TikTok · Strategy · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

What should TikTok prioritize next?

TikTok is a consumer app where people create and watch short videos chosen largely by a recommendation feed. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Strategic prioritization
User insight
Trade-off analysis
Metrics design
Platform thinking

The situation

It is mid 2021. You are a PM working on TikTok's consumer and creator ecosystem strategy for Western markets. TikTok has strong momentum in short video, but competitors are rapidly copying the format with Reels, Shorts, and Spotlight. At the same time, TikTok faces leadership transition and political scrutiny, so leadership wants a product strategy that creates durable differentiation rather than a short lived feature win. You are hearing pressure from several sides. Creators want better economics, better tools, and in some cases more time to tell a story. Some partners want easier ways to connect their apps and websites to TikTok. Internally, ByteDance has strong shared recommendation and data capabilities that could support bigger bets. The hard question is where to focus first. If TikTok stays narrow, it may protect the simplicity that made the app work. If it broadens too fast, it may weaken the core viewing and creation experience. Your GM asks you for a recommendation on the single most important product direction to prioritize over the next year.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page strategy memo.

Your answer must

Choose one primary strategic priority for the next year and explain why it beats at least two credible alternatives.
Define the user problem from both the viewer side and the creator or partner side.
Show the key trade-offs, including impact on differentiation, engagement, creator supply, and defensibility against copycats.
Propose success metrics and leading indicators you would track in the first 6 months.
Include the top risks and how you would mitigate them without harming TikTok's core short video experience.

Constraints

Assume leadership will fund only one major product bet over the next 12 months.
Your plan must preserve the speed and simplicity of creating and consuming short videos in the main app.
Do not rely on an acquisition or on regulatory uncertainty resolving in TikTok's favor.

Format

Use sections titled recommendation, alternatives considered, user impact, metrics, and risks.

How TikTok actually played it

Explains five factors in TikTok's growth: the middle platform, recommendation for casual content, the creator flywheel, developer products and moves into long-form.

Reusable platform layers speed new product launches
Recommendation beats social graphs for casual content
Creator incentives create a flywheel

Built from How TikTok Surpassed Snapchat and Netflix by Aakash Gupta (Product Growth).