ABOUT

Converting legacy gem businesses to 2026 and beyond

I'm Mike Ching. I capture gemstones the way buyers actually judge them—and then build the digital infrastructure that lets dealers reach international buyers 24/7.

For the past few years, I've been working with Sri Lanka's gem trade—dealers in Ratnapura, Colombo, and Nivithigala who have world-class Ceylon sapphires, spinels, and chrysoberyls but are still trading on WhatsApp and Excel.

From photography to digital pipelines

I started as a macro photographer, shooting jewelry and gems for e-commerce. Two years in, I realized the real problem wasn't the camera—it was the workflow.

Dealers were shooting 50 MB phone videos under office LED, sending them one by one via WhatsApp, and losing sales because overseas buyers couldn't load the files or judge the stones properly. The capture was wrong. The delivery was wrong. The whole system needed rebuilding.

So I built one: turntable capture, video compression, 360° frame extraction, and a fast catalog that loads in under 3 seconds on mobile. No marketplace. No third-party platform taking margin. Just your stones, your site, your buyers.

Why Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is one of the world's major gem hubs—Ceylon sapphires, padparadscha, alexandrite, chrysoberyl cat's-eye, spinel. The stones are there. The expertise is there. But most dealers are working with 2015 tools in a 2026 market.

I work across the pipeline: field buyers in Nivithigala who need pocket pricing calculators, exporters in Colombo who need catalogs, cutters who want job tracking, and labs looking to digitize certificates. The common thread is converting analog workflows—notebooks, WhatsApp, Excel—into fast, reliable digital systems.

What I build

  • Turntable gem capture: Video, stills, and 360° views from one rotation. No post-production guesswork. Files ready to publish.
  • Digital catalogs: Fast-loading gem websites with video galleries, searchable inventory, and buyer inquiry flows. Your stones, your domain.
  • In-house tools: Pocket pricing guides, inventory sync, field buy calculators, rough-to-faceted yield models—scoped per client, not off-the-shelf SaaS.
  • Workflow integration: Tying capture, catalog, and backend tools together so one ingest updates video, stills, 360°, and listing data across the board.

Based across Sri Lanka, Prague, and Australia

I split time between source regions in Sri Lanka (where the stones are), Prague (where I'm building an export entity), and Australia (IT and design background from earlier work). Remote workflows, time zone-friendly comms, in-person when needed.

Not a social media agency

I don't do Instagram Reels. I don't run Facebook ads. I don't manage posting schedules or caption strategy. If you need brand awareness and engagement metrics, there are agencies for that.

I build infrastructure: the catalog, the capture workflow, the inventory sync, the pricing tools. The boring backend work that actually moves stones from your office to buyers' hands.

Small number of projects per year

I work with a handful of dealers and trade clients at a time. Each project is scoped individually—usually 12-month retainer, end-to-end build and support, coffee or video call first to see if we're a fit.

If you're ready to move beyond WhatsApp-only trading and want a proper digital presence, get in touch.