Members of the founding team of Douyin have launched an AI creative creation platform | Emerging NewThings

Text by | Zhou Xinyu

Edited by | Su Jianxun

From Stable Diffusion and Midjourney in 2022 to today's Jimeng AI and Lovart, AI creative tools have reshaped the creative workflow:

Creators provide ideas, use natural language as an interactive interface, and AI tools finally efficiently generate the creative output.

However, for entrepreneurial monetization, creative generation is just one step - a broader monetization space lies in the sale of physical products. For example, in the case of anime merchandise, according to data from Domore Media, the gross profit margin of physical product sales generally exceeds 40%.

Today, AI creative tools have lowered the threshold for creative generation. But for most creators, the threshold of "creating physical products" remains insurmountable. In this process, 3D modeling, contacting suppliers, and handling logistics are not easy tasks for ordinary creators.

Founded in February 2024, "Shumei Wanwu" is now completing the chain of AI creative monetization. The founding team of this company includes three members from the "Seven - Person Group" that founded Douyin:

The founder and CEO, Ren Lifeng, was the person in charge of the initial business of Douyin and TikTok; the operation director, Li Tian, was once the top - level operator of Douyin; and the 3D product director, Zhang Bo, was an early - stage product manager of Douyin and TikTok.

△ Ren Lifeng, founder and CEO of Shumei Wanwu. Image source: Internet

Zhang Bo told us that what Shumei Wanwu aims to do now is to use AI tools to lower the threshold for creators in design and product monetization.

The product landscape of Shumei Wanwu includes both communities and tools for AI creators and a supply chain and trading platform for creative production and monetization:

Shumei Wanwu's domestic platform "Zao Haowu" and the overseas platform Hitems provide communities and trading platforms for AI creators;

The team's self - developed image - to - 3D model and the image generation model fine - tuned based on open - source models provide AI design tools;

The company's supply chain in Guangdong connects the links from design to production of AI creative products, covering categories such as jewelry, clothing, home decor, ceramics, and toys.

In the Beijing office of Shumei Wanwu, Zhang Bo showed us jewelry, figurines, and small ornaments made by the team through self - developed AI tools and the production supply chain:

Traditionally, the design of a product from concept to modeling often takes a week or even longer. Now, with the help of AI tools, it only takes a few minutes.

△ Some products produced by users through AI creation on the Zao Haowu platform. Image source: Shumei Wanwu

In June 2025, Shumei Wanwu also released its latest 3D model capability, Sparc3D, and launched an independent image - to - 3D tool product, Hitem3D (hitem3d.ai), in July.

The feature of Sparc3D is that it has increased the generation resolution to 1536^3, which is the highest precision among current global 3D models and can be directly used for manufacturing.

In August, the team released new research results, Ultra3D. This model can increase the 3D generation speed by 6.7 times while maintaining high precision.

In the eyes of many onlookers, this team that created a killer app in the Internet era is now doing something "small" and "niche" in the AI era.

Few people know that in their last positions at ByteDance, Ren Lifeng and Zhang Bo were involved not only in the VR business PICO but also in a virtual fashion community called "Feiji".

This niche platform for fashion designers made several founders of Shumei Wanwu realize the pain points of designers: traditional platforms cannot directly help them connect the processes of design, modeling, pattern - making, and production. From design to pre - production modeling, a large amount of communication and model - modification costs are often required.

Moreover, they also found that making money from content is the core need of most creators. But on traditional content platforms without a connected supply chain, creators need to contact suppliers on their own, and the threshold for product monetization is very high.

Build a community where AI creativity can be directly monetized

As an AI startup, Shumei Wanwu started by doing three particularly "heavy" things at once: building a community, establishing a supply chain, and developing AI models.

But when looking back from the creators' needs of "design - monetization", the team found that all three difficult tasks are indispensable.

Zhang Bo told Intelligent Emergence that content and community are the team's comfort zones, but the supply chain is a shortcoming. Therefore, they must start planning and accumulating knowledge from day one.

In the creative process, on Shumei Wanwu's domestic platform "Zao Haowu", users can design figurines, fridge magnets, keycaps, pendants, rings, and other items through the AI tools provided by the platform and optionally share them in the community.

For example, we used the "pet pendant model" in the "image - to - image" tool to quickly DIY a pendant engraved with the image of a pet cat.

△ Making a pet pendant with an AI image - to - image tool. Image source: Author's trial

△ The content community of "Zao Haowu". Image source: Official website of "Zao Haowu"

In the sales and monetization process, currently, "Zao Haowu" adopts a customized product model:

Creators can design products through the platform's creative challenges and publish their works in the community. Once they gather a certain number of "wants", creators can get one free product and also list their products in the mall for sale and earn a share of the profits.

With this mechanism, the platform can support the customization and delivery of single - piece products such as fridge magnets and anime merchandise, as well as the batch - customization needs of well - recognized designers on the platform. Currently, the products supported by the platform for delivery are mainly three - dimensional objects.

△ After gathering enough "wants" for a design, the product can enter the production - sales process. Image source: Official website of "Zao Haowu"

△ After gathering a certain number of "wants", a "Buy" button will appear below the design. Image source: Official website of "Zao Haowu"

Compared with validating users' needs for "creation - production - monetization", developing tools, that is, training AI generation models, was actually the first thing this team, which excels in content and community, polished.

In Zhang Bo's view, the best content and ecosystem of a community are not planned from the start but are derived from observing the behavior of target users.

Therefore, "providing users with AI creative tools is the top priority. Only by letting users start having fun in the community can the team get more feedback on gameplay and user needs."

△ AI creative tools provided by "Zao Haowu". Image source: Official website of "Zao Haowu"

Currently, the "Zao Haowu" platform provides users with five types of AI creative tools: text - to - image (product design), image - to - image, image - to - 3D, ultra - high - definition restoration, and partial redrawing.

Taking the image - to - 3D tool as an example, users can upload photos of their pets, favorite fan - art, or even random scenery photos taken on the road, and "Zao Haowu" can output a 3D model ready for production.

△ Reference image input for the image - to - 3D model. Image source: Visual China

△ The effect generated by Shumei Wanwu's SPARC 3D model. Image source: Author's trial

From day one, Shumei Wanwu decided that both 2D and 3D generation should be developed, even though it is a "heavy" task.

The team believes that 2D models are the basis for creative concept and visual expression. Based on industry - open - source models, the team optimized and trained 2D generation models, covering creative expression scenarios such as text - to - image and image - to - image;

And 3D models, especially high - precision models at the product level, are the key to directly connecting creativity to the downstream manufacturing process.

"We believe that only by developing model capabilities suitable for manufacturing can we have the opportunity to truly transform the pipeline efficiency of the existing manufacturing industry and fundamentally solve the problem of high - concurrency delivery under high - level product customization," Zhang Bo told us.

By designing a new 3D VAE (Variational Autoencoder), the self - developed image - to - 3D model Hitem3D of Shumei Wanwu has increased the resolution of the output model to 1536^3.

△ Reference image of an ant for 3D generation input. Image source: Shumei Wanwu

△ Comparison of the effect of the ant model generated by Hitem3D with other models. Image source: Author's trial

Zhang Bo told Intelligent Emergence that a resolution of 1536^3 has reached the standard for direct mold - making and production, eliminating the need for extensive model - modification time.

Recently, Bambu Lab, a global leading 3D printer manufacturer, will also connect to the Hitem3D API. In the future, Bambu Lab users will be able to experience the model capabilities of Hitem3D within the community.

In the past, 3D printing enthusiasts often had to rely on professional modelers and spend days or even weeks to complete a printable file. Now, with just a creative sketch, users can almost instantly generate an industrial - grade printable model through Hitem3D and send it to the printer for production.

"We hope to establish in - depth ecological cooperation with more companies and manufacturers that have a demand for 3D models and explore cooperation opportunities from creation to printing production together," Zhang Bo said.

The supply chain is another area that Shumei Wanwu has been planning since its establishment.

Content platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Pinterest usually only focus on the creative process and do not extend to the downstream production. Creators need to rely on themselves to contact suppliers to monetize their design content.

"Currently, there is no other place that can simultaneously provide models, creative tools, and a production supply chain like we do," Zhang Bo mentioned.

The advantage of building a self - owned supply chain is that the platform can support highly personalized product orders, high - concurrency orders, and efficient large - scale delivery. After connecting the supply chain, creators of Shumei Wanwu only need to focus on design, and the created content can be directly produced and monetized through the platform's supply chain.

In addition to meeting the need for creative monetization, an