In 2021, with 1.9 billion monthly active users in 150 countries, and an employee base of over 110,000, the company recorded an astonishing $58 billion in revenues.How has it been so consistently successful? An important contributing factor is its innovation strategy, which relies on a shared-service platform, or SSP.

ByteDance, the most valuable startup in the world, has shattered records for growth.

ByteDance's strategy and operations are driven by a transparent, bi-monthly Objectives and Key Results (OKR) system that flows from the very top, aligning the priorities and actions of SSP and product teams.Explicitly flattened hierarchyByteDance eliminates the use of titles and deliberately flattened its hierarchy to just a few layers so that employees can focus on their responsibilities instead of worrying about status.

ByteDance has searched broadly for new product opportunities and does not hesitate to send multiple teams into the same segment.Rapid iterationIt is renowned for its speed of development and getting products to market, much of which is enabled by its SSP.Selective focusByteDance allocates key resources to a few select priorities for a few years at a time. Its first 3 years were dominated by text- and photo-content experiments relating to the success of Toutiao, its news app, while 2016 marked a pivot to a short video.After experimentation, it made growing its education business a priority.

Broad exploration

ByteDance’s SSP allows for new product teams to easily integrate best-in-class technologies and features, saving precious time and resourcesProductizing platform servicesShared services often begin as new functions but are elevated to the SSP level if use, actual or projected, increases across multiple productsOrganizational EnablersByteDance's SSP strategy - accelerate new projects by providing instant access to best-in-class technology and operations - has been so successful that one would expect many other companies to have embraced it.

Maximum-capability cross-pollination

<ul><li>Bytedance uses its SSP platform differently from most companies. The company's product teams or units don't control their own operating resources.</li><li>Many common business, technology, and operating functions (among them HR and legal) are centralized and organized into corresponding teams, so that the right people can be found and flexibly deployed as needed to each new venture.</li></ul>

Specialized Teams

ByteDance's SSP-based innovation strategy has allowed the company to incubate rapidly and broadly and to scale efficiently, by using centralized but flexibly deployed technical and operational stacks.This strategy has served the company well in part because of the similarity among its various algorithm-driven products.