Daze: The AI Messaging App for Gen Z Gaining Prelaunch Momentum

On TikTok, Daze's most popular video has garnered an impressive 8 million views, contributing to a staggering total of around 48 million combined views across TikTok and Instagram. The startup, which is developing a new messaging app tailored for Gen Z, has already built a substantial waitlist of roughly 156,000 sign-ups even before its official launch.

What sets Daze apart and drives its growing demand is not the influence of paid advertising or social media celebrities but rather authentic product demo videos showcasing the app's unique features. These videos have resonated strongly with a younger audience, demonstrating the app's capabilities in a compelling way.

Founded by Willem Simons, a serial entrepreneur based in New York, Daze introduces a freestyle messaging app that draws inspiration from social media aesthetics. Unlike traditional messaging apps like iMessage and WhatsApp, which limit users to standard blue and green chat bubbles, Daze allows for a vibrant and creative messaging experience. Users can send multi-colored messages that float across the screen and incorporate photos, graphics, stickers, GIFs, drawings, and personalized backgrounds. This emphasis on creativity aims to make messaging more visually engaging and less constrained.

In addition to its creative messaging features, Daze is leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance its tools and plans to integrate even more AI technology in the future. According to Simons, the primary goal of Daze is to create a fully-featured messenger that can compete with established platforms while offering a suite of fun and innovative features. "You can quickly type a message and press send, or drag the message anywhere within the chat. It is easy to use and utilitarian, but also very free and unconstrained," he explained to TechCrunch.

Simons is no stranger to this concept; he previously worked on a similar app called Muze until 2022. Like Daze, Muze aimed to revolutionize mobile messaging by transforming it into a creative canvas. However, while Muze was a joint effort involving Simons, Douglas Witte, Grant Davis, and CEO Fenner Stevens, Daze is Simons' solo project.

Daze has evolved from its initial concept as a social calendar to its current form as a messaging app, which has been developed entirely in React Native. This choice ensures that the app can launch simultaneously on both iOS and Android platforms. Daze's official launch is set for November 4, following a period of early testing with approximately 1,400 invite-only beta users.

While concrete data on beta performance is still forthcoming, one encouraging statistic shared by an insider indicates that Daze boasts over 50% retention among users who have sent at least one message over a 60-day period. This figure suggests that users are engaging with the app and finding value in its unique offerings.

Daze's target demographic skews younger, with the majority of beta testers aged between 13 and 22. This focus aligns with the app's design and feature set, which cater specifically to the preferences and behaviors of Gen Z users.

The startup currently operates with a small team of seven full-time employees and one part-time staff member, primarily based in New York, with a few remote workers.

Before its launch, Daze has successfully raised $5.7 million in funding from a diverse group of investors, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Kindred Ventures, Alpaca Ventures, Uncommon Projects, Betaworks, Maveron, 35 Ventures, and New Wave, among others. This financial backing will help support the app's launch and further development as it seeks to carve out a niche in the competitive messaging app market.