We recently chatted with Dror Frommer, creator of the Fiz Fuz iOS app, which provides a platform for people to buy and sell products live in a video streaming session or with a recorded video. Sellers have the opportunity to chat with the buyers, respond to questions and more.
ADM: What software was involved in creating Fiz Fuz?
Frommer: For the real-time streaming, we use nginx with rtmp to reduce delay and to also serve over hls. [This is the] same technique used by Facebook.
For live bidding, we use nodejs websocket based real-time communication to reduce delay during the live bidding process.
For the media distribution, we use Amazon’s Cloud Front to distribute media to support scalable and burst of users.
For the web technology portion, we use nodejs based server-side technology for business logic. Nodejs is a world class high performance event-based server-side technology. It can support high traffic at low resource. Also backed by Amazon’s ebs technology with auto-load balancing and scaling.
For integration, we exposed all functionality as secure rest api for integration with third-party apps. This is our own application act as app to our secure rest api.
ADM: Why did you create Fiz Fuz?
Frommer: There is a void in the industry right at the gap between pure online e-commerce and face to face retail stores. Fiz Fuz bridges the gap to allow online shoppers to feel like they are standing in the store communicating with the salesperson; and all that without diminishing the ability of the seller to reach multiple buyers concurrently.
ADM: What are your goals for the startup?
Frommer: The application and the technology are fully developed and we are now looking for distribution of the app and to gain market share.
ADM: Are you trying to raise capital? How? Why? From who?
Frommer: No, we are currently self-funded. As we grow and reach more users I imagine we will raise more capital to grow faster.
ADM: Why did you use the software platforms you used for creating the app?
Frommer: We took advantage of the latest technology (see details mentioned earlier) in order to eliminate technical barriers that existed in the technology up to about a year ago.
ADM: Who are you targeting?
Frommer: Anyone who buys and sells via eBay and Amazon can take advantage of Fiz Fuz.
ADM: What makes your app unique?
Frommer: The concept used successfully in social media for pure entertainment is now the driver for successful e-commerce for the new generation of online shoppers; those who until now could not replicate the social media communication method in their daily online shopping activity.