TikTok Creator Strategy: Evaluating a Bet on Co-Creation Features

You are a product manager at TikTok. Leadership is deciding whether to put resources into tools that make it easier for creators to produce content together. Recommend whether TikTok should make this investment, explain your reasoning, and describe what the investment would cover if your answer is yes. ```hint Start from today's workaround Look at how creators already team up, on TikTok and outside it, and find the step where that process breaks before you decide what TikTok should build. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Does "collaborate" mean creators making content together, or should partnerships between creators and brands also count? - Should remix features TikTok already offers, such as Duet, Stitch and multi-guest LIVE, be treated as the baseline, with the question being what they leave unsolved? - Which outcome matters most to leadership: creator growth and retention, better content for viewers, or revenue? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A scoped definition of collaboration that separates planned co-creation from the remix features already available - The creator segments that gain the most, and the specific points where today's collaboration process breaks down - A business case grounded in creator growth and retention, content supply, and competition with other short-video platforms - The risks: splitting credit and payouts, gaming the For You feed, safety for younger users, and attention that only shifts between creators - A prioritized first investment, success metrics with guardrails, and a test design that still works when two creators must both be in the treatment ### Follow-up Questions - How would you split views, followers and payouts on a post made by a large creator and a small one? - How would you stop creators from using shared posts to inflate each other's reach? - If you could ship only one collaboration tool this year, which would it be and why?