Rethinking Strategy: Research-Driven Strategic Pivot at ByteDance
Leveraging user research and business analysis to gain leadership buy-in and reshape ByteDance’s educational platform strategy
Background
ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, sought to expand into the educational sector by creating a new platform embedded within TikTok. The goal was to enable educational creators to sell courses directly on the platform, with ByteDance generating revenue through commissions.
The Problem
A Proven Strategy—or So We Thought
When I joined ByteDance’s educational platform project, the direction seemed clear. Leadership believed that the successful model in China—an embedded course-selling platform within TikTok—could be replicated in overseas markets.
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As part of the research team, my initial focus was to understand:
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What features educational influencers needed on the platform (e.g., marketing tools, analytics, course/student management).
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What commission rates influencers would find acceptable to ensure platform adoption.
However, as I conducted interviews, a red flag emerged—while influencers were eager to share feature requests, their expectations for commission rates were far higher than anticipated.
​I realized that their reluctance to accept standard platform fees might hint at a deeper issue.​
Looking Deeper: The Discovery That Changed Everything
To better understand why commission was such a sticking point, I analyzed how top educational influencers currently operated on TikTok and drew a user journey map.
A pattern emerged:
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Influencers used TikTok as a traffic driver, linking courses via Linktree to personal sites or platforms like Udemy.
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In overseas markets, TikTok was already functioning as a traffic driver, not a course-selling destination. This invalidated the idea that an educational platform was essential for monetization.
The Approach
Strengthening the Case: Gathering Data Beyond User Interviews
I shared my findings with my manager, and while he saw the potential impact, we knew user research alone wouldn’t convince leadership to pivot. ​
​Collaborating with product managers and business analysts, we identified the key perspectives leadership would need to see before reconsidering the strategy:
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User needs (how influencers monetize)
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Market landscape (U.S. Edtech trends and opportunities)
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Competitive analysis (existing tools and their effectiveness)
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Business strategy (alternative monetization models for TikTok)
Expanding the Research Scope
To validate our findings, I expanded our interview sample to include:
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Influencers across various content categories (e.g., healthcare, finance, lifestyle)
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Influencers with varied audience sizes (>50M, 20–50M, 10M, <1M)
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Influencers who have already sold courses on multiple platforms vs. those considering launching a course
​Key Takeaway:​
Influencers view TikTok’s primary value as a traffic driver rather than a course-hosting platform.
Its strongest competitive advantage is audience growth, making it more effective as a marketing tool rather than a direct sales platform for courses.
Assessing Market Viability: Understanding Saturation and Competition
In collaboration with the business analyst team, I conducted a market analysis using market sizing estimates and insights from global EdTech reports. We also leveraged TikTok's internal dashboard data to analyze user viewing habits and assess the monetization potential of TikTok’s educational platform.
Findings:
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The EdTech market was highly saturated, with major platforms already dominating the space.
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The Return of Investment (ROI) of launching a new course-selling tool was low due to intense competition and user reluctance to switch platforms.
Monthly Active User (MAU) of top course-selling platforms (in 10 thousand)
To further evaluate TikTok's positioning, I worked with the product manager to conduct a competitive product benchmarking analysis, comparing existing course platforms and their offerings.​
​Findings:
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Established course platforms already provided comprehensive solutions, covering course creation, sales, and student management.
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Creators were generally satisfied with these platforms, and high switching costs made it difficult for TikTok to compete directly.
Convincing Leadership to Pivot the Strategy
Rather than presenting our findings as a setback, we framed it as a strategic opportunity—an opportunity to leverage TikTok’s core strength in traffic generation while exploring alternative monetization strategies that aligned with user needs.
Our presentation to leadership emphasized:​
Market Saturation & Competitive Landscape – Entering the EdTech space as a course-selling platform would be difficult and costly due to entrenched competitors.​
Misalignment with User Needs – Influencers valued TikTok’s ability to drive traffic, not its potential to host course sales.​
​​Alternative Monetization Strategies – Instead of building a new platform, we proposed alternative approaches:
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Partnering with existing course platforms to provide seamless integration for influencers.
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Establish an MCN (Multi-Channel Network) project for influencers to help them expand their audience and monetize through sponsorships and premium content.
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Developing advanced analytics and marketing tools to enhance TikTok’s value proposition for creators.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. Leadership acknowledged the thorough research and appreciated the evidence-backed approach. Ultimately, they decided to pivot the strategy, saving significant development costs and redirecting resources toward more viable, high-impact opportunities.
The Impact
1. Strategic Pivot: Leadership embraced our recommendation to shift focus from building a new platform to partnering with existing ones, enhancing TikTok’s role as a creator tool.
2. Significant Savings: Avoided unnecessary development expenses, redirecting resources to higher-impact opportunities.
3. Empowered Creators: Helped educational creators grow their TikTok audiences while monetizing effectively through external platforms like Kajabi.​
Lessons Learned
1. Stakeholder Alignment is Key: Understanding leadership priorities and framing research findings in a way that resonates with decision-makers is critical for buy-in.
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2. Data-Driven Storytelling Wins: Presenting insights with clear narratives and supporting data helped shift strategic direction.
3. Collaboration for Strategic Impact: Partnering across teams provided a broader perspective, showing how user research, market insights, and business analysis together drive informed decision-making.