This seems like a good logical way of approaching it. In my case I would be the tech lead. There are 3 other people involved. One is bringing the talent for creating content. One is going to manage the team and also UX and design. One is coming in as an adviser and seed investor.
I like it. Question, did you consider using composite keys of shard_id and id to make up a single primary key? If so what were the pros/cons you found with that approach?