'Entrepreneurship's Hard': The Weeknd, TikTok and the Hunger for Virtual Audiences

Sam Blake

Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake

'Entrepreneurship's Hard': The Weeknd, TikTok and the Hunger for Virtual Audiences

The Weeknd is set to perform live on TikTok tonight, showcasing not only the Grammy Award-winning artist's talent but also the fast-growing company that will turn him into an avatar for the performance.

Wave creates digital avatars for musicians to put on shows and interact with fans in real time. Its partnership with TikTok, the besieged social media app known for short dance videos, provides the Los Angeles-based company with its largest platform yet to showcase what it can do.


"This is the biggest concert we've ever done in terms of the number of attendees," Wave co-founder and chief executive Adam Arrigo told dot.LA. He expects millions of people to tune in on the app that President Donald Trump has threatened to shut down. That would far surpass Wave's recent draw of over half a million fans to a John Legend virtual concert.

The Weeknd concert will stream live on TikTok's official account, @tiktok, at 5:30 p.m. PST.

The Weeknd is set to perform live on TikTok on Friday, August 7, 2020.

TikTok's reach — over 800 million users — makes it an attractive partner for advertisers and others trying to grow and highlights the conundrum companies face in working with them.

Most of Wave's virtual concerts have been broadcasted on YouTube, Twitch, video game platforms and VR devices. TikTok is a new way for them to build audience.

The social-video company reached out to Wave, Arrigo said, and built out its platform to integrate Wave into it.

Arrigo said he's not worried about the ongoing tensions surrounding TikTok. On Thursday, President Trump issued an executive order that effectively gives TikTok 45 days to negotiate a sale to an American company before being banned. The president has cited national security concerns related to TikTok's sharing data with the Chinese government and offering a platform for the Chinese Communist party to spread disinformation.

"That hasn't been a concern," Arrigo said, "based on everything they've said with their servers. We trust them as a partner."

Arrigo said the folks at TikTok "never seemed worried" about the U.S. government's increasingly vocal concerns over its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

As for how the still-unsettled saga may affect future projects, Arrigo said he is guided by his company's artist-first values.

"Entrepreneurship's hard," he said, "so I think ultimately it's about what you can and can't control…(For us) it's really about, how do we support creativity, support music, especially at a time right now when musicians need every avenue possible to make money. A lot are in danger of not being able to make a living."

The pandemic has stamped out most live performances, making platforms like Wave increasingly attractive to artists and the entertainment industry. In June, the company raised $30 million. It has since been focused on growing its executive team. In July, it brought on former Riot Games executive Jarred Kennedy as its COO, and Arrigo said more C-level hires are coming.

The Weeknd is not exactly a struggling artist. His recent album "After Hours" is the most-streamed R&B album in history, and the song "Blinding Lights" has inspired over 1.5 million TikTok videos.

Arrigo, a musician himself, said the partnership with The Weeknd was a big score for the company.

"Often for artists it's hard to work with new startups because you want your brand and creative qualities to be up to par," said Arrigo, whose home office includes his electric guitar, jazz bass, and keyboard. "We pride ourselves on being authentic artists on both the music and the visual level."

Arrigo likens a good company to a good band, where members collaborate best by listening to each other. Friday's event, to him, is a culmination of lots of hard work across several Wave teams, including engineering, business development, product management, and event producers that "continue to break down boundaries of what a concert can be."

"(This) is going to be our first real example at scale of what's possible now," he said, "and it's really just the beginning."

https://twitter.com/hisamblake
samblake@dot.la

Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.

How the 'Thrift Haul' Boosted Secondhand Ecommerce Platforms

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
How the 'Thrift Haul' Boosted Secondhand Ecommerce Platforms
Evan Xie

If you can believe it, it’s been more than a decade since rapper Macklemore extolled the virtues of thrift shopping in a viral music video. But while scouring the ranks of vintage clothing stores looking for the ultimate come-up may have waned in popularity since 2012, the online version of this activity is apparently thriving.

According to a new trend story from CNBC, interest in “reselling” platforms like Etsy-owned Depop and Poshmark has exploded in the years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. In an article that spends a frankly surprising amount of time focused on sellers receiving death threats before concluding that they’re “not the norm,” the network cites the usual belt-tightening ecommerce suspects – housebound individuals doing more of their shopping online coupled with inflation woes and recession fears – as the causes behind the uptick.

As for data, there’s a survey from Depop themselves, finding that 53% of respondents in the UK are more inclined to shop secondhand as living costs continue to rise. Additional research from Advance Market Analytics confirms the trend, citing not just increased demand for cheap clothes but the pressing need for a sustainable alternative to recycling clothing materials at its core.

The major popularity of “thrift haul” videos across social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok has also boosted the visibility of vintage clothes shopping and hunting for buried treasures. Teenage TikToker Jacklyn Wells scores millions of views on her thrift haul videos, only to get routinely mass-accused of greed for ratching up the Depop resell prices for her coolest finds and discoveries. Nonetheless, viral clips like Wells’ have helped to embed secondhand shopping apps more generally within online fashion culture. Fashion and beauty magazine Hunger now features a regular list of the hottest items on the re-sale market, with a focus on how to use them to recreate hot runway looks.

As with a lot of consumer and technology trends, the sudden surge of interest in second-hand clothing retailers was only partly organic. According to The Drum, ecommerce apps Vinted, eBay, and Depop have collectively spent around $120 million on advertising throughout the last few years, promoting the recent vintage shopping boom and helping to normalize second-hand shopping. This includes conventional advertising, of course, but also deals with online influencers to post content like “thrift haul” videos, along with shoutouts for where to track down the best finds.

Reselling platforms have naturally responded to the increase in visibility with new features (as well as a predictable hike in transaction fees). Poshmark recently introduced livestreamed “Posh Shows” during which sellers can host auctions or provide deeper insight into their inventory. Depop, meanwhile, has introduced a “Make Offer” option to fully integrate the bartering and negotiation process into the app, rather than forcing buyers and sellers to text or Direct Message one another elsewhere. (The platform formerly had a comments section on product pages, but shut this option down after finding that it led to arguments, and wasn’t particularly helpful in making purchase decisions.)

Now that it’s clear there’s money to be made in online thrift stores, larger and more established brands and retailers are also pushing their way into the space. H&M and Target have both partnered with online thrift store ThredUp on featured collections of previously-worn clothing. A new “curated” resale collection from Tommy Hilfiger – featuring minorly damaged items that were returned to its retail stores – was developed and promoted through a partnership with Depop, which has also teamed with Kellogg’s on a line of Pop-Tarts-inspired wear. J.Crew is even bringing back its classic ‘80s Rollneck Sweater in a nod to the renewed interest in all things vintage.

Still, with any surge of popularity and visibility, there must also come an accompanying backlash. In a sharp editorial this week for Arizona University’s Daily Wildcat, thrift shopping enthusiast Luke Lawson makes the case that sites like Depop are “gentrifying fashion,” stripping communities of local thrift stores that provide a valuable public service, particularly for members of low-income communities. As well, UK tabloids are routinely filled with secondhand shopping horror stories these days, another evidence point as to their increased visibility among British consumers specifically, not to mention the general dangers of buying personal items from strangers you met over the internet.

How to Startup: Mission Acquisition

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

How to Startup: Mission Acquisition

Numbers don’t lie, but often they don’t tell the whole story. If you look at the facts and figures alone, launching a startup seems like a daunting enterprise. It seems like a miracle anyone makes it out the other side.

  • 90% of startups around the world fail.
  • On average, it takes startups 2-3 years to turn a profit. (Venture funded startups take far longer.)
  • Post-seed round, fewer than 10% of startups go on to successfully raise a Series A investment.
  • Less than 1% of startups go public.
  • A startup only has a .00006% chance of becoming a unicorn.

Ouch.

Read moreShow less
https://twitter.com/spencerrascoff
https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerrascoff/
admin@dot.la

From The Vault: VC Legend Bill Gurley On Startups, Venture Capital and Scaling

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

Bill Gurley in a blue suit
Bill Gurley

This interview was originally published on December of 2020, and was recorded at the inaugural dot.LA Summit held October 27th & 28th.

One of my longtime favorite episodes of Office Hours was a few years ago when famed venture capitalist Bill Gurley and I talked about marketplace-based companies, how work-from-home will continue to accelerate business opportunities and his thoughts on big tech and antitrust.

Read moreShow less
https://twitter.com/spencerrascoff
https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerrascoff/
admin@dot.la
RELATEDEDITOR'S PICKS
LA TECH JOBS
interchangeLA
Trending