A former Facebook monetization expert built TikTok's B2B marketplace to solve a real problem: brands struggle to make ads that feel native and authentic on TikTok. The platform connects them with agencies that can produce the spontaneous, user-generated style TikTok's algorithm rewards.
So I guess, you know, transitioning into TikTok, right? So, you know, what led you to then joining the TikTok team?
Yeah, so I was on the monetization team at TikTok as well. So the exchange that we built was to help businesses create videos that would get exposure on TikTok. I think one of the biggest— so I think why did I join, right? So I think when I was at Facebook towards the 4th or 5th year, I think it was pretty apparent that So when you run an ads product, you want the organic product to grow, right? Because if you— if the organic product is not growing, it's very hard to grow an ads business, right? So I think the choices I had was basically to move to a different part of Facebook or kind of continue working in ads on a different platform. We knew that TikTok was stealing Facebook's launch initially from a user standpoint because growth was phenomenal and we knew that typically, you know, ad dollars follow eyeballs. So I knew that, and as we're seeing right now that, you know, the ad budgets are shifting from Facebook to TikTok. So that was my motivation to move and that's why I went there. The problem we were solving is basically a lot of the content on TikTok is produced by I don't know, kids or Gen Z having a good time. It's very spontaneous, it's fun, and it's very hard for an advertiser, like think of like a 7-Up or a Pepsi or Nike, to kind of create that spontaneous content. And the algorithms will not distribute stuff that is formal and staged and like, you know, produced in a really slick manner with consumers like you and I. Right? So we basically had to build this platform that would, that connected businesses with agencies that could transform their brand into something that was fun, that we think, or like, you know, that we hoped would get distribution with the TikTok algorithm. So that's why I went there and that's what I did there.
Yeah, no, that's a, I'm sure it was a super interesting, you know, time and experience there. So could you kind of walk us through it though in a little bit more detail as far as, you know, how you kind of introduced that? You mentioned it was a B2B marketplace.
Yeah, yeah. So B2B marketplaces are, so how do we, so we took this from 0 to 1. I think the, so we knew there was a problem, right? So I think every product starts with a problem and we basically started with just kind of doing user discovery on the demand side, which is basically businesses and advertisers. The problem we basically learned is that, hey, like, you know, I'm using my Facebook and Instagram videos and my YouTube videos on TikTok, but it's not getting any engagement. Like, you know, the algorithm is not picking it up. So we're like, well, because we knew that they kind of needed bespoke content, but a lot of businesses don't know how to do it and they didn't have any internal resources to do it, right? So we knew it was a problem. And TikTok, including Facebook, had set up a lot of manual programs. Hey, you know what? This is a problem. We'll connect you with a couple of agencies. But that does not scale, right? So we said, well, I mean, what is a scalable, efficient way to connect demand with supply? It's a marketplace, right? So basically it became a B2B marketplace. So we basically, when we knew we had to scale, we aggregated supply, right? We knew we had demand. We were a bit more, I think we were actually a bit more precise. So we said, hey, let's focus on this segment of advertisers or businesses because we know We didn't wanna boil the ocean. Focusing on a certain segment of advertisers helped us aggregate the right supply for that segment of advertisers. And it, you know, 'cause I think we had to make sure that the price point that the advertisers could afford is something that would be attractive to the supply that we would, that we are kind of planning on aggregating. So we did that, we aggregated supply, we ran a small beta test, You know, we basically looked at the— we didn't have any transaction fee or commission over here because the advertiser would use the produced videos on ads. So there was a revenue monetization scheme downstream. But we started off with that. We basically looked at desire for advertisers to come back. So we looked at retention and we found that it was pretty healthy. It was a pretty small cohort. It was not stat sig. But we conducted feedback, got some surveys going, and once we had positive signal, we scaled this up. And then we— I think it's going to launch in market pretty soon based on my contact with my former team. So
