Musical ly's Alex Zhu on Igniting Viral Growth and Building a User Community 2016

Alex Zhu, the founder of Musical.ly, discusses the journey from enterprise software to leading a popular social media platform. Zhu details the initial failure of an educational content platform, which led to key insights about user behavior: the need for light, entertaining content and the importance of targeting young, creative users. He shares how Musical.ly attracted its initial user base through App Store optimization and focusing on the utility aspect of the app, similar to Instagram's early days. Zhu also draws an analogy between building a community and running an economy, emphasizing the need for both centralized and decentralized strategies to foster growth and user satisfaction. He highlights the unique aspects of China's mobile ecosystem, such as payment integration and virtual gifting, and how these innovations could potentially influence the U.S. market.