The Creator of Facebook Live Reveals Exactly What It Takes To Launch the Next Big Thing

Although it might seem like Facebook Live became popular overnight, it took Randi Zuckerberg nearly seven years to turn the spark of an idea into a viral reality. 

• What do former President Barack Obama and Katy Perry have in common? They both played a role in the ideation and launch of Facebook Live.

• “You take a lot of time to nurture other aspects of your health and your emotional well-being and not enough time to really exercise your creativity, which is probably the number one skill you need if you're an entrepreneur,” Randi says.

To the average Facebook user, it probably seems like Facebook Live was born overnight.

Think back to 2016 (feels like another lifetime, right?!). In what seemed like a matter of days, your timeline was flooded with livestreams — everything from Chewbacca Mom to the 2016 election coverage to Buzzfeed’s exploding watermelon.

But in fact, Facebook Live was in the works for almost seven years before its official launch about four years ago.

“They probably think, ‘Oh, Facebook coded this thing and put it live, and now we’re going to use it,’” says Randi Zuckerberg, the creator of the live broadcasting feature. “Anything that seems like an overnight success or get rich quick isn't — there's always someone working their butt off behind that.”

The person working their butt off on Facebook Live? That was Randi, the former Director of Marketing Development at Facebook.

Although Randi has since moved on from Facebook to become the founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media, a best-selling author of three books and the SiriusXM radio host of Dot Complicated, she still looks back on her time at the social media conglomerate with pride.

Luckily, I had the chance to catch up with Randi at a group networking event, and she gave me a little behind-the-scenes look at what it took to create Facebook Live.

How Randi ended up at Facebook

Randi joined Facebook in 2005, about two years after she graduated Harvard University with a degree in psychology.

She remembers the call she got from her brother, Mark. Facebook needed some help with marketing, and her experience at Ogilvy & Mather made her the perfect fit.

After some salary and stock option negotiations, she joined the team.

At that time, Facebook had a staff of about 20 people. (For context, Facebook’s employee headcount now numbers more than 50,000.) Most of these employees were men. In fact, the office didn’t even have a women’s bathroom, so that was Randi’s first order of business.

It started with an inauguration: The origin story of Facebook Live

In 2009, Facebook teamed up with CNN to stream former President Barack Obama’s inauguration, which was one of the first times an inauguration was streamed live online.

That sparked an idea.

During a Facebook hackathon, which is an all-night competition where teams brainstorm and create new products and features, Randi presented the concept for Facebook Live. She called it Facebook Live with Randi Zuckerburg.

When she launched it for the first time, no one watched. Well, her mom and dad watched, but that was about it.

But it caught fire when Katy Perry’s producer approached Randi about using Facebook Live to launch an upcoming world tour. Needless to say, the tour sold out within minutes of the live announcement.

As they say, the rest is history.

The key ingredient for a viral launch

Randi spent about 10 years in Silicon Valley, where she says she felt “on fire entrepreneurially all the time.” Every conversation she had — even at the dentist’s office — was about developing new apps or programs.

“When you're exercising that entrepreneurial muscle, it empowers you to be able to come up with those big ideas,” she says.

Creativity is at the core of that entrepreneurial muscle.

“Creativity is essential to business, and I think a lot of people don't realize that,” Randi says. “You take a lot of time to nurture other aspects of your health and your emotional well-being and not enough time to really exercise your creativity, which is probably the number one skill you need if you're an entrepreneur.”

This article is based on an episode of Entrepreneurs Circle, a podcast featuring entrepreneurs and business owners discussing mindset, goals, vision, tips, and strategies on how to crush life and business, hosted by Erik Cabral, a real estate investor and owner of the On Air Brands creative agency.