Meet Alphonzo Terrell: co-founder and CEO of Spill

Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell co-founded Spill, a social app designed to be a safe, inclusive space for people to discuss and discover culture. With years of award-winning creative leadership under his belt, Phonz has some big ideas for the platform, and we caught up with him to ask about his vision.

Image credit: Maya Umemoto Gorman

Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell: Before I started this venture, I ran the social and editorial team at Twitter [now known as X], including the folks who ran the infamous @Twitter handle. I also worked on award-winning teams at HBO, Showtime, Def Jam, and Sony Music.

My more recent jobs at places like HBO leaned heavily on creating viral social media campaigns, so much of my work is influenced by my experience as a social creative. I’ve always loved building community and bringing people together to connect on things they’re passionate about.

When I was fired from Twitter in 2022, my [Spill] co-founder and I decided it was time to build something new in social. There are key issues that weren’t fully considered when many global social platforms were built almost two decades ago.

The people who determine a platform’s relevance early on – frequently voices from the most marginalized groups – often get the most hate. Spill is designed to recognize and reward culture drivers, building community with them at the forefront.

Spill is all about seeing what’s happening in your community now (the name is shorthand for colloquialism “spill the tea,” which means “to tell the truth”). We’re built as a real-time conversational platform with a meme-forward aesthetic, presenting visuals like photos, GIFs, and video alongside text and commentary. Culture moves fast, and the app is meant to echo that pulse of conversation and news.

That’s an easy question. I’m so proud of the small and mighty team we’ve become. We’ve been both intentional and creative in remixing our favorite parts of social media while designing new elements. I’m blown away every day. We’re also building [the platform] with the community we’re designing for, and can see our values and approach are resonating.

#LiveSpill is a great way to bring a community element back to watching TV – people share hot takes and react in real time to movies and shows like The Chi, Basketball Wives, and They Cloned Tyrone.

#FaceCardFriday was a recent trend with our Spillionaires (as our users call themselves) sharing photos of themselves and forging connections (including some love stories!).

I’m really inspired by the new wave of young Black entrepreneurs who are shaking up spaces you might not expect to see us in. Some examples are Slutty Vegan’s owner Pinky Cole, Afrofuture’s co-founder Abdul Abdullah, YouTuber and podcast host Marques Brownlee (aka MKBHD), and HealHaus founders Darian Hall and Elisa Shankle.

We think we have a unique and winning combination of cultural fluency and technology. From a product perspective, we’re blending conversation and culture with memes and visuals in a fresh and engaging way. As Black founders, we’re also approaching how we build community in a way that’s organic to us but different for the industry.

By infusing large language model AI with cultural intelligence, we aim to empower the communities who routinely set new trends – Black women, the queer community, and other marginalized voices. With that focus, our vision is to build a platform with more nuanced content moderation, a stronger advertiser and creator ecosystem, and just a whole lot of great vibes.