TikTok · Strategy · Senior · 45 to 60 minutes

How should TikTok help new user groups connect?

TikTok is a consumer app where people watch and create short videos, and much of the experience depends on personalized content recommendations. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Product strategy
Network effects
Growth
Prioritization
Metrics

The situation

The VP of Product asks you for a strategy recommendation. TikTok is seeing interest beyond its earliest user base, but growth is uneven. Some new users quickly find content and creators they love, while others bounce before the app feels personally relevant. At the same time, many niche creator communities are emerging, but they can be hard for the right viewers, creators, and trends to find at the same moment. Why now: leadership believes the next phase of growth depends on expanding beyond a narrow early audience into many distinct tastes and subcultures. The hard part is that what helps broad top of funnel growth may not be the same thing that helps durable networks form inside the product. If TikTok brings in more users before those users can reliably find their people and interests, marketing efficiency could suffer and retention could stay fragile. If it over-optimizes for narrow interests too early, the product could become fragmented, repetitive, or harder to moderate. You need to propose how TikTok should approach this company level bet over the next few quarters.

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page strategy memo.

Your answer must

Define the core product and network problem in a way that explains why this is more than a pure user acquisition issue.
Lay out 2 to 3 strategic options TikTok could pursue, with clear tradeoffs for growth, retention, creator ecosystem health, and user experience.
Recommend one strategy and a sequence of major moves over the next 2 to 3 quarters.
Specify the leading and lagging metrics you would use to judge whether new user groups are successfully finding relevant content and each other.
Address second-order effects and risks, including content concentration, safety or moderation concerns, and the possibility of weakening the shared TikTok experience.

Constraints

Do not assume a major increase in marketing budget or a large reorganization.
Your plan must work for many interests and geographies, not just one fandom or demographic.
Do not rely on users bringing an existing friend graph into the product.
Preserve a simple first-time user experience.

Format

Use short sections with one table comparing options and one table of metrics.

How TikTok actually played it

Argues that TikTok's algorithm helped a network break out of its early adopters by helping subcultures find each other and branch into their own spaces. Frames the algorithm as a growth and network-building tool.

Help new groups find each other quickly
Marketing spend works when the product can sort new users

Built from TikTok and the Sorting Hat by Eugene Wei.