One Month In

What it actually feels like

I was a little worried that quitting my job would mean having way too much free time and not enough to fill it with. That is not what happened! There is so much buddy beans work to be done, and I am doing it.

The biggest difference has been mental - When I was working full-time, I'd make a lot of excuses or just run out of energy by the end of the day. I couldn't get to everything I needed because my brain was constantly hopping between too many different things. Now that all of that bandwidth is freed up, I've been able to make so much more progress. Most of May was spent catching up on stuff I'd been putting off for a really long time - A lot of admin work, prep for upcoming projects, & backend stuff that's not exciting but needed to happen.

Slow but steady. And steady is good :)

The numbers

A few milestones from this month that I'm really happy about:

• 750 total orders on my Shopify store!
• 1,000 followers on Instagram!
• Polished my website and newsletter signup flow!

The Instagram one felt especially nice because I think it was driven by a video I made that I'm actually proud of. I put real effort into the scripting, filming, and editing and the reception was really warm. It performed well and brought in a lot of new followers. It's obvious in theory but more investment into the content = better performance. Which brings me to...

The content struggle

I procrastinate on filming more than almost anything else. It's the thing I keep pushing to the bottom of my to-do list. A lot of May ended up being admin-heavy and content took a back seat. So for June, that's the area I really want to improve.

I finally set up a little filming corner next to my computer, which should help a lot. Shoutout to Henry for helping me put up shelves and hang up my posters - It looks really cute and cozy, and I think it'll show up well in my future videos. Having a dedicated space to just pop over and film makes the whole process feel less like a production and more like part of my day.

Other things happening

• I launched my buddy beans emote Discord server and I'm slowly adding more to it! It's small right now but feels nice to have a space for a community to hang out.
• This one is more personal, but I've been trying to rebuild my habit of drawing and being more creative on a regular basis. It's a very weak muscle for me right now and I've learned over the years that being consistently creative is something I have to actively work at.
• Henry and I went to Hawaii for six days and it was magical. We saw an erupting volcano, ate an unreasonable amount of poke and tropical fruit, and I came back feeling genuinely refreshed and full of inspiration.

What's coming in June

This is where it gets exciting!! Two big things are happening at the end of this month:

My first collaboration is launching - I can't reveal too many details yet, but it's with another artist whose work I'm a huge fan of. I'm doing the product shoot for it in about a week and I'm so excited to finally share a bigger project that I've been working on for a while.

My first convention - buddy beans is going to be at Fan Expo Anaheim from June 26 - 28! I've been working on my booth design because up until now, my market setup has just been stuff laid out on a table. I'm elevating it to make it look like a cute little storefront which has been a fun creative project on its own.

I can't believe the year is already halfway over, it's moving so fast!!! See you next month >:D