He, the top short drama star, has caught three major trends by the age of 30, yet he still decides to "change his career".
One afternoon in April, China Entrepreneur met Wang Jiacheng, the founder and chairman of Jiaxing Jiuzhou Culture Media Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiuzhou") in Hangzhou. He is extremely talkative. More than an hour passed, and the tea in the cup was almost finished when he just finished sharing his judgment on the AI video generation model.
Two months ago, ByteDance officially released its new-generation video generation model, Seedance 2.0, which can generate multi-shot movie-level pictures within 15 seconds. The industry was instantly transformed. Feng Ji, the producer of "Black Myth: Wukong", gave a straightforward evaluation: the "childhood era" of AIGC is over.
Wang Jiacheng was among the first in the leading short drama companies to sense the trend and take action. Since the second half of 2025, Jiuzhou has cut the production capacity of live-action dramas by more than half. The freed-up budget has been used for the salaries of AI generators and computing power expenses. In just half a year, the company has expanded from 1,500 to about 4,000 employees, and 80% of the new employees are AI creators. By March 2026, Jiuzhou announced that its monthly production and broadcast volume was 1,399 new dramas. Many industry insiders publicly described this as a "cliff-like lead".
He has completely accelerated the company's pace. His approach to recruitment is simple and direct - as long as the candidates are hardworking and passionate. He shared a real story: A textile factory worker with a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan transformed into an AI film and television worker after joining Jiuzhou. Her monthly share of the profits from a hit AI short drama reached hundreds of thousands of yuan.
Wang Jiacheng's ambition extends beyond just a short drama company. He wants to integrate AI, Chinese culture, and Chinese labor into a content ecosystem that can be exported worldwide. He aims to change the old overseas expansion logic of "selecting one story out of 100 for translation and selling it abroad" to "directly translating 100 stories into multiple languages using AI and putting them all on the shelves".
Zhong Jiaqi, CEO of Jiuzhou Culture. Source: The interviewee
Zhong Jiaqi, CEO of Jiuzhou Culture, added, "Short dramas with themes such as cultivation, fantasy, and martial arts actually have a considerable audience overseas. One of our future focuses is the overseas presentation of these Chinese stories."
In Wang Jiacheng's view, AI is a field too vast for Jiuzhou to fully encompass. In fact, Jiuzhou is not a small company. Registered in Jiaxing in August 2021, it has grown from the infancy of paid short dramas to become a leading player in the industry - producing nearly 400 dramas annually with an annual revenue of over 4 billion yuan. Alongside Dianzhong Technology and Maiya Media, it is known as one of the "Big Three" in the short drama industry.
At this scale, Jiuzhou has only made two observable external equity moves: At the beginning of its establishment, Chen Danian, the co-founder of Shanda Network, participated in his personal capacity. Shanghai Chengtan Network Technology and Shanghai Yuanmu Investment, both from the "Shanda Group", jointly hold approximately 9% of the equity. In November 2022, Daguan Capital made an investment in the tens of millions of yuan. Wang Jiacheng also confirmed this to the reporter. Jiuzhou has almost no external investors. The core team consists of three or four people, including himself. Minor external equity investments are more like the support of old friends in the early days of entrepreneurship.
"When a company accepts external investment, it essentially sells its future revenue expectations at a discounted price. If you have confidence in yourself, why sell?" he explained. "Only when the boss thinks the company is overvalued by the market will he cash out. This means that all financing activities are, to some extent, a sign of bearishness."
Regarding investment, he has his own "safety cushion" theory: When he first entered society, he could tolerate a loss of 10,000 to 20,000 yuan. When his net worth reached 1 million yuan, he could tolerate a loss of 300,000 yuan. As his net worth increased to 10 million and 100 million yuan, the tolerance level increased proportionally. He never uses leverage. What he dislikes is not the risk itself, but a situation where there is no way to cover the losses.
His family background as a third-generation rural person has instilled in him a certain instinct: Every penny you earn comes from the dividends of the times. Why should you always be so lucky? He mentioned "Shang Zhongyong" and doesn't want to end up as an ordinary person.
Source: The interviewee
He has never dabbled in live streaming and has only tried e-commerce briefly. The reason is that the business chain is too long and the certainty is low. Even for the copyright business, which is the lifeblood of a short drama company, he restrains himself from making heavy asset acquisitions of online literature platforms. Instead, he has invested in dozens of small copyright holders, signed contracts with several screenwriting companies, and built a small online literature website.
This strategy also comes with corresponding challenges. In terms of content depth and brand influence, Jiuzhou does not have an advantage over long - form video platforms and high - quality brands like Tinghua Island. On the distribution side, Jiuzhou is deeply tied to large platforms, leaving limited room for negotiation - it was ByteDance's advertising platform before 2024 and then switched to Hongguo.
In Jiuzhou's world, neither the phenomenal hits nor the popular stars created by the company are the main characters. It is more like a 24/7 "content factory", quietly and efficiently producing video products with great stability.
Wang Jiacheng accepts this state. "Don't bet heavily on things beyond your cognitive ability," he believes this is the unique trait of Jiaxing entrepreneurs. In the coastal areas of Zhejiang, no one is extremely poor, and no one forces you to achieve a certain goal. Therefore, he has a rare sense of boundaries in this "all - out" industry.
However, he never "lies flat". Conservatism and adventure coexist and conflict within him.
Regarding AI, he said, "I wish AI could replace me as soon as possible" - he hopes that AI will soon replace all of Jiuzhou's current live - action drama production lines. He is not afraid of being replaced. At only 30 years old, he can afford to take risks.
The Logic of ROI
When talking about his background, Wang Jiacheng did not deliberately embellish it. He was born in December 1996, from an ordinary family in Jiaxing, Zhejiang. His father repaired looms, and his mother operated looms. In the silk industry belt, every family was involved in weaving. After finishing junior high school and one year of technical school, he voluntarily dropped out of school. "My grades were not outstanding, and as a poor child, I matured early. It's better to start earning a living earlier."
In 2014, when he was 18, it was also the first year after the issuance of 4G licenses, and the number of mobile Internet users increased rapidly. He joined a mobile advertising company with business in Hangzhou, Jiaxing, and Shanghai. He started from the most basic sales position. His job was simple: connect with platforms or large self - media accounts upstream to obtain advertising space, and then connect with advertisers downstream to sell the advertising space at a higher price.
This was also Wang Jiacheng's business enlightenment. Why do customers place advertisements? Because they can earn 11 yuan by investing 10 yuan. Why do customers switch platforms? Because another platform has a higher conversion rate. When will customers stop? Because they calculate that the ROI is not worthwhile. In just a few months, he grasped the logic of the traffic economy.
Less than a year later, the advertising company went bankrupt due to poor management, and Wang Jiacheng lost his job. However, he did not plan to continue working for others. The monthly income from advertising on several self - media accounts he owned had already exceeded his salary. At that time, WeChat Moments ads and official account soft articles were still new businesses, and he could get good quotes. Being "forced" into unemployment actually pushed him into a more independent position.
Before he was 20, he established his own advertising company with two main businesses: one was WeChat Moments advertising, and the other was CPS (Commission Per Sale) advertising for online novels. The latter was a new model. When a user recharged 100 yuan on a novel platform, the platform would take 10 yuan, and the remaining 90 yuan would go to distributors like him, who would then distribute it to downstream partners. Although the business chain seemed long, each link could make a profit if the execution was in place.
He gradually discovered several rules: First, the payment habits of online novel users are well - established. "Spending 1 yuan to read the next chapter" is a feasible psychological path. Second, the life cycle of this kind of business is extremely short. The effective advertising window for a soft article is often measured in hours. Third, even if the profit per transaction is meager, as long as the scale is large enough, the cash flow is sufficient to support a company. His advertising company once reached a scale of three to four hundred people, laying the foundation for Jiuzhou's future traffic investment and distribution capabilities.
2020 was a turning point. Offline consumption was affected, and the entire mobile Internet advertising placement rhythm was disrupted. At the same time, the industry ecosystem was visibly declining: the reading volume of self - media decreased, advertisers tightened their budgets, and the conversion rate of CPS distribution continued to decline.
Wang Jiacheng began to systematically review which companies had been growing in the past few years. He finally listed three - ByteDance, Xiaohongshu, and Pinduoduo. Among them, he was most interested in ByteDance. According to his classification, it is essentially an "advertising company", most similar to his own business.
He studied ByteDance's growth history and drew two conclusions.
First, it benefited from the "global trend of content video - ization". The number of video users is nearly ten times that of text users. Transforming Toutiao into a video version became Douyin.
The second conclusion is counter - intuitive: On platforms with a large advertising inventory, the accuracy of each exposure not only does not decrease but can be compensated for by algorithms.
He showed the reporter a set of calculations: At that time, WeChat had 1.2 billion daily active users, and each user could view a maximum of 7 ads per day, resulting in an inventory of approximately 8.4 billion exposures. Douyin had 700 million monthly active users, and each user could view more than 30 ads per day, with an inventory of over 21 billion. Logically, the advertising accuracy of Douyin should be worse because it lacks payment information and social relationships. However, in fact, Douyin used algorithms to compensate for these deficiencies, and its inventory was several times larger than that of WeChat, with a higher accurate reach rate and conversion rate.
Source: The interviewee
As a result, ByteDance's advertising is not only sold at a higher price but also in larger quantities than WeChat's. Wang Jiacheng believes that in addition to technological upgrades, this is a complete re - deconstruction of "traffic × single - value": increasing the traffic supply and stabilizing the exposure price through algorithms, creating a positive feedback loop between efficiency and scale.
This set of conclusions later became the foundation for all his business judgments: If the essence of something is "traffic × single - value", then translating any form of content into a combination of "video + algorithm" may be a good business.
A Good Business
In 2021, he saw the opportunity for a "good business" - the video - ization of novels.
This judgment seems ordinary today, but at that time, it was a minority view. The film and television content industry was divided among three types of players: online literature companies represented by Yuewen, long - form video platforms represented by iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku, and traditional production companies represented by Huace. The former sold IPs, the middle ones bought IPs, and the latter produced stories. No one realized that short dramas would open up a fourth type of business. Even the few players who did realize it only adapted existing short stories found online, without elevating it to the industrial logic of "video - ization of novels".
Wang Jiacheng saw the opportunity and was aware of his own advantages. He had experience in CPS advertising distribution and knew that the "user payment to unlock" model was viable. He also had experience in traffic distribution and knew that once the upstream production capacity increased, it was not difficult to make money on the distribution end. The only thing he didn't understand was content. He always described himself as a "net - addicted teenager with poor aesthetics", focusing on products rather than works. This self - awareness actually made him make decisions more quickly: If he didn't understand content, he would buy it. He started searching for novel copyrights across the Internet and turning them into videos.
In August 2021, Jiaxing Jiuzhou Culture Media Co., Ltd. was registered. Wang Jiacheng is the actual controller, and his core partners are several of his fellow villagers from Jiaxing.
The first half - year was not smooth. The first hurdle was production capacity: Traditional film and television teams were reluctant to take on this "low - end" work, and his own team didn't know how to shoot. So, he had to outsource to small scattered crews. The second hurdle was more fatal: There were no buyers for the produced dramas. Users were used to free short videos, and paying for short dramas was a counter - intuitive sales behavior. Throughout the second half of 2021, the short drama business of the company was supported by traditional businesses.
The turning point came from Kuaishou. In 2021, Kuaishou was the first platform in the industry to open the floodgates for short drama advertising. Once the advertising channel was opened, a closed - loop was immediately formed: Production companies produced drama adaptations of novels, bought traffic for distribution, users paid to unlock subsequent episodes, and the platform and production companies shared the revenue based on CPS. This entire chain was almost a copy of the paid online literature model, and Wang Jiacheng was familiar with every link.
Source: AI - generated
There was also a "policy window period". Traditional film and television dramas need to be filed with relevant departments, and the entire cycle from project establishment to actual shooting and release is measured in years. Before 2023, short dramas were basically in a period of institutional exploration of "release first, review later; self - review and self - release". It only took one month from shooting to release, and the trial - and - error cost was extremely low.
Within two years, short dramas transformed from a niche field into a national hot topic. In August 2023, the drama "Wushuang" achieved a recharge turnover of over 100 million yuan in just 8 days after its release, and the wealth myth of short dramas began to spread. New players flocked in: Dianzhong, Maiya, Rongliang, Zhangwan, and Tinghua Island emerged one after another. By 2