Rapidly scaling a global team and launching a multibillion dollar startup within TikTok
In one year at TikTok, I helped grow the team from 5 to 27 people, launched TikTok Shop in the US, and prepped for 8 new global market launches.
Oh, and made over $1 billion in GMV.
Content Design Manager for the Creator, LIVE, and Partner sides of TikTok Shop.
Content Design lead for the consumer design system.
The team was tasked with launching TikTok Shop in the United States with a lot of inherited design and content assets from the Southeast Asia experience.
As CD Manager for parts of the Creator and Consumer experience, I am responsible for all of the content and UX experience to ensure that Creators in the U.S. could earn commission from partnerships with sellers, and sellers and agencies could connect with important influencers to help them grow their businesses.
As Content Design lead for the design system, I am responsible for the development, stakeholder alignment and documentation of the design system. This involved coordinating with design leads across consumer and the creator experience to ensure components were meeting various team needs. We also added content guidance throughout the system.
My role for this projectIntroducing TikTok Shop
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Introducing TikTok Shop •
TikTok Shop is the next frontier for commerce.
TikTok has been influencing consumers in all kinds of ways over the last decade. With the rise of Amazon storefronts, TikTok realized they could make much more profit if they kept everything on the platform.
TikTok Shop launched in Southeast Asia in 2019. I was hired to help launch it in the US in 2023. Below are some highlights from how I helped lead the team through this massive launch.
CHALLENGES
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CHALLENGES ⋆
How do you navigate inherited content and design from a completely different market?
The biggest challenge with this launch was that almost all of the design and content was copy and pasted from Southeast Asia. Most of the content was auto-translated.
And the entire TikTok Shop Content Design team was completely new.
HIGHLIGHTS •
HIGHLIGHTS •
Grew the team from 5 to 27 people.
Directly managed 10 people across 3 countries.
Created staffing plans to ensure priority projects had adequate coverage…
…which helped make the case for hiring 2 more CD managers globally.
Spun up an ops team to help manage all the global requests…
…worked with CD ops to create an intake process for all the global requests.
Real talk.
Establishing a new team is not a sexy or visual thing to include in a design portfolio.
Yet, building the foundation upon which the success and efficiency of a team can thrive is some of the most important work a leader can do.
Takeaways from the experience
This project was extremely challenging due to the fast-paced nature of the work, significant differences in cultural norms and practices among team members, and the complexity of negotiating various market needs. This required aligning with stakeholders across the globe, tailoring the experience for market norms, and shipping at an unprecedented pace and scale.