9781422270479

Learn the story of Musical.ly before it became TikTok.

That was when Zhu was inspired by a group of teens he once saw while traveling on a train. While half of the group had been taking selfies, the others had been listening to music. Why not create an app that lets people combine the fun of both? Zhu presented the idea to his team, who were able to turn it into an app called Musical.ly within just 30 days. Luckily for the team, the app became a hit as users around the world began logging onto Musical.ly to create lip-syncing videos and share them with fans. As it turned out, Musicial.ly and Douyin were launched around the same time. While each app had its own unique features, Musical.ly was the first to establish a strong following in the United States. Douyin had attracted plenty of followers of its own, but most of them were based in China and Thailand. That’s when Zhang and his team at ByteDance had an innovative idea.

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Story of a Startup