New app by SU students connects emerging clothing brands to the Syracuse community

Each number fades into the next as a website completes the launch countdown for an app born from a student’s idea nearly 2 years ago. 

“I have all this risk capital,” said Naheem Cadiz, a junior at Syracuse University majoring in finance, entrepreneurship and AI policy in the Whitman School of Management. 

As a freshman in December 2024, Cadiz was home for winter break imagining his life after college. He realized that this was the best time to create something of his own. 

“I’m not paying rent at that point,” Cadiz said. “I don’t have that many expenses that have really taxed me. Why not try to take a shot at building a company?”

Cadiz is the co-founder and CEO of Coveted, a free fashion marketplace app that connects emerging clothing brands to the shoppers looking to discover them. 

The inspiration for Coveted came when Cadiz noticed that brands weren’t profiting from expensive Meta advertisements. Coveted solves this problem by being a designated platform for brands that don’t have enough capital to run advertisements or are not gaining traction.

What sets Coveted apart from other marketplaces like Shopify and Depop is its ease for both sides. After onboarding, brands upload their inventory spreadsheet tracker and photos of their clothes to set up their shop on Coveted. Brands can then track analytics and sales.  

Meanwhile, the app’s algorithm curates consumers’ feeds. As shoppers explore their fashion style, they can like or dislike clothes, track their favorites in an online closet and share their closet with their friends. 

SU junior Emily Gao, an influencer with over 128,000 followers on her TikTok account @emilygao, is excited to shop on Coveted because it conveniently condenses brands into one app. Her usual shopping experience includes keeping multiple tabs open for hours to decide what she wants to buy. 

“People our age in college are already busy and kind of used to swipe-based, personalized apps,” Gao said. “Applying this to fashion can make it a lot quicker and engaging.”

Cadiz said it is a blessing to work alongside Coveted’s co-founder Noah Merhai, a senior studying computer science. Merhai built most of the app himself and leads its technical direction as Chief Technical Officer. 

“You want that co-founder to have the skills you lack, but also have the mindset and the goals that you envision, and that’s Noah,” Cadiz said. 

The duo faced several challenges in building Coveted, including Cadiz’s former co-founder leaving the team and a six-month delay due to previously hiring a group of student developers who “weren’t really committed,” Merhai said. 

Coveted now consists of Cadiz, Merhai, front-end developer and Binghamton University student Stephania Calin, front-end designer and SU student Jacob Kaplan, and five SU student content creators. 

Cadiz said that Coveted acts as a “middleman” by properly vetting brands, so shoppers can trust them. Merhai said they consider their brands a part of the Coveted family. 

Currently, Coveted has seven brands that are Syracuse-based or within the broader SU community, and Cadiz is onboarding four more brands. 

SU junior and Coveted content creator Gavin Morales bought clothes last semester from Conroy Club, an emerging brand. He is glad the brand will now sell on Coveted, Morales said.

SU freshman Angelo Valenzuela Tobia said he hopes Coveted will help grow his brand Certified Fieles, which uses streetwear to spread a message of walking with faith.

“All of us can definitely use the support,” Tobia said. “Because all we want is to use our creative outlets to make the campus a brighter and better place.”

Cadiz aims to scale Coveted to feature national and international brands one day. 

“I want you to be able to buy your favorite independent brand in Tokyo,” Cadiz said. “Everybody’s buying clothes from different places. I feel like that’s what it should be about.”

Coveted has grown in visibility on SU’s campus through its success at pitch competitions, such as Launch Pad’s Afropreneurship Competition and ‘Cuse Tank. They also won the first phase of Paw Patrol co-creator Ronnen Harary’s No Experience Necessary Challenge on Oct. 9.

Cadiz said that although he is “in a flow state right now,” it is tough balancing being a student and entrepreneur. Cadiz has had to overcome the fear of people’s perception of him on social media, such as when he walked around campus wearing a big box with a QR code on it to promote the app. 

Cadiz advises SU students aspiring to be entrepreneurs to find their people and recognize they can’t be self-sufficient. Cadiz once believed he could and thought about money at that time, he said. 

“Don’t think about the money. Think about the impact,” Cadiz said. “Think about why you’re doing it because that’s how you stay in the game.”

Shoppers can visit covetedapp.com to download Coveted.