Invest Like The Best
Episode 182 The Past, Present, and Future of Consumer Social Companies
Invest Like The Best

Episode 182: The Past, Present, and Future of Consumer Social Companies

Invest Like The Best

Episode 182

The Past, Present, and Future of Consumer Social Companies

Turner Novak is a partner at Gelt VC. We cover the past, present, and future of consumer social companies, deep dive in to what makes TikTok different from other social media companies, and Pinduoduo's business model that grew them from $0 to $4 billion in revenue in 5 years.

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[00:02:18] – (First question) – History of consumer social companies

[00:03:28] – The importance of quality growth over rate of growth

[00:04:43] – Importance of friends and identity in a social network

[00:06:21] – Major markers he analyzes in new social networks

[00:07:59] – The meteoric rise of TikTok and how it compares to other social networks

[00:08:08] – The Rise of TikTok and Understanding Its Parent Company, ByteDance

[00:13:38] – How TikTok deals with user friction

[00:17:28] – Why TikTok copies is a waste

[00:21:08] – Advising companies to build a media arm in this environment

[00:24:18] – Business models beyond advertising for social networks

[00:30:44] – His thoughts on Pinduoduo and the opportunity for a similar company in the US

[00:37:36] – What Snapchat is doing

[00:43:51] – How social e-commerce could be a competitor to an Amazon

[00:46:31] – His review of Zynn

[00:46:36] – Attack of the Clones: TikTok’s Rival Kuaishou Lands in the US

[00:52:22] – The geopolitical battle of social networks

[00:53:36] – Creating social commerce companies

[00:54:27] – Fantasy draft portfolio

[00:59:18] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

The Past, Present, and Future of Consumer Social Companies

Introduction

Patrick
My guest this week is Turner Novak, a partner at Gelt VC. Many of the largest companies in the world today are consumer social companies, so Turner and I discuss the past, present, and future of those businesses. When executed right they're often the fastest growing companies in history, and the rise of TikTok and some other companies we discuss makes it clear that there may always be room at the top. The network effects that support these companies make them unique beasts to analyze. And Turner's writing has been among my favorite content on the topic. Please enjoy our detailed conversation on this important area of public and private markets.

The Past of Consumer Social

Patrick
Turner, thank you so much for taking the time to do this today. The device that we're going to use for our conversation is the sort of past, present, and future of consumer social businesses which obviously represents some of the biggest and most profitable businesses in the world, some of the fastest-growing. We'll go in other directions as well, but that will be sort of our true north through this conversation. To begin it, I think it would be neat for you to share with the audience what you think is sort of the first relevant idea or data point in the past piece of this, what antecedents are important for us to consider before we get into today's landscape of consumer social companies?

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