🏠 TikTok is back

The almost shutdown

Author

Brett Goldstein
January 20, 2025

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GM! It’s Brett again. Last week, I shared our "State of the Startup" deck with the team, and these are the 2 most important slides.

First, attention is all you need. High retention is the first sign of PMF, and retention depends entirely on the product. By fixing bugs and acting on user feedback, we improve retention.

Second, the pre-PMF playbook: onboard users, gather feedback, fix issues, and build features - all while keeping costs low.

This is exactly how every startup that’s ever hit PMF has done it, and it’s how we’ll do it too.

That said, we’re still onboarding folks to the private beta - join the waitlist here.

🏠 Tech

TikTok Plot Twist

TikTok just hit peak chaos. Last week, the Supreme Court dropped the hammer by upholding the ByteDance divestment law, essentially forcing TikTok to shut down or sell its US operations by January 19.

And it did shut down – for a few hours. TikTok went dark late Saturday. But plot twist: President-elect Trump swooped in with a last-minute save, announcing he'd extend the deadline to explore a potential deal where US-based owners would purchase 50% of the company.

Before all this went down, TikTok users tried jumping ship to RedNote (Xiaohongshu), pushing it to #1 on the US App Store. That didn't work out so well – many got their accounts suspended for various violations, from TikTok watermarks to posting innocent cinnamon roll pictures.

Though it did trigger an amusing 216% spike in Americans learning Mandarin on Duolingo.

Trump also announced that he'll issue an executive order today (Monday) to extend the period before the law's prohibitions kick in. But House Speaker Johnson and other key Republicans are pushing back, saying there needs to be a 'full divestiture' from ByteDance.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order. Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations. I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture.  By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up.  Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok.  With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions.  Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.

truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/113855616848696050

The big picture - This isn't just about one app anymore. We're watching real-time how platform governance, national security, and US-China tech relations collide. And whoever ends up owning TikTok's US operations might just reshape the future of social media.

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Simple tricks to get a ton of value with minimal effort for work and life.

The RIGBY Rule: A Communication Shortcut

You're messaging your co-founder to check if they pushed the latest deploy. Or asking your engineer if they backed up the database. Simple questions, right? But even basic check-ins can sometimes come across as doubt or criticism.

Here's a useful hack from Silicon Valley (the show). RIGBY - short for "Richard Is Great, But Y'know..." - works as a patch to compress all the nice guy stuff and get to the real stuff. Like "RIGBY, but he lacks some managerial skills.

Use this prefix in your work chats. Instead of "Have you updated the investor deck?" (which could sound like doubt), try "RIGBY - is the investor deck ready?" The prefix does the heavy lifting of saying "I respect your work, just need to know.”

Works great for founders checking in with each other, managers following up on tasks, or teammates syncing on projects. No need for long-winded explanations or walking on eggshells.

And it works just as well at home as it does at work. From code deploys to dinner plans, RIGBY's got you covered.

 

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Micro is a CRM that doesn't feel like homework and an email client that knows what matters. Simply put, it's an all-in-one productivity tool that organizes itself so you don't have to.

I built Micro with some friends because I was tired of getting guilt tripped for not hitting inbox 0 and having to bounce around between so many tools to do my job.

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