The Playbook for Short-Form Content Growth

Aaron Sekhri, founder of Le Walk and former product lead at TikTok, has developed a set of practices for leveraging short-form content that he’s implemented at Le Walk and has seen work across companies and creators.

What makes TikTok hard to ignore is how much it now shapes culture, taste, and purchasing behavior. But, what makes it useful for founders is something simpler: it offers an unusually level playing field. Small teams, new accounts, and low-budget experiments can perform surprisingly well. Below, you'll find the playbook that Aaron honed to scale Le Walk’s following to almost 200k.

Note: Aaron uses TikTok as an example, but all of this guidance can be replicated across short-form platforms, including Reels and Shorts.

One of the most helpful mental shifts is to think of TikTok not as “social media” but as a matching engine — a marketplace that routes videos to people to maximize their enjoyment and the platform’s economics. In practice, that means anyone can get reach, and every video has a chance.

A practical starting point is simple: spend time on the platform. Make multiple accounts, and use each one to explore a different niche or a different feature.

Every “Tok” — BookTok, ShopTok, EduTok — has its own norms, references, tone, and humor. Explore widely to get a feel for how content varies across communities, as it’s easier to contribute meaningfully when you’ve absorbed what already exists.

As a launching point, Aaron created an account with hundreds of videos and creators spanning every major industry organized in the Favorites section.

Pick a creator who has reached some degree of prominence (roughly 500k+ followers). For example: https://www.tiktok.com/@tanner.leatherstein.

Start by watching their most recent 20 videos. Pay attention to what they’re doing and try to identify a pattern in their content: a repeatable format, consistent themes, familiar pacing, and a recognizable style of value delivery.

Then, scroll all the way to the start of their feed.

What you’ll see at the bottom almost always contradicts what you saw at the top. Unless the creator has deleted their early videos, those first posts typically lack the structure, clarity, and reach of their later ones. They’re experiments. Prototypes. Attempts at figuring out what resonates.

Tanner Leatherstein is a good example. He began by posting educational content about leather craftsmanship — deep dives into materials, tanning techniques, and the nuances of quality. The content was solid for a specific audience of leather nerds, but it didn’t take off.

Then he pivoted. He began a series of videos evaluating designer handbags from the perspective of a calm, nonjudgmental expert. He took the bags apart — literally and metaphorically — and explained what made them worth the price (or not).

Suddenly the audience was hooked.

These videos tapped into multiple engaging themes at once: questions of value and status, the appeal of expertise, clear narrative structure, and the simple curiosity of watching something get dissected. It became a format he could repeat, allowing viewers to instantly understand the value he brought and making it easy for new audiences to join in at any moment and providing established followers a familiar format.

This pattern — wandering until you find a format that “clicks,” then repeating it — is one of TikTok’s most consistent truths. And you only notice it when you take the time to study creators across their entire arc.

Before making anything, it helps to decide why you’re on TikTok at all. The answer differs by company, and it could be some combination of:

• Establish broad awareness

• Announce launches and drive conversion

• Build in public

• Experiment with brand voice

• Promote job opportunities

• Gather user feedback

These goals don’t need to be fixed or precise. You can change them as you learn. But having an intention makes it much easier to evaluate whether something is “working.”

If you post without a goal, TikTok can feel overwhelming. With a goal, it becomes a series of small, structured experiments.

We can think of content ideation in the following framework:

• Message: the thing you want to communicate

• Angle: the perspective or creative approach

• Format: the actual structure of the video (e.g., selfie, green screen, voiceover, meme template)

This combination makes ideation much more flexible. The same message can be expressed through dozens of angles and formats. A single idea can generate many small experiments.

A useful exercise is to list 3-5 core messages about your company. Then, pair each with multiple angles and formats. Very quickly, you’ll have a backlog of experiments rather than a blank document.

The goal is not polish. It’s exploration. You’re trying to find “content-market fit,” which often looks like one video slightly outperforming your expectations — enough to signal that you should try a few more like it.

Early on, the biggest advantage you have is speed. Videos that feel informal or lightly produced are not just acceptable — they often perform better.

Most companies overcomplicate this step. You don’t need a content calendar, a complicated review chain, or agency-level production. You need a workflow that lets you make many small bets.

There’s no universal answer. Some teams discover that an unexpected person — an engineer, an ops hire, an intern — who naturally has an intuition for short-form video. It’s worth letting several people try.

Alternatively, hiring a creator (~50k followers) part-time can be surprisingly efficient, versus doing influencer marketing and sponsored content. Many brand accounts that feel “effortless” are actually run by small creator teams who understand pacing, tone, and platform conventions.

One of TikTok’s advantages is how quickly you get signal. You often know within hours whether a video resonated. Instead of interpreting that as judgment, treat it as information:

• Try a shorter version

• Change the hook

• Adjust pacing

• Recut and repost

• Try a new angle

Most creators iterate constantly. Brands can too.

• Comments are data: They reveal what viewers noticed, misunderstood, or wanted more of.

• Repetition helps: Many ideas only work on the second or third attempt.

• Casual is okay. If a video feels slightly unfinished, it often performs better than one that feels overworked.

• Search matters: TikTok is increasingly used like a search engine. Clear text, keywords, and simple phrasing help your videos get found.

For early-stage teams, TikTok can feel unpredictable. But underneath the chaos is a platform with clear patterns: participation matters more than polish; creativity scales faster than budget; and the best results usually come from people who treat it as a series of ongoing experiments, not as a campaign.

Aaron underscored something simple to anchor on: you don’t need to be an expert to start. You just need to be there, pay attention, and keep an open, patient mind to try things.

Check out other Fields Notes: our series that takes you behind the scenes of the conversations we’re having with founders and operators in the Adverb community. Each article brings a practical, candid perspective from the people building, scaling, and learning in real time.