Wizz: Taking on the world with just a small team of people, thanks to Google Cloud
About Wizz
A subsidiary of Voodoo, a major player in the mobile gaming market, Wizz is a social-networking app aimed at Gen Z. With over a million active daily users and more than 15 million downloads across the iOS and Android platforms, the company operates in Europe and the US.
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Contact usHow do you manage millions of users around the world with a team of just 20 people, all while maintaining an ambitious expansion and innovation strategy? Wizz has the answer: with managed services from Google Cloud.
Google Cloud results
- Continuous agility, responsiveness and innovation
- Increased profitability and a competitive edge
- Growth strategy driven by analysis-based decision making
- Expansion facilitated by a scalable, high-performance infrastructure that is managed automatically
Millions of users worldwide, managed by a team of just 20 people
Originating as part of Voodoo, a leading developer of mobile games, Wizz set out to grab Gen Z's attention with a dedicated social network utilizing language and features aimed specifically at this demographic. Its innovative approach is based on an inclusive platform that helps to build authentic and spontaneous bonds between users all over the world. Launched in 2019, the social network's success quickly grew to extend way beyond the French market. With a strong presence in the US, Wizz is also extremely popular across Europe and now has over one million active daily users and 15 million downloads on the iOS and Android platforms.
An ambitious, innovative, and highly targeted approach
Wizz's success is due first and foremost to its innovative approach, which includes, for example, community features designed for young adults who share the same interests. Given its target audience, the company also put in place robust safeguarding measures to protect young people against malicious and/or inappropriate content. The company also deployed important tools—such as biometric recognition—to provide a safe environment, secure access, and check the age of users of the network.
In addition to its strong ethical principles, the company also puts a lot of focus on the social aspect of things. As Wizz CEO Aymeric Roffé points out, "Loneliness is becoming a huge problem among young adults in particular. We believe technology can be part of the solution, and that's what we're aiming for with Wizz."
In order to realize its ambitions, Wizz has relied on a clearly defined IT strategy from the offset. "To maintain our agility and maximize our revenue, we need to remain a small team. There are 22 of us at the moment, and that's almost too many. Therefore, since the very beginning we've chosen to rely exclusively on suppliers who can offer ready-to-use services. Similarly, we don't have time to waste on infrastructure, as this is not where our added value lies. That's why we chose Google Cloud, the cloud provider with the most extensive and advanced range of managed services," explains Gautier Gédoux, Wizz Co-founder and CTO.
"To maintain our agility and maximize our revenue, we need to remain a small team. We don't have time to waste on infrastructure, as this is not where our added value lies. That's why we chose Google Cloud, the cloud provider with the most extensive and advanced range of managed services."
—Gautier Gédoux, Wizz Co-founder and CTOGoogle Cloud managed services: A clear competitive advantage
In practice, Wizz depends on Google Cloud not only for ease of scalability as the company continues to win over new countries and welcome new users, but also for rolling out updates and designing new features quickly, using simple processes and minimal DevOps resources.
For this, Wizz relies heavily on Cloud Run, a managed service for deploying containers without having to worry about managing infrastructure or scalability. "Cloud Run has changed everything," says Gautier Gédoux. "It speeds up deployment, resulting in a significant and measurable impact on our efficiency and our performance. More generally, we have set a benchmark for our competitors that demonstrates that—even with one of the smallest tech teams—our performance is the best in the sector; we have the highest revenue, and the widest operational coverage."
"Cloud Run has changed everything. It speeds up deployment, resulting in a significant and measurable impact on our efficiency and our performance. More generally, we have set a benchmark for our competitors that demonstrates that—even with one of the smallest tech teams—our performance is the best in the sector, we have the highest revenue and the widest operational coverage."
—Gautier Gédoux, Wizz Co-founder and CTOA data-centric approach to engagement and growth
Eager to constantly improve user experience and its operational efficiency while remaining agile and competitive in an ever-changing market, Wizz has recently honed its strategy by harnessing Google Cloud, and BigQuery more specifically. "Our approach is firmly data-driven," explains Baptiste Durif, Strategic Projects Manager at Voodoo, Wizz's parent company. "We use data to set ourselves specific objectives, which we identify through analysis. We also measure the effectiveness of any new features that have been introduced and, more generally speaking, all of the decisions we make are now based on analysis of our data."
In fact, Wizz is about to put this strategy into practice with the launch of a new feature that meets a need identified through its data platform, aimed at boosting its users' engagement with instant messaging (or chat). Again, the company will be harnessing the potential of managed services to handle huge volumes of data without worrying about restrictions in terms of capability or performance. "BigQuery's ability to handle large volumes of data quickly and efficiently is vital for an organization such as ours, where decision-making is heavily reliant on analytics," says Gautier Gédoux. "At the same time, BigQuery's ecosystem is made up of simple and effective tools that let us focus on data analysis rather than infrastructure. What's more, BigQuery allows us to carry out analyses in real time and therefore understand and act on user behavior almost immediately. This responsiveness is vital for tweaking features, improving user engagement, and reacting quickly to emerging trends."
Wizz also takes advantage of BigQuery's integration with other Google Cloud services, such as Cloud Run, to create sophisticated data workflows, automate some types of analysis, and obtain in-depth insights to drive its innovation strategy.
"By harnessing the aptitude and scalability of Google Cloud, particularly through its managed services, we are propelling Wizz into the future with a firmly data-centric strategy, which helps keep us at the forefront of innovation while maintaining the agility and efficiency of a small team. We're not just creating a social network; we're building a community where technology meets authenticity. And this is only the beginning,"promises Baptiste Durif, who has high hopes of turning Wizz into the next TikTok in the very near future.
"By harnessing the aptitude and scalability of Google Cloud, particularly through its managed services, we are propelling Wizz into the future with a firmly data-centric strategy, which helps keep us at the forefront of innovation while maintaining the agility and efficiency of a small team."
—Baptiste Durif, Strategic Projects Manager at Voodoo, Wizz's parent companyTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
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About Wizz
A subsidiary of Voodoo, a major player in the mobile gaming market, Wizz is a social-networking app aimed at Gen Z. With over a million active daily users and more than 15 million downloads across the iOS and Android platforms, the company operates in Europe and the US.