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I closed my first Shopify store after three months. Here’s how I would build it differently today, using AI.

One year ago, I launched my first Shopify store. It was a merch store for my page, Găina Bătrână. Mostly food-themed t-shirts. Very me. I genuinely loved designing them. The quality was something I was proud of: organic cotton, premium feel, resistant print.

I launched with six collections. And then reality showed up. One of the reasons I eventually closed the shop wasn’t lack of ideas. Among other operational issues, it was the lack of resources for proper photoshoots. I had a very clear vision of how the photos should look. Who should wear the t-shirts. What kind of mood they should live in.

And in my vision, it wasn’t me. I didn’t want to be my own model. My best friend stepped in. She was amazing. Her husband took incredible photos. But favors aren’t a sustainable production system. And I didn’t have the budget to professionally shoot six collections the way I imagined them.

In the two images I’m sharing, you’ll see one photo with me wearing the t-shirt and another with an AI-generated model. You might say the “me” photo isn’t bad. And it’s not. But that’s not the point. I don’t feel creative when I’m thinking about angles, poses, lighting, and how I look. For me, creativity lives in the concept.

Recently, while building AI marketing materials, I was thinking if I had this technology back then, I could have created the visual world I imagined without forcing myself into a role that drains me.

For small founders, especially in e-commerce, media production is often the most expensive and exhausting part of the business. If you’re running a Shopify store and thinking you don’t have the resources to present your product properly, maybe this is your sign. Invest in the idea. Invest in the operation system. Let AI handle part of the media layer.

Growth isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing the right parts yourself and delegating the rest.

There’s a trend going around about proving your experience in creative ways, using AI.

It’s Friday, so instead of over-explaining myself in bullet points, I used AI the only acceptable way today: creatively.

If 14 years of working as a creative in marketing weren’t enough, I should probably confess that my experience goes a bit further back.

I’ve been simplifying big ideas, shaping narratives, and stopping people from sabotaging themselves with bad messaging long before “content strategy” had a name.

This carousel is not a résumé. It’s a reminder that storytelling, clarity, and strategy have always been the real work.

Same job. Different centuries.

What's your relationship with AI? 🙃

This is the story of how one creative idea took 2 years to find its final form, its funding and its whole team.

My game is not launched yet, but very soon I'll come up with the good news 🥰

I'm a big movie fan.
And I've been waiting for ages for social media platforms to turn brand content into movie content. This is the start of it 🙃