Can you build the next TikTok?

Or is it more like Rumble?

Recently someone asked me how they could grow a content platform (similar to TikTok) and get more users.

Now this is a tricky subject. It’s kind of hard, if not downright impossible to grow a content platform since a) every platform is more than saturated with content, which helps to retain user attention since the human thirst for more content is unquenchable, b) you can’t possibly compete for user attention against multi-billion dollar ad budgets, and c) there’s a lot of similar platform being developed as we speak, even though no one hears about any of them.

See? To say the deck is stacked against you would be an understatement.

But I did have a piece of advice for them.

Invite all the banned/controversial content creators from other platforms. Especially the conspiracy theorists.

See, the attention grabbers aren't in the middle. They’re in the extremes. And while the big players can’t afford to be polarizing (they’ll lose a big chunk of their audience), Davids can very well be polarizing.

That’s why Trump's Truth Social was gaining much traction, even before it was launched. Currently it has over 1.7 million users. I highly doubt it will grow into something that’ll challenge Meta or even Twitter, but it doesn't matter.

Another example would be Rumble. Where everyone who's banned from YouTube is going to host their content.

Now, to be honest, this strategy is actually an extreme extension of Gary Vaynerchuk's $1.80 strategy. “Take a stance, offer your $0.02, 90 times a day. People will either like you or not. The ones that like you will engage with your content and with them, you'll be able to do business.”

But, either way, this shows that if you want to go against Goliath, you need to bring in some daring energy, otherwise, you’ll get crushed like every other guy.

Till next time.

-Jay.