Thread by @TurnerNovak

I wrote deep dive on how TikTok suddenly became the most culturally significant product in the world. It rode the tailwinds of AirPods and memes to reach over 1 billion DAU’s and is now the best way to create and consume video on mobile.

Some takeaways:

turner.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-…

TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is one of the fastest growing companies of all time. Most of its estimated ~$16-20 billion in 2019 revenue came from China, and most of it wasn't even from TIkTok.

Using Snap and Facebook as comps, ByteDance is likely worth over $200 billion.

It's likely TIkTok now captures more total time spent by US users than Instagram.

When copying Snapchat stories, IG failed to capture the greater opportunity by copying the format exactly, even though it lacked the messaging constraint that originally defined Snapchat Stories.

Instagram copying Snapchat exactly and placing an artificial constraint on creation, opening to the feed by default, and its emphasis on a follower graph all capped the potential of any full-screen video product it launched. And left a huge opportunity for TIkTok.

Before TikTok, most heavily edited mobile content, namely YouTube, wasn't actually created on mobile. Most creators shot with a professional camera, edited on a computer, and many didn't even edit themselves.

TikTok made it simple to heavily edit content on mobile.

TikTok took the concept of social capital and aggressively allocated it to creators by matching them with the exact viewers who'd be their top fans. It has a social graph, but it doesn't matter, because it just shows users what they actually want to see instead.

ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is essentially a product factory. They're going to continue iterating fast and shipping new features and apps that strengthen their position of being the best product to create content on mobile.

turner.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-…