Short-form social

Creation tooling is the growth engine, and it is chronically under-resourced relative to the feed. If capturing, trimming and posting takes more than a few seconds, or if the result looks worse than what the phone's own camera app produces, people simply do not post — and a social product with no supply has nothing to rank. The unglamorous work here is real: fast preview, reliable upload that survives a backgrounded app, and export quality that does not visibly degrade what the user shot.

Ranking is the product, and it starts before you have signals. On day one there is no engagement history, so the first version is recency, a little popularity and some randomness — and the randomness matters, because a feed that only shows what is already popular never discovers anything and starves new creators, who then leave. Exploration is not a refinement to add later; it is what keeps the supply side alive while the system learns.

Moderation cannot be deferred, and this is the part most new social products get wrong by omission. Within days of launching to the public you will receive content that is illegal, content that is legal but will end your app store listing, and coordinated abuse aimed at a specific user. Needed from the start: a report button that goes somewhere real, a queue a human works, the ability to remove content and an account quickly, and someone whose job this is. Building it after the first incident means building it during the incident.