GoodShort’s Hao Chen on Shaping the Future of Vertical Dramas

What began as experimental short-form content for social media in China is rapidly transforming into a multi-billion-dollar global entertainment industry. Vertical dramas, defined by their bite-sized, high-intensity episodes consumed predominantly on mobile devices, are no longer a niche trend but a burgeoning powerhouse watched by millions globally on their smartphones.

These bite-sized dramas (usually a few minutes long) are dramatic in nature, leaving you on a cliffhanger, anticipating the next episode (the titles say it all, one is called “Goodbye To The Wedding That Wasn’t Mine” while another is called “My New Daddy Is A Five Star General”). But it also captures the essence of 9:16 storytelling and the power of vertical TV series in the mobile format.

As part of the forefront of this revolution is Hao Chen, Executive Producer and Head of Studio at GoodShort, a popular mobile streaming platform dedicated to high-quality vertical short dramas and movies. Chen’s decade-long career trajectory has perfectly aligned with the format’s explosive emergence, positioning him among the industry leaders helping define the creative and production models behind vertical drama’s global expansion.

GoodShort specializes in serialized entertainment designed around mobile viewing habits. The streaming platform and popular app features serialized TV stories—often adapted from novels—spanning genres like modern romance, drama, and thrillers, with episodes typically lasting just a few minutes.

Industry projections underscore this seismic shift: vertical dramas are expected to grow from a niche market into a global industry valued between $20–$30 billion within the next decade. Major entertainment players are taking notice, with 2026 anticipated to see increased investments, significant advancements in AI-powered production, and crucially, the integration of these productions into formal union contracts. The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has already secured its first-ever contract for vertical dramas, a landmark moment signaling their maturation, professionalization, and a commitment to higher production values and union labor. Global revenues are projected to surpass $14 billion by the end of 2026, soaring past $20 billion by 2030.

This meteoric rise didn’t happen overnight. The roots of vertical drama, or “microdramas,” lie primarily in China, where the industry witnessed staggering growth from approximately $500 million in 2021 to over $7 billion by 2024, remarkably surpassing the country’s domestic box office. This unprecedented success served as a compelling precursor, demonstrating the immense appetite for mobile-native narrative content and laying the groundwork for its global expansion.

A Decade Forged for Mobile Storytelling

Hao Chen’s journey to GoodShort, where he started in 2023, is a testament to foresight and adaptability, a career path that meticulously prepared him for the unique demands of vertical drama. “Over the past decade, my career has been a progression toward understanding both storytelling and audience behavior at a structural level,” said Chen. He began with hands-on production and post-production work, a foundational period that instilled in him a deep technical understanding of how stories are constructed – from script breakdown to the nuanced rhythm of an edit. “Being involved in post-production especially sharpened my sensitivity to pacing, emotional beats, and how structure determines audience experience.”

This traditional filmmaking grounding evolved with the digital age. Chen transitioned into influencer marketing and performance-driven digital content, a critical phase that exposed him to the mechanics of online engagement. “That period was critical. It taught me how audiences behave in the TikTok age — how attention works, how vertical format changes framing, and how distribution and advertisement logic shapes creative decisions,” he explains. He learned to think not just as a storyteller, but as someone who could analyze engagement data and understand mobile consumption patterns.

Upon observing the microdrama industry’s explosive growth in China, Chen recognized a natural convergence of his diverse experiences. “It felt like a natural convergence of everything I had been working toward,” he said, highlighting his unique blend of production discipline, post-production sensibility, and a performance-driven mindset. Joining GoodShort in 2023 was the culmination of this journey, offering him not just the opportunity to produce vertical drama series, but to actively build the English-language vertical ecosystem from the ground up – starting with a small team in Los Angeles and scaling into a global operation.

Building GoodShort’s Global Footprint

Chen has had a strong impact on GoodShort. He was hired for his ability to bridge the gap between traditional storytelling craft and performance-driven digital thinking – a crucial skill set for an industry that demands narrative content built for mobile consumption, rather than simply shortened television. “The company needed someone who could bridge those worlds,” he emphasizes, underscoring his role in establishing foundational structures for growth.

Under his leadership, GoodShort has transformed from a nascent operation with just four people in a single Los Angeles office in 2023 to a global force of nearly 100 team members across Beijing, Los Angeles, and New York, overseeing more than 100 productions annually. Chen has been central to defining the storytelling framework for GoodShort’s English-language slate, ensuring emotional arcs, pacing, and audience engagement principles are meticulously aligned with mobile-native viewing behavior. This strategic alignment has been instrumental in delivering series that have collectively garnered hundreds of millions of views and propelled the platform’s rise in global rankings.

His purview extends beyond creative direction to robust operational oversight, including cross-territory collaboration across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Turkey, and Ukraine. This ensures consistency in quality and brand identity while allowing for localized creative nuance. The results speak for themselves: in 2025, GoodShort generated approximately $220 million in revenue and impressively climbed from #4 to #3 globally among vertical drama platforms. Chen is lauded for his ability to build repeatable creative and production frameworks, seamlessly blending performance-driven thinking from short-form digital content with the narrative discipline of traditional filmmaking, overseeing both live-action and cutting-edge AIGC-driven productions.

The Evolving Narrative: What’s Next for Vertical Dramas?

Looking ahead, Chen offers a nuanced perspective on the evolution of vertical dramas. He doesn’t foresee a simplistic shift towards “longer” or “shorter” formats, but rather an increase in flexibility and refinement. “Right now, most vertical dramas sit in a very specific sweet spot: 60–80 episodes, roughly 50 seconds to 2 minutes each, with cumulative runtime comparable to a feature film,” he explains. This structure, he notes, perfectly aligns with mobile attention patterns and existing monetization models.

In the near term, Chen anticipates two parallel evolutions. One direction points towards slightly longer episodes, perhaps 2–3 minutes, a natural progression as audiences become more comfortable with serialized vertical storytelling. The other path could see tighter, more concentrated narratives – premium short arcs with fewer episodes but significantly higher production values. “The future isn’t about abandoning the current structure — it’s about refinement,” Chen said.

He predicts experimentation in pacing, arc length, and release models. However, the core principle will remain steadfast: “Emotionally efficient storytelling designed for mobile-first viewing. In other words, vertical dramas will evolve — but they’ll still respect the logic of the screen they’re built for.”

Follow Hao Chen on LinkedIn.