‘Turn honey into money’ with the Buzzit app
Buzzit is a new student-exclusive marketplace, but who is the team of busy bees behind it all?
By DOMENICA PELOSO — features@theaggie.org
After over a year of meticulous planning and unwavering dedication, the Buzzit team celebrated the official launch of their app on April 10. Available only to .edu emails, the Buzzit app is a Pinterest-style student marketplace for campus services, skills and small businesses.
What sets Buzzit apart from everyday platforms such as Facebook Marketplace or Taskrabbit is its aim to be as frictionless and user-centered as possible.
Not only are bookings estimated to take up to 15 seconds, but the Buzzit team ensured service providers would not be inundated with flooded inboxes by integrating a straightforward ‘accept or decline’ request system.
In December 2024, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-founder Parinita Gupta first ideated the app.
“I was genuinely thinking about how I needed a graduation photographer because winter quarter was starting, and I didn't know where to find them,” Gupta, a 2025 UC Davis alumna with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in cognitive science, said. “That’s when I decided, ‘Oh, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm just going to make it myself.’”
Shortly thereafter, Gupta assembled a team of student creatives and engineers to help bring her idea to life. Among these recruits was developer Cyrus Foroudian, a 2025 UC Davis alumnus with a B.S. degree in computer science, who would later become Buzzit’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and co-founder.
Around the time of Foroudian’s onboarding was when Buzzit competed at UC Davis’ 25th Annual Big Bang!, a three-month-long business competition for California universities. Competing alongside 75 other teams, Buzzit went on to win the $12,500 Social Entrepreneurship award in May 2025.
With the thrill of victory and plans to expand, Gupta and Foroudian made the unexpected decision to scrap their initial design and start over in October of 2025.
“We were finding ourselves trying to catch up by using [artificial intelligence], so we were running into a lot of tech debt and not fully understanding the code base,” Foroudian said.
This ambitious decision tested the endurance of the Buzzit team, especially for the company’s two software developers: Shota Ruo, a fourth-year statistics major, and Vedant Gopal, a fourth-year computer science and statistics double major.
“We originally coded with TypeScript in React, which is a little heavier and more technical than Swift,” Ruo said. “We tried to get on the App Store with a test flight, and it crashed — and we couldn't debug it or anything. So, we kind of started from scratch.”
Not only did Foroudian, Ruo and Gopal pick up Swift within a week, but Gupta also learned about Swift despite having no background in heavy-duty coding.
“Cyrus created modules for us, and they were detailed modules of watching videos and then writing notes,” Gopal said. “Sometimes, Cyrus would quiz us too. I had to learn an entirely new language because I didn't know anything about it.”
By December 2025, the app was nearly finished. It was around this time when the Buzzit team recruited Ian Kim, a third-year design major whom they found via LinkedIn cold messaging, to be head designer.
For Kim’s dynamic and eye-catching designs, he uses tools such as Figma and Photoshop.
“If you asked me about what UI [user interface] or UX [user experience] was last year, I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you,” Kim said. “I feel like starting this year, compared to a lot of people who started way before me, just felt kind of crazy. But even if you feel behind, things just happen. Like, I just got randomly contacted on LinkedIn, and now I'm here — and that’s pretty sick.”
More recently, the Buzzit team found the final missing piece to their puzzle: Justin Esguerra, a 2025 UC Davis alum with a B.S. degree in landscape architecture, who serves as their marketing, social media and events manager.
“Everyone on the team is vibes-based; everybody here is a personality hire,” Gupta said. “That's actually why Justin was hired. We were all tech bros on this team, and we needed someone who didn't give the same vibe — and I say this with a lot of love. Basically, he’s our people person.”
In fact, Esguerra coordinated almost all of Buzzit’s spring events, including their initial launch party, kickoff gala and upcoming Picnic Day sponsorship.
“I joined like a month ago, so cranking out these events was actually pretty crazy,” Esguerra said. “I feel like I was working on 80 different things at the same time. Like, I'm looking for student ambassadors, I'm looking for people that can table, I'm budgeting, I’m looking for people that can do merch for us and venues.”
In addition to polishing the design and marketing aspects of Buzzit, the team also received a generous investment from Lifelike Capital in March of 2026.
For context, the Buzzit team was asked to table at the Mike and Renée Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship shortly after winning the Big Bang!. Here, they met investors from Lifelike Capital, a global venture capital firm known for investing in startups within the gaming, social and entertainment sectors.
After back-and-forth negotiations, the Buzzit team eventually received a $125,000 contribution.
“It's not only the monetary compensation; they are really, really cool people that invest into us,” Foroudian said. “The person that most people recognize is Kevin Lin, and he is the co-founder of Twitch. He's one of the partners, as well as Randy Lee and Jason Lin. It's been really awesome to have all of their guidance and all of their experience.”
For the past four months, the Buzzit team has self-descriptively been “going hard,” with Foroudian and Gupta working on the app for around 10 to 12 hours a day. But amidst this intense workload, the group remains closer than ever.
“All of us recently went to a conference called RSAC, and it was like an adult playground,” Foroudian said. “There was like a bull-riding thing. And I was like, ‘What is happening right now?’ Never did I ever think I would see my team riding a mechanical bull.”
In terms of the future of Buzzit, the team plans on expanding to other universities, making the app available on Android devices, integrating a review system and reaching their product-market fit (PMF).
“I’m from San Jose, so right now I’ve been couch surfing at my friends' places for almost two weeks,” Gupta said. “But it’ll be a lot easier if we expand to Bay Area schools like [San Jose State University], because it's closer.”
From bull riding to couch surfing, the Buzzit team is determined to continue growing their hive as they navigate the tech-startup world.
“When I first started on the team, I was like, ‘I barely know how to code, this is gonna be difficult,’” Foroudian said. “But as long as you push yourself and you have that motivation, you can learn literally whatever you want. I learned a lot about business, design, product [and] everything marketing. You can never limit yourself and never discount your ability.”
After over a year since the concept, the official launch of Buzzit is a testament to the team’s drive and dedication.
“My dream is that, one day, everyone's like, ‘Oh, I need this,’ and Buzzit's the first thing they think of,” Gupta said. “As someone who has always kind of feared what other people are thinking of them, you kind of just, excuse my language, can't give a s***.”
Written by: Domenica Peloso — features@theaggie.org