Gen Z isn't chasing one massive public feed anymore. Instead, they're gravitating toward smaller, more specialized digital spaces—a Discord gaming server, a niche fan group on Geneva, or private "streaks" on Snapchat. This shift is at the core of Wishroll, a company building consumer apps that merge fandom culture with AI technology. Founder Pritesh Kadiwala has developed a suite of interconnected products on a shared tech backbone—a strategy that has attracted more than 4 million users and generated over $1.2 million in revenue. Here, he explains how the company's modular approach works, why Gen Z is rejecting traditional social networks, and what's next for the future of social platforms.
You're now developing Wishroll. What apps are part of it, how do they differ, and how are they connected?
— Wishroll is a consumer app development company, and our most well-known products are Kiwi and Status. Together, they've been used by more than 4 million people and brought in around $1.2 million in revenue. Kiwi is a mobile app for sharing music, while Status is an AI-driven social simulation designed around fandoms and interactions with AI characters. From an engineering standpoint, they're built on the same underlying tech stack. We've developed a modular architecture so we can reuse components—from backend services to analytics and feedback tools—across all our products. That means we never start a build from scratch, and we can connect all apps to the same data systems. It speeds up our release cycles and makes iteration far more efficient.
Was this ecosystem part of the plan from day one, or did it evolve over time?
— The initial vision was clear: give Gen Z—roughly those born between 1997 and 2012—a new type of social entertainment built around fandoms, while using AI to make it more immersive. We spotted the trend early and began experimenting with ways to merge AI capabilities with fan culture.
We tested a lot of formats. Whatever generated the highest engagement, we doubled down on. For example, in 2024, while developing Status, we launched eight different apps—all leveraging the same reusable components and feedback tools. That approach let us launch faster, measure user behavior in real time, and quickly decide whether a product was worth scaling or needed to be shut down.
What do you see as the core communication needs of Gen Z?
— We're seeing a big shift in how people interact online. Gen Z values belonging and participation far more than passively scrolling through endless feeds of strangers. Even on TikTok, the "For You" page outperforms the general feed because it's hyper-personalized.
They've grown tired of the perfectly staged culture of older platforms—curated profiles, airbrushed photos, and the pressure to chase likes. In response, new apps are prioritizing authenticity. BeReal, for example, prompts users once a day to take simultaneous photos with the front and back cameras. Between 2022 and 2023, its reach among Gen Z more than doubled. The lack of filters, follower counts, or heavily edited content aligns perfectly with their desire for unfiltered moments.
Right now, the cultural focus is shifting toward creating spaces where people feel part of something bigger and know their contributions matter. Gen Z wants meaningful, two-way interactions with like-minded peers.
They also spread their time across multiple platforms—TikTok for entertainment, Twitch for live streaming, Discord or Geneva for community chats. Increasingly, they're not just consuming content; they want to co-create it, whether that's discussing characters, inventing new storylines, or contributing to micro-communities.
For product teams, building for this audience requires a different design philosophy: modular communities, intuitive UGC tools, semi-anonymous profiles, and fewer public performance metrics. Gen Z is willing to share data for a tailored experience—but only if the platform is transparent, respectful, and user-first.
What need did Kiwi aim to address?
— For Gen Z, starting a conversation online can feel awkward—sending a simple "hey" often feels too transactional. Kiwi turned music into that low-friction icebreaker. It's like Snapchat streaks, but expressed through tracks that reflect your changing tastes in real time.
Almost half of Gen Z is deeply passionate about interests that their offline friends don't share—from niche music genres to obscure game fandoms. Closed communities give them a place to create, share, and support each other, building trust that's missing on large, all-purpose platforms.
Kiwi became a space for music lovers to casually share tracks and discover new ones from people with similar tastes. Since launch, it's been downloaded over 2 million times and even reached #1 overall on the iOS App Store in Spain (January 2023) and France (August 2022).
After Kiwi, you launched Status and other products. How did those come about, and what did you learn in the process?
— Kiwi was relatively straightforward—a track-sharing platform with notifications when someone sent you a song.
Status is a much more sophisticated product than Kiwi—it's essentially an AI-powered social universe. Imagine opening a platform that looks and feels like Twitter at first glance, but with one major twist: you're the only real human user in the entire feed. Every other account, post, and interaction comes from AI-driven characters. Within this space, you can create and publish posts, give likes or dislikes, spark debates, get "canceled" by the community, or climb your way to in-app celebrity status. Players can choose to engage as themselves or slip into fully fictional personas, blending roleplay with social networking. Because the interface closely mirrors the familiar design of Twitter, there's virtually no learning curve—users immediately understand how to navigate and engage. This intuitive setup contributed to remarkably high engagement levels, with people spending an average of 90 minutes per session, immersing themselves in conversations, stories, and drama generated by AI personalities.
In its first month post-launch, Status attracted over 1 million users, and at peak times, up to 500,000 were active simultaneously.
You mentioned shutting down most of the eight apps built during Status development. How do you decide it's time to kill a product?
— At the seed stage, when funding rounds generally range from $1 million to $2 million, capital tends to vanish quickly. Hiring talent, testing concepts, and iterating on product design all consume resources at a pace that can surprise even experienced founders. In the consumer app space, this reality makes it critical to pinpoint, as early as possible, the moment when a product simply isn't working. If that decision is delayed, teams often fall into a costly trap: continuing to roll out new features in the hope that one of them will suddenly make the product click with users. More often than not, those additions only paper over the deeper issue, which is a lack of clear core value that resonates with the audience. Without that foundation, no amount of tweaks or cosmetic updates can save the app. The discipline lies in recognizing when to pivot, when to double down, and when to cut losses altogether.
At Wishroll, We rely on our modular stack, universal feedback tools, and fast iteration loops to track user interaction and retention. If the data isn't moving in the right direction, we stop investing further.
What trends will shape product development for Gen Z in the coming years?
— On the tech side, the big opportunity is in highly specialized AI models. The narrower the task, the better the model performs—it's more efficient, cheaper to run, and easier to maintain. That's why single-function AI agents are exploding in popularity. We're heading in that direction too, partly to reduce costs.
From a product perspective, I'm fascinated by the idea of user-generated, 3D fandom worlds—similar to Minecraft or Roblox, where players socialize, build, and explore. Imagine a shared virtual space where fans design locations, host live events, and interact as avatars. These worlds could serve as both creative playgrounds and social hubs, blending entertainment, community, and storytelling in ways that are hard to replicate in traditional 2D feeds.
The tech to make this a reality is getting closer, but mass adoption may still be a few years away. For now, it's an experiment—but one I believe will play a big role in the next wave of social platforms.
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