students and 5,500 nationwide, according to Tsetsekos.
Matt Lane, a Tufts ambassador for FuzeMee, discussed his role in working with the platform.
“Now that I'm in my fourth year here, I know a lot of people that run clubs or are presidents of fraternities and sororities, and so I'm able to be a main point of contact between the social life on campus and the people that work at FuzeMee,” Lane, a senior, said.
Lane described how Tufts students have responded to the app’s launch and features.
“I think a lot of kids are really excited about it," Lane said. "I think Facebook is what a lot of [student organizations] use or they use email chains, and the feedback I've gotten is not a lot of people use Facebook … so I think FuzeMee is a really strong solution to that issue and will hopefully help clubs with tasks, expand their outreach and streamline their communication."
Alexa Amorosino, another FuzeMee ambassador, shared how the app had a positive effect on her class as they were trying to make social connections during the pandemic-limited year.
"[Last year], it was so hard to meet people … and we had really limited stuff that we could do," Amorosino, a sophomore, said. "We were always talking about how there should be an app on college campuses to plan events that have invites to public and private events. And then FuzeMee literally is that and we were like yes, finally this app is here, we want to be a part of this.”
Madeline Delaney, another campus ambassador, discussed some of the next steps that the team is taking to help promote FuzeMee across campus.
“[Tsetsekos] and the other FuzeMee guys are coming in a week or so to campus, and I think their physical presence will help bring ...a lot of attention to the app once they’re physically here to talk and meet with people," Delaney, a sophomore, said.
Tsetsekos elaborated on FuzeMee’s present and future plans for ambassadors as well as its current reach at Tufts.
“We're hoping to incentivize our ambassadors in the future with paid compensation to refer the app to their friends," Tsetsekos said. "As of now, all they do is promote the app to their social media channels. Since yesterday, in about 12 hours of launching [the app] at Tufts, we attracted over 10% of the whole Tufts undergraduate student body to sign up on FuzeMee … so it's around 600 students who have signed up to our app in just the second half of the day."
In reflecting upon FuzeMee status as a social media app in the market, Tsetsekos emphasized its focus on college needs from the perspective of college students.
“FuzeMee is unique because it was created by college students for college students," Tsetsekos said. "Tufts is the first school that we have launched [at], and we're using this [opportunity] more or less as a pilot to learn from our user base and to keep improving our product so we can expand to other schools with better functionality than we had before."
