Fuzz
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Fuzz (Fuzz Artists, Inc.) was a San Francisco startup behind Fuzz.com, a social network and music-discovery destination where bands and fans connected and artists could sell music directly. The team also built Blip.fm, a spin-off dubbed the Twitter for music that let users share songs in short posts. After raising angel funding in February 2008, the company shifted all of its resources to Blip.fm.
02 / Fuzz FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Fuzz.com was killed by its own economics and eclipsed by its own spin-off. The company told users it was shutting the site down on February 13, 2009 because of increasing operating costs and flat revenues — it simply no longer made sense to keep Fuzz.com running. Meanwhile Blip.fm, prototyped in days by an engineer, was exploding to millions of minutes of use per month. The startup raised angel money in February 2008 but could not fund two products, so it bet everything on the winner and turned off the lights on the parent.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Peak funding round
Fuzz raises angel funding in February 2008 for its music social network; an engineer prototypes Blip.fm, the Twitter for music, in a few days.
- Product launch
Blip.fm launches and grows to millions of minutes of use per month; Fuzz shifts 100 percent of its resources to the spin-off.
- Closure announced
Fuzz.com announces it will shut down on February 13, 2009, citing rising operating costs and flat revenues; artist accounts are paid out within 60 days.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Flat revenue plus rising costs is the whole obituary — the shutdown notice said it plainly
- 02
The spin-off can eat the parent: Blip.fm's success is what killed Fuzz.com
- 03
Angel money funds one bet, not two — the team chose the winner and killed the loser
- 04
Shutting down with a 60-day artist payout is how you close without burning the community