9781422270479

Musical.ly was a big hit with US users right away, which is what got Zhang’s attention.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until months into the project that Alex and Louis realized the terrible truth—the app was doomed to fail. As it turns out, it’s not so easy to condense expert information on any subject into a three-minute video. As short as the videos were, they also took way too long to make. Even when creators did make it through the process, the mini lessons just weren’t attracting fans. To make matters even worse, Alex and Louis had run through all but 8% of their financing. At this point, they had two options: apologize profusely to all of their investors or come up with another great idea—fast.

14

TIKTOK