Buzz Origin Story
I built a gamified employee advocacy tool while running a cybersecurity company. Here's why.
I run Area 52, a managed security and IT services firm in McLean, Virginia and Cali, Colombia. Before that I was in the CIA and State Department, retiring after 20 years as a Foreign Service Officer. I was an Operations Officer. A spook. I am not a SaaS founder. Well I wasn't before but I am now.
And it's tough! And I love it.
The problem: We have a cyber-security client who has over 150 employees - paid employees - but wasn't getting much engagement on their company's social media posts - and they make a lot of post for their luxury hotel clients. Every few months the Social Media Manager would badger everyone in Slack, asking them to engage on an important post for a valuable client. Some would. Many wouldn't. And the engagement would quickly fade.
I wasn't connected to the social media group for our project. But I saw the posts and problem, and wondered if we could fix it. My company also has the same problem, and I image a lot of other companies do too.
I'd also been hearing a lot about Claude, and wanted to see how powerful it is.
It's powerful.
So I vibe coded Buzz 52 myself in my free time to solve a real simple but nagging problem for an existing client. It works. They love it. But I can't sell it. So now I'm hooked on trying to de-code the sales process - because I haven't figured that out yet.
What Buzz 52 does
The core loop is simple:
An admin pastes a link to a company social media post — LinkedIn update, Instagram reel, whatever
Buzz 52 blasts a "Buzz Burst" email to employees with a direct link to the post
Employees click through, engage on the native platform, and earn points
Points feed a live leaderboard — employees compete for prizes like gift cards
Every Monday, an automated digest goes out reminding everyone where they stand
That's it. No new social platform to learn. No app to install. Employees use the social platforms they already use — they just finally have a reason to show up.
Admins get a dashboard to track participation, manage contests, and see who's carrying the team.
How I built it
I first vibe-coded it with Claude then I had my team try to hack it. They found some errors, but not many, so we fixed these. I had some code, for example, that was in the front-end that had to be moved to the back. Claude and I missed this. The rest:
Node.js/Express backend, PostgreSQL via Supabase, SendGrid for email, Stripe for payments, deployed on Vercel. Frontend is plain HTML and vanilla JS.
Pricing is a freemium model: free for teams up to 5 employees, $98/month for up to 49, then $2/seat beyond that.
Does it work?
I gave to our client for free, to test it. They love it. Their social media manager's first reaction was: "It has been so fun to use Buzz this week." A short time later: "We have seen a massive increase in engagement." It's funner for the employees, and makes life easier for the social media manager - they don't have to nag the employees, all the company posts are in a list, reminders are automatic, and engagement is up.
That was the validation I needed. We cracked the code on solving a real problem and generating real value for a real client. The product works.
BUT.....!
We took it to market about a month ago. I haven't onboarded a single other client yet. The product side feels solved. The sales side does not. We're running LinkedIn ads, building out a demo funnel, getting listed on directories — learning as we go. If you've been here before and have thoughts, welcome them.
Where I'm at
Fully live. Core loop works. One happy client with real results. And a sales puzzle I'm actively trying to solve. Happy to answer questions about the build, the stack, the go-to-market grind — whatever's useful. The build is rather boring. Taking it to market has been interesting, and tough.
— Dug, founder @ Buzz 52 / Area 52
