In just a few short years, TikTok has become one of the most popular and influential social media platforms in the world. As of 2023, TikTok has over 1.5 billion monthly active users globally, making it one of the fastest growing apps in history.
TikTok’s short form video format has proven irresistible to users, especially teenagers and young adults. Its powerful algorithm learns users’ interests quickly to serve up an endless stream of entertaining, funny, and engaging videos. This has led to TikTok spawning viral memes, dance challenges, and popular songs on a regular basis.
Beyond entertainment, TikTok has also become a launchpad for careers, a hub for activism, and an influential force in popular culture. It has disrupted the social media landscape and forced other platforms like Instagram to introduce short form video features in an attempt to compete.
The app’s meteoric rise and cultural impact can be attributed to the creative vision and technical expertise of its founders. TikTok was created by the Chinese company ByteDance as an international version of their app Douyin. Let’s explore the origins of TikTok and how it has changed the world.
The Birth of TikTok
TikTok originated from the Chinese app Douyin, launched in 2016 by the Beijing-based technology company ByteDance. Douyin was created and designed by ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming as a short-form video sharing app for the Chinese market.
Douyin launched in the iOS App Store in China in September 2016 and quickly gained popularity, amassing 100 million users by July 2018. With its sophisticated AI algorithms, Douyin was able to quickly determine users’ interests and preferences to serve them relevant and engaging short videos.
Within a year of its launch, Douyin had become the most downloaded app in China. Its explosive growth and success in China led Zhang Yiming to develop plans for global expansion.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/zhangyiming
The Founders of ByteDance
ByteDance was founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, an entrepreneur who previously built a real estate website and founded a social media app called 99Fang. Born in 1983 in Longyan, China, Zhang studied microelectronics at Nankai University before working as an engineer at Kuxun travel search engine. After building 99Fang, Zhang saw the potential for AI-powered personalized content recommendation and founded ByteDance.
Headquartered in Beijing, ByteDance quickly grew with Zhang at the helm as CEO. Within just 8 years, ByteDance became a $75 billion company with over 60,000 employees. Zhang, still in his 30s, became one of the richest people in China with a net worth of over $16 billion according to Forbes.
The Creation of Douyin
Douyin was created in 2016 by a team at ByteDance led by Zhang Nan and Liang Rubo. Zhang Nan was a veteran engineer from ByteDance who led the mobile products team that developed Douyin (1). Liang Rubo was a director at Bytedance who helped lead Douyin’s product development (2).
The ByteDance team wanted to create a short video app for the Chinese market. They recognized the growing popularity of short videos and live streaming, and saw an opportunity to build an innovative video platform. After a few months of development, Douyin was launched in China in September 2016 (1).
Sources:
(1) https://brandmentions.com/wiki/Is_TikTok_Banned_in_China
(2) https://www.novelcool.com/chapter/Live-Husky-Tianxiu-at-the-Goddess-House-Chapter-473/8588586/
Douyin’s Explosive Growth
Douyin saw incredibly fast adoption after its launch in China in September 2016. Within just one year, Douyin had already amassed over 100 million monthly active users in its home market (Source). Much of this early growth can be attributed to Douyin’s innovative short-form video format, advanced AI recommendations, and fun effects that allowed users to easily create and share entertaining 15 second videos. This explosive growth established Douyin as one of the most popular apps in China practically overnight.
By January 2018, less than 18 months after launch, Douyin hit 200 million monthly active users. At this point, it was gaining users at a rate of 50 million per month (Source). Much of this growth came from Douyin’s effective influencer marketing campaigns and viral spread of popular memes and challenges. Douyin’s growth in China was unprecedented for a social media app.
Douyin Goes Global as TikTok
In September 2017, ByteDance launched TikTok for iOS and Android in markets outside of mainland China to allow the rest of the world to experience the fun and creative short-form video app that was already a huge hit in China under the name Douyin. This marked TikTok’s global launch and the app quickly started gaining popularity around the world.
By 2018, TikTok had been downloaded more than 100 million times worldwide on the iOS App Store and Google Play. The app was available in over 150 markets in 75 languages at the time, showing the rapid early growth of TikTok globally.
One key driver of TikTok’s growth outside of China was its acquisition of Musical.ly in late 2017. Musical.ly already had a large user base in the United States and Europe for users to share short lip-sync videos. By acquiring Musical.ly, TikTok was able to quickly expand its reach in new markets by merging the two apps’ userbases.
Within its first year of launching globally, TikTok had over 500 million monthly active users. The app was off to an incredibly fast start and well on its way to becoming one of the most popular social apps in the world.
TikTok’s Rise in Popularity
TikTok saw massive growth in popularity starting in 2018. Several key factors fueled its rapid rise. Firstly, the app’s short video format, limited to 15 seconds initially and later expanded to 60 seconds, resonated with young people and made content creation accessible and fun. The app’s powerful recommendation algorithm was also instrumental – it quickly learns users’ interests and feeds them an endless stream of personalized content to keep them engaged. Additionally, influencer marketing took off on TikTok, with creators building huge followings through fun viral challenges, dance trends, and comedy sketches. As influencers with millions of fans promoted brands, more users flooded to the app to participate in the latest viral content.
According to one analysis, TikTok had over 500 million monthly active users in 2018, and reached over 1 billion by 2021, making it one of the fastest growing apps in history (source). The app’s growth was fueled by its addictive short video format, powerful recommendation algorithm, and influence of creators.
The Brains Behind TikTok
TikTok is led by a team of experienced executives with backgrounds at major tech companies like Disney, Facebook, and Microsoft. The CEO is Shou Zi Chew, who was previously the CFO of Xiaomi and also worked at Facebook. Some other key executives include Vanessa Pappas, the COO, who previously managed creator partnerships at YouTube; Blake Chandlee, the President of Global Business Solutions, who was formerly VP of Partnerships at Facebook; and Kevin Mayer, the Chairman of TikTok, who was previously the head of Disney’s streaming division. This experienced leadership team is the driving force behind TikTok’s rapid growth and innovation. Their expertise in areas like social media, online video, and digital entertainment have been instrumental in shaping TikTok into a global phenomenon.
TikTok’s Future
TikTok is expected to continue its rapid growth trajectory in the coming years. As of 2020, TikTok had over 800 million monthly active users globally and was the most downloaded app in the Apple App Store.1 However, TikTok faces some challenges ahead.
One major challenge is data privacy and security concerns. As a Chinese-owned app, TikTok has faced scrutiny over how it handles user data, particularly from U.S. regulators. TikTok will need to continue improving its data practices to ease these concerns.
TikTok also faces rising competition, especially from copycat apps and platforms like Instagram Reels. Maintaining its popularity and cool factor among young users will be an ongoing challenge. TikTok will need to keep innovating with new features and content formats to stay ahead.
Despite the challenges, TikTok’s continued growth is supported by its massive user base, polished app experience, and unique ability to turn regular people into viral stars overnight. As long as it keeps this magic formula going, TikTok’s future looks bright.
Conclusion
The creation and success of TikTok is thanks to the vision and innovation of several key individuals. Though ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming provided the framework, direction and resources for the app, Alex Zhu was the creative force behind Douyin, conceptualizing the short video format and fun features that became hallmarks of TikTok. The insight and talent of the early Douyin team in China, including engineers like Wei-Ying Ma, were also critical in making the app highly addictive and competitive in the Chinese market.
As Douyin went global under the name TikTok, leadership from individuals like Alex Zhu again was key in tailoring the app for Western markets. He hired pros like Vanessa Pappas and Blake Chandlee to optimize TikTok for growth outside China. Together, these innovative leaders created an app that has connected billions of users globally, cementing TikTok’s position as one of the most influential social platforms in the world.
