Lessons from losing to TikTok: product-market fit, humility, and team

Executive overview

A strong product can still lose if a better-funded competitor enters and buys the market. Buzz Music found product-market fit in music-social video, then TikTok acquired Musical.ly and paid creators directly — making the financing game more decisive than the product game.

Ego and identity are the hidden costs of founding. When the company was acquired, the real work was admitting mistakes, opening up to the team, and choosing a buyer who took everyone — not just returning capital.

The most valuable asset you build is not the product — it's the relationships.

From music to tech: an accidental career

• Spent most of his 20s as a recording artist and music producer; three labels went bankrupt in succession.
• A chance meeting with "surfer dudes" at a friend's apartment led to a job offer from Dafit Sisters (later developers of Cookie Run).
• Joined as sound designer at 26, then trained into product management and UX design.
• Sold founding-member stock before the company went public — it listed at 12x the price he sold at. Lesson: humility over confident prediction.
• Military service led to OlaWorks (acquired by Intel), then a move to San Francisco in 2014.

Building Buzz Music and the TikTok collision

• Co-founded Buzz Music in 2016 to provide contextually aware music recommendations with minimal input.
• Pivoted toward music-social video when they spotted a gap: Musical.ly was dominated by young kids; older teens had no platform.
• Content creators grew, then stopped posting — because TikTok entered, acquired Musical.ly, and paid creators directly.
• Product-market fit is only the beginning; scaling requires capital, not just a better product.
• Could not compete with TikTok's creator payments; the team lacked the financing to match.

The ego-shattering process of failure

• Admitting "that was my mistake" as a founder felt like an identity collapse, not just a business setback.
• Sharing uncertainty openly with the team produced encouragement, not disappointment — they had been waiting for that openness.
• Refused offers to dissolve the company and take a personal sign-on bonus; chose instead to find a buyer who would acquire the whole team.
• Acquired by Naver Z in February 2020; went on to build the Zepeto US team.

What actually matters

• Empathy and human connection are the core skill — in product, fundraising, and team leadership.
• Stories move people; metrics alone do not.
• Productivity and efficiency matter less than not missing opportunities to connect with people.
• The achievement he is most proud of: his former team members still stay in touch and genuinely appreciate each other.