Quitting My Dream Job

Here's to my second blog post ever, and I'm already a few days late! April was a slower month for buddy beans because most of my energy went toward something huge: I quit my full-time job. So I want to talk about that a little before I get into the business stuff.

The Riot chapter

For the past year, I had a contract job at Riot Games working on VALORANT. Specifically, I was on the Publishing side doing production for the community and social teams, making sure things got done on time and at a high quality. Working at Riot has been my dream since high school! I played so much League of Legends, and it was one of the main reasons I moved to Los Angeles in the first place.

I started school at USC in 2017 - Ever since then I've been working in the gaming and content creator space. It took me 8 years but I got to achieve something that younger me was very, very invested in making happen.

It was interesting to see the inner workings of a company at Riot's size - My day-to-day was with my immediate team but the entire company is massive, like a small town's worth of people spread across the globe. Somehow everyone uses Slack and things still get done, even with that many stakeholders, opinions, and ideas. My coworkers were incredibly capable, passionate, and dedicated to their work. Everyone on my team was so tapped into online culture, the state of the game, the state of the player base. It was cool to see how they processed all that information and shared it across the team.

Leaving

When I put in my notice, I remember checking my health monitor app to see that my heart rate was 120bpm as I could literally feel it beat out of my chest! But the bigger surprise was how supportive everyone was. You never know with big companies, sometimes you give notice and they let you go the next day. But that didn't happen. I spent the past month wrapping things up and handing things off as smoothly as I could.

My manager even plugged the buddy beans website in our Slack channel when she told the team I was leaving. I was too shy to do it myself, so that meant a lot.

I want to succeed at this - Mostly for myself, but also because so many people believed in me enough to cheer me on!

What's new with buddy beans

1. Posters are live - I launched three poster designs in April, working with the amazing illustrator Happyyu and graphic designer Melonturtle! I'm really excited to bring these to in-person markets since a lot of people who shop at markets are looking for art. I'm also very curious to see if more people prefer the with text or without text versions :)
2. Anime conventions - I've been trying to get into anime conventions, but the competition is intense. I tried to get a table at Anime Impulse a couple weeks ago and every single table sold out within five minutes. When I'd add one to my cart, someone else would have completed checkout for it already, so that was a bummer. It's especially hard as a newcomer when tables are jury-selected and my current product lineup is still pretty slim. But I really want to make it happen, fingers crossed!
3. Pajamas - I'm slowly developing a pajama line, which I'm really excited about! There's a whole learning curve and I'm hoping to launch them this year.
4. Collabs are progressing - As I mentioned last month, I have a couple of collaborations in the works. They're moving along well and more on those when the time comes.

Content, but make it organic

One of my big priorities moving forward is making more and better content, not just ads. Before, I relied heavily on ad-style content because I didn't have the time for anything else. The priority was always making stuff that could convert. But now that I have more bandwidth, I want to focus on building the brand organically. I want to stretch my creative and funny muscles. I actually have a ton of video ideas already, both series and one-offs.

I really want buddy beans to stand on its own legs. A lot of my current support comes from friends who are incredibly encouraging and make me feel great, and I am eternally thankful for it! But I'd love for people to find the brand and fall in love with it on their own, not just because they know me. I'd like to get to a point where everything feeds into each other: better content, more people discovering the brand, and a stronger community.

Taking a break (for once)

I'm going on vacation in a couple weeks with my boyfriend!! We're heading to Hawaii for a week, and I'm excited to just be in nature, explore the island, and disconnect for a bit. If you count school, I've been working nonstop since freshman year of college as I went straight from classes into an internship and never really stopped. So this will be my first time fully taking a break 🏝️

What's ahead

My main priorities this month: update and optimize the website, keep chipping away at collabs and the pajama line, and start building up a quality content catalog before I ramp up posting again.

Very excited for this new chapter & thank you for following along 🥳