Zhang Yiming is the founder of Beijing ByteDance Co. This includes Tik Tok and Toutiao (very popular platform in China). Zhang was boring in 1983 and began a job at a startup company after college called Kuxun. He started as an engineer, but then during his second year he managed the people responsible for the back-end technology. Zhang learned a lot about perseverance and responsibility because of his first job and how he quickly was given a large role. In 2009, Zhang had started up his first business called “99fang.co
m.” It was a property search site; however, he quit after three years because he didn’t have enough drive for his business. In 2012, he found that Chinese smartphones were inefficient when it came to providing information and news that was relevant. His goal was to create something that gave users relevant content and gave them recommendations. ByteDance was created in a four bedroom apartment. Toutiao, a news app, was created first and gained over 13 million users daily. In 2015, Zhang created TikTok with the goal of having an app that had news, social media, and a place where young people can spread their ideas. ByteDance bought Musical.ly, basically buying the competition. TikTok boomed and became very successful. Zhang’s employees commented about how his leadership is “soft-spoken” and “charismatic”.
Categories : Social Entrepreneur, Social Media
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I am a bit unclear as to what you meant when you said “Zhang was boring in 1983”. I like that you mentioned the various jobs that he went through before making it big with his own company. I think that this really shows his perseverance. Solid post. Great job!
Zhang Yiming’s TikTok story is a very interesting one. I remember hearing about Muscial.ly in middle school and early high school and not thinking much of it. To be honest, I viewed the social media as “cringe” and “unentertaining.” Within the next few months, I witnessed the explosion of TikTok in the social media sphere. All of my friends and classmates starting using TikTok as a creator or browser and the popularity spike was simply unseen before in media. I had learned later on that TikTok was a rebrand of Musical.ly, and I was very shocked. To think that a social media I never considered using became my most used app is still surprising to me.
Zhang is an excellent example of an entrepreneur, especially in our modern world where TikTok is so popular among young people. I think that its amazing how he was able to achieve the exact goal that he had in mind, which was to create an app for young people where news, dancing, and creative content could be shared freely among young people. His skill and experience over the years helped him later on to become a success.
This is a great example of an entrepreneur that had a good idea and then blew up into something so popular. I’m sure Zhang hand no idea is his idea would land or even be used, but no entrepreneur knows before presenting their idea. It possible that his intent of the app was different then how some people are using it, but regardless that will happen with anyone.