🚀 TikTok shares its ad revenue

Plus, how to find startups that are still hiring!

May 08, 2022

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1️⃣ New backers join Twitter bid. A regulatory filing revealed that a group of investors are joining Elon Musk’s bid to take Twitter private - including a16z (see Ben’s announcement here), Sequoia, and Binance. These investors have contributed a total of $7.1B, with the largest check coming from Larry Ellison. The funding will allow Musk to cut in half the margin loan that he took against his Tesla shares.

2️⃣ Airbnb earnings impress. Airbnb reported a 70% YoY increase in revenue for Q1, beating investor expectations for both revenue and loss per share. Long-term stays of 28+ days continue to be the fastest-growing category by trip length, as remote work is here to stay for many companies. Airbnb itself recently announced that employees can permanently live and work from anywhere!

3️⃣ DoorDash delivers growth. In other earnings news, DoorDash reported another strong quarter, with 35% YoY revenue growth. Average order frequency continued to climb - we will take partial credit for this, as we order in ice cream with a frequency that might be best described as “concerning.” The company’s investor letter noted that it will be investing cash generated by the core business (food delivery) into other categories of local commerce and logistics.

4️⃣ Shopify buys Deliverr. Shopify made its largest-ever acquisition this week, buying fulfillment startup Deliverr for $2.1B. Deliverr helps brands offer two-day delivery across every channel (e.g. their own website, Walmart, Facebook), enabling them to better compete with Amazon Prime. Shopify will use Deliverr to power “Shop Promise,” a new service that offers next-day or two-day delivery for partner brands.

5️⃣ A tough week. In today’s uncertain market, layoffs have hit a number of growth stage startups, including Thrasio, Cameo, MainStreet, Reef, Mural, and OnDeck. If you’re looking for a new role, check out some of these resources:

Accelerated Pallet - of course, we had to plug our own job board!
Ali Rohde Jobs - for Chief of Staff & bizops roles
Gaby Goldberg Pallet - for web3 roles
Lenny’s Job Board
Contrary Capital Startup Search

what we’re following 👀

Why Arlan Hamilton’s Backstage Capital is moving away from net new investments.

Stanford will build a climate research school with a $1.1B gift from VC John Doerr.

New York City is suing Activision CEO Bobby Kotick over the decision to sell to Microsoft (and escape liability from harassment claims).

Patreon’s first Creator Census provides a look at how 13k creators are building community.

TikTok Pulse: bringing brands closer to community and entertainment | TikTok Newsroom

TikTok made a huge leap forward this week in helping its creators monetize - and we think it’s not getting enough hype 👀 The company is launching TikTok Pulse, a new ads program that will, for the first time, give creators a share of ad revenue.

Pulse ads will launch in June 2022 for a set of beta brands, and will be displayed alongside the top 4% of TikTok videos. Creators with more than 100,000 subscribers will be able to make money through Pulse, via a 50/50 revenue split on the ad cost.

Pulse is most comparable to YouTube's Partner Program (YPP), which was launched in 2007 and has paid out more than $30 billion to creators over the last three years! More than 2M creators participate in YPP, which requires you have more than 1k subscribers and 4k hours of watch time over the last 12 months. Revenue share depends on the creator, but is similar to Pulse - averaging about 55%.

Why does this matter? Despite TikTok's meteoric rise, the app's biggest stars have “multi-tenanted” on YouTube - because that's where the consistent revenue is. Justine wrote more about this here, but mega creators like Hank Green (6.5M TikTok followers) have expressed frustration over how little they make from the TikTok Creator Fund, especially compared to YouTube earnings.

As TikTok expands beyond one minute clips into three-minute and now ten-minute videos, the platform is beginning to challenge YouTube from a content perspective. In fact, TikTok overtook YouTube in average watch time in the U.S. last September! And now, if creators can make just as much (or more) money on TikTok, there may be no reason for the next generation of creators to make YouTube accounts.

Do you spend more time on TikTok or YouTube?

💃🏻 TikTok

📺 YouTube

🤷‍♀️ Not sure / don’t use either!