Building Shichuan

A friend pitched 'cloud try-on for jewelry.' Deep research killed the plan in 20 minutes. But the same Gemini pipeline from ÉLAN could generate editorial-quality product content — studio shots, material constellations, color DNA pages — for a fraction of what merchants pay photographers. One day later, Shichuan was live.

Shichuan started as a jewelry content generator. One question — 'Why not full pipeline for all categories?' — turned it into a 7-domain e-commerce content platform with AI images, XHS text cards, platform-aware formatting, client-side video, and 95%+ margins at 99 RMB per suite.

Part 2 claimed six slots could cover seven categories. Two weeks later, a denim jacket generated a gem constellation. This post walks through where the abstraction failed, why skipping the 'safe' phased rollout was the right call, and how each of three categories got its own six-template set.