Grow a Better Business Community by Design | Grace Ling of Design Buddies

00:00 Thank you guys so much for listening to Honey and Hustle. We are a visual podcast that features conversations with small business owners, creative entrepreneurs, and those in the nonprofit community. We're so glad that we started sharing our podcast here on Anchor FM. And if you haven't heard about Anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. It's free. There's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. And it will distribute the podcast for you. So it can be heard on all the major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and so many more. It's everything you need to make a podcast all in one place. If you're listening to this right now, download the free Anchor app or go to Anchor FM to get started. Thank you to Blackology Coffee Company for sponsoring this video. Take 10% off your next order at Blackology Coffee Company by using the link at the description, www.blackologycoffeecompany.com backslash Angela. Hey guys, what's up? This is Angela coming to you again from my desk to introduce our next guest here on Honey and Hustle. Her name is Grace Ling, and she's joining me all the way from California. We hit it off pretty instantly. We even changed our backgrounds to the same virtual background. So you could say we became really fast friends. And I think that's gonna shine through in this episode. By far, I would probably say she has a story that I identify with the most. Obviously, like I'm gonna let her tell her story, but just being kind of young, going to grad school, and also still kind of figuring out how you want to apply your degree to what you're passionate about. I think that's something that really will resonate with a lot of people who are watching this and kind of are in that same kind of stage of life. So I really hope you guys enjoy Grace's episode and enjoy her story. And a little bit about what she's doing. I think there's some great opportunities if you're in design to be a part of her Discord community, Design Buddies, and just kind of see how you can learn and glean and grow as a creator as well. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode. And fun fact, so this is our fifth episode of the season and also our 25th episode of the year. We're ending the year at 25 episodes, and I think that's really cool how numbers kind of come together like that. So yeah, I don't know, maybe that was subliminally why I was so happy to talk to Grace in this episode. But yeah, fifth episode, 25th episode on the year, so many more great episodes to come. But for now, check out Grace of Design Buddies.

02:31 What's up guys, my name is Angela and on this very special out of space episode of Pony & Hustle, I'm here with Grace Lee. She wears a lot of really cool hats. She is a computer science and engineering student in San Jose, California. So she's all the way on the west coast right now hanging out with me. And she also is a UXQR design intern. She started her own product design business. And she hosts a really awesome group on Discord for design community called Design Buddies. So thank you so much Grace for joining me from all the way on the west coast.

03:03 Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. I'm super excited.

03:08 So you are a first in a lot of sense for the show because you're currently a student right now and you've built this really awesome community that's like 9,000 plus strong. So can you like tell me how you balance all these hats that you wear as a student and how you have really like

03:08 So.

03:29 I guess like falling into this like entrepreneurial spirit that you have right now.

03:32 Yeah, of course. For all my life, I've always just kind of lived with a sense of if I don't try it out now, I might regret later once I graduate and life settles down. So I've been through like kind of four different career path changes, which led me to design. Before, I wanted to be an anime artist, and then I was a bioengineering pre-med student, and then I was computer science, game development, and now I'm doing UI UX design. And how I started Design Buddies is because I felt like an underdog because I don't study design in school. So I found kind of a hard, I had a lot of trouble kind of going into design because I didn't have any mentors to support, provide professors as well as other designers, like other design communities. I felt like I just didn't fit in. So I just created Design Buddies, and it kind of just took off from there because I focused on the theme of being inclusive and diverse and just like making it, making anybody, regardless of whether they have a design background or not, feel like they can participate, ask questions without feeling judged. And how I can balance all of it is I delegate a lot. I have a team of admins that help me out. I manage a team of 10 admins who do have different roles, and also another team of 30 moderators, and also another team of seven content creators. So I have a lot of help and a lot of delegation, and I trust them enough to lead different initiatives in Design Buddies. Sometimes they're the one hosting events, they're the ones writing the blog articles and stuff. And another way how I can stay on top of everything is I over promise, I mean, I'm under promise and over deliver. So for example, somebody wants me to do something with a certain deadline, but they don't say a certain deadline. So I say like twice a time it requires me to do things. So that helps me be able to stay on top of everything so I can like under promise and over deliver. And I just keep everything on my calendar and it's not on my calendar, I can't do it. So I won't remember it at all. So these are just like some tips that I kind of found that worked out for me and like balancing everything out.

05:40 Yeah, yeah. I like what you said about the calendar because I am the same way. Like my Google calendar like runs my life. If I don't have anything else, like I need that to start my day. So one thing I really like that I feel like it's kind of the underlying theme in what allows you to do what you do so effectively is the communication style, right? Not only have you built this community, but you've also built like peers within your leadership that have different distinct roles that add to how this like functions as a well-oiled machine, right? And that's kind of how it is in any kind of creative business, right? When you're working with other people to meet deadlines, whether it's a communicated or not. And also just like their vision for a project, whether that's a product or that's UXY or just anything of that nature. So you know

05:50 I'm

05:50

06:27 For people who are looking to expand and grow, to have a community that they can maintain at scale. One of the things that helps you recruit the right people and just foster a sense of trust and the possibility that they can really take ownership in Design Buddies or whatever project you want to be doing.

06:46 Yeah, so definitely the team is very, very important. The mistake I've made earlier, because before I created Design Buddies, I wasn't too involved in other leadership positions. So this is kind of like my first large leadership position that I just like founded. It kind of took off. And and my mistake at first was to take on everybody who wanted to help out, like because I created I named Design Buddies. It's like buddies. So everyone's kind of nice. But my mistake is taking on everybody. So that would lead to admins who were like really committed at first, but then they got busy, didn't communicate with us and kind of drop off from there as well. So I actually took on people who have been active and have no history of drama or like nothing negative. And I just like ask, like now the admins are only are invite only at the most active people. And usually admins have been moderators before. So it's kind of like different tiers. So the the top 30 most active are moderators. And if they're contributing well and if there's a spot on the admin team for them to help out, then I invite them on. And I also set really clear expectations in the beginning, like different roles and everything. And I have all the stuff written out. So we organize everything on Notion so people know what to do, as well as we also have weekly stand up meetings. And I'm really strict in the sense that if people don't show up for two meetings in a row without notice, then they will be removed from the team as well. So like people also like do it because there's a lot of people who want to be admins, because before I actually made people apply. And when we were at 2000 members, about 70 people applied and we interviewed 11 and took on four. So it's really, really competitive. So I say this to the admins, like this is how the process worked. So now they know that it's like a really in demand. So they're in a really good spot that they're able to like make it on as well. And I was not expecting any of this just a few months ago. I've been learning so much along the way, learned to say no, because as a student, I see like, oh, people want to help out. Let's get them involved in everything. But I also want to have the balance of, oh, this is overall aligned with the roadmap. This is over a line with the goal of the overall like design by this organization and like how how we're taking on another admin and help out overall and because I'm also like spending time to train them to do things as well, like training them to do events, are using our design system and everything as well. So it's like an investment for me, but also having them be a leader themselves on the team as well.

09:23 Yeah, yeah, and that's really, really important to even think about it. Like it's an investment to grow and to scale, but you want that investment to be worth something. You want that person to stay around for a long time, and you also want to give them a sense of ownership in the work that they do within your organization, which I think is really awesome and really important.

09:44 So you mentioned something that's really cool, that I think some people might really like in terms of timekeeping and time management, and that's Notion. So how did you come across Notion, and how helpful has that been for you in addition to things like the Google Calendar and stuff like that?

09:59 Yeah, so Notion was actually used in my first ever product design class. The instructor hosted all the notes on Notion. So I found out about Notion about this time last year. And so we, for our organization, we use Discord. We have different channels on Discord for different topics. Like we have like an admin chat, a content creators chat, and a focus group, which are our moderators chat. And we have like over 50 channels for the public as well. But these are like our operational chats. And then, so we have Discord for communication. And then, and then like we also use Notion for all of our notes. So we keep everything from like events, schedule, roadmap, things to do, roles, finances, sponsorships, and marketing, and just like everything. And then we also use Google Drive for external things. So we want to send out, we do a lot of surveys just to get data and get feedback from the users or the people in the community. So we have Google Forms, and we also have like different forms you can fill out for partnerships or public facing things. Like for example, when we're hosting events and panels, we have panel questions and we keep them on the same Google Drive. So we kind of use both at like hand in hand. Google Drive is just the one that's more public facing. So because most people are more familiar with Google Drive, so that's why we share them with our guests. And then our internal facing stuff is using Notion. And then our internal facing stuff is using Notion.

11:25 Okay, awesome. So it's kind of like a natural progression from things that you had already had familiarity with and you were able to kind of use that for the same project. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. I feel like I just learned about Discord like a couple months ago. I just learned about Notion like a couple months ago. So this is kind of like new for me, but I've been like using them with other organizations before. Nice. Yeah, yeah. So being a student, like you're kind of thinking past like your education, right? You're thinking past your degree. And I felt like that's something that wasn't really promoted to me while I was in school. It was like, yeah, like, you know, you're going to school to get this next degree. You're going to school to have X, Y, Z job, but it's not necessarily always putting you in a position to have said job. Whether that's an internship, like you may just be doing that for college credit, that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have a job with that organization, right? Because it's about the experience. It's about learning. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? But there's often something to be said that you're thinking beyond like what is given to you in your training realm past, like some example, like this is part of that. And I think a lot of times students don't think about that. They like get out and they're like, okay, well, I can't really find what I'm looking for. So now I'm going to think about creating my own company versus like having that mindset from the start. And I'm obviously like people can't look back and have like, oh, I regret not doing this because they sometimes just really don't know. Like I didn't know that I wanted to have my own business until after I graduated. So what advice would you have for other college students, maybe like looking at this and thinking about like, okay, once I graduate, like what is my next step, right? Because I really feel like we're in a time where.

11:45 Nice.

12:44

13:05 Everything goes, like there is no playbook. The playbook has been thrown out the window, you know what I mean? So you really are in the best position you'll ever be in to create the life that you want. So what is your advice to people who may be thinking about doing that right now or what's the best way to do that?

13:20 Yeah, so when I was in school, well, I'm actually in grad school, but when I was in undergrad, I graduated my undergrad last year, but when I was in undergrad, I studied bioengineering and I used to believe that my field of study dictates my career. I used to feel like I chose that, so I have to stay with that and professors made me believe that. And after just like a few, I feel like school, like while I'm in school, my biggest tip is to try out different majors, try out while you can, while like balancing finances and graduation strategy and time, like that's really important, but you can also try out different fields by joining clubs and organizations and partaking in research or different projects in school. So just experiment with everything, anything and everything, because you don't have a family to feed yet, so like school really just like go wild, or not go wild, but just like go wild in a sense of trying out different things and taking different classes, going to clubs and meeting different people, talking to professors, talking about what they do in the career path to find out like what you really want to do. And for me, I did bio, I graduated from bioengineering because I was in scholarship, so if I continued to switch another major, I would have to pay a lot of money, so that's why I graduated in that. And I realized like school, like for me, how I switched out of bioengineering was there's this virtual reality lab that opened up at my school, and I just like watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials, and I hung out with some friends who are also kind of in the same boat, teaching ourselves VR and just like exploring other fields outside of design, I'm not not design, outside of engineering, so that's how I kind of bridged, I kind of like moved, made my way into design away from bioengineering and pre-med as well, so take advantage of any resources, like these are oftentimes like as a student, you have access to like cool labs, like VR labs, biomedical engineering labs, and like mechanical engineering labs, and just take advantage of it, explore as much as you can, and it's a great way to find out what you don't like to do, because that's really really important as well, and how you can know that is to do internships to get actual experience, so internships are a great way to do it, and it helped me figure out that bioengineering wasn't the right path for me, software engineering was not the right path for me, so I went to UI UX design, and I'm on my second design internship, and I finally realized like that's actually the path I want to take, so as a student, explore as much as you can, figure out what you don't like, because that's also really important, and never a waste of time, and internships to get experience, and just like keep meeting people, and when you're a student, like use that as your advantage as well, because once you like flex your student card, people would want to help you more, so really emphasize how you're a student, reach out to people on LinkedIn, and do informational interviews, and that's what I did, it gave me like a lot of opportunities as well, so like kind of show people that you're a student, so there'll also be like a lot of professionals, and like a lot of like executives as well, will be really interested in talking with you.

16:23 Yeah, I agree with that. That's definitely one thing I wish I had have done as an undergraduate, even as a graduate student as well, just like taking advantage of a lot of the student discounts and resources that are out there. I mean, from all different types of platforms, Adobe, Vimeo, like all these things, they have a lot of great student discounts. So definitely take advantage of that. Hard to agree, for sure. And then too, like I was just, like I kind of did it almost back to back, really my undergrad and my graduate degree. There wasn't a whole lot of time for me to really think.

16:34

16:53 criticizing me about what I wanted out of my life. I just kind of like made the decision to go to grad school because I knew I needed to get it done or that's what I felt, right? Because there's all these pressure to figure out life when you're young, but I kind of do with you like, slow down, take your time. Figure out what you like and don't like. Like, you're never gonna regret that 20 years down the road because you're gonna be a lot happier and better off before it has to be like, invest in the time now when it's relatively like no cost or no cost for you to figure that stuff out. But, I would do it if that wasn't a big challenge for me, like, I'm always the same person, like,I can't leave no hatred out wherein it affects me. Like it's true you guys. But another thing I like about graduate schools is like you kind of get to experience the things that wereoluble but did have become and the things that needed updating than a few things that didn't. Let's see, you get adopted or faster. It's like a journey. All the projects we've been on in the career

17:22 Yeah, I also went to grad school right after undergrad because I didn't know what I wanted to do. And going with two parents with PhD since I was four, grad school, they're like, Grace can get PhD as well. So it was never like an option for me to stop at undergrad. I felt, but for any students looking to do grad school, I highly like sometimes it's like you have to weigh the pros and cons. So the pro going to grad school right after undergrad is like the momentum keeps going and you don't get settled in, you get used to getting a job, used to getting paid and all these like nice perks and stuff. But I guess the good side of going to grad school later is you have more time to explore to really define like if that is the field you want to go into. So there's no like good or bad way of like no right or wrong answer, just whatever you want the most. But yeah, I kind of, for me personally, I wish I kind of took some time after undergrad to figure out what I exactly want to do because I'm studying computer science and engineering, but going into design.

18:25 I gotcha, yeah. Yeah, I agree. Like once you start making money, it's like, oh, I don't really want to go back. But on the flip side, I've seen a lot of people who have gone that route and maybe they found a job that really did well and just realized, hey, I need like a master's or another degree to help me do this job better and progress within the staff. And their job is able to pay for that degree for them. But there's always like frozen costs, too. So like to people who are maybe like beyond college age, seemingly like there's never too late to start like this journey of life. And I was like getting the skills and resources necessary to do what I wanted to do and do what I love.

18:26 Yeah.

18:29 Oh.

18:30 you

18:40

18:45 Bye.

19:00 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah.

19:04 um

19:07 I think that's all the questions I have, but what...

19:11 So what are your final thoughts on just like growing a community like Design Buddies, especially during a pandemic when you work through these, you're connecting people, connecting with people face to face. What has your experience been in like growing this and what are your plans for it? Like what maybe you can go back to being in person?

19:31 Yeah, so I used to actually do a lot of in-person meetups. So I guess a little background, when I graduated from undergrad, like around since I studied engineering in school, I've always had side halls all my life, and two of them happened to be Canny Leap Designs and Design Buddies. Before, I also had like a running and lifestyle blog and a manga I wrote, like a book I wrote. Just like I always had something else besides school because I found school like not very entertaining. So yeah, and my side hustles all my life, since I was like, I feel like since I was in kindergarten, I've always just been like working on something else other than school. Whether it's like leading a game and leading a guild in the game or like having an online store or something like that. So like my two main side hustles right now are Canny Leap Designs and Design Buddies, and how Canny Leap Designs started was I've always like wanted to table at anime conventions. I thought it was super cool to like, I used to draw, I still do, I draw a lot and it'll be cool to like make merch like stickers and navel pins. I actually have some over here I can show you.

20:39 So yeah, I have like a bunny family, some dongo cats.

20:47 and some Lichy Cat. So I've just like wanted to just like start my own business just to learn more about the business side of things because I've always just been interested in that side and also combining my art and making some profit and showing my parents that like hey art can pay because they were so against me going to art and design so I was just like you know I'm going to show you. So I did combining like proving my parents that art can pay and also just curiosity of business and just like love just like passion for art. I made cannon designs at this around this time last year and I tabled at a lot of anime conventions and for me the hardest part was just like actually starting like I was thinking about it for a few years but then I always thought I had to like focus on school and then one of my friends happened to host an anime convention and invited me to table there so I tabled there I was just like selling some stickers and I didn't really I did really well so I was like this is fun so I started looking into how to make charms pins and even more like vinyl like higher quality stickers and it was just like fun being able to like meet people in real life and sell art and just like be part of like the artist alley community and I also host a lot of meetups with local artists and just like every week we just like get together at a cafe or boba shop to draw and everything and then and then the pandemic hit and I was like wow I'm what am I gonna do with my life like all I have is school I can't meet up with people I can't table at conventions so I opened my online store and yeah I kind of just like also kind of put art aside a bit and focused on design because so for me a design was kind of a new career path for me because I was before I was thinking of doing just like I'll just be a software engineer and do some art and then I later found yeah UX design at this time last year as well so this is all like happening at this time and decided oh pivot to design so I was also like trying to meet more designers as well as artists as well and yeah the pandemic hit I would I used to go to so many meetups and just like host my own meetups as well in real life to connect with people and the pandemic hit and I was just like for a while I was like wow I'm so sad it's so so sad like I can't I can't do things I'm like stuck here but then I realized that I'm actually so glad it happened and I don't think I would go back to hosting real life meetups unless it was like a big major conference because I could connect with people all over the world I don't have to spend time to commute I can save money I can save time it's just so much better I can get the same out of just connecting with people like what I'm doing right now from all over the world as well and then yeah so the pandemic hit in March and for March I started taking my meetups to Zoom but then it just like felt kind of weird I kind of liked it it was like fun and I yeah it was like kind of weird at first I had this like 24-hour Zoom room open with some of like a group chat of 200 people and there would be like 10 at least 10 people all hours of the day just like working and chilling and socializing so there was that because like we were all used to like meeting each other in real life so there was that and then as I was going to design I was also trying to get in I was also applying to internship the first time and I was getting ghosted everywhere because I didn't have any connections so I also tried joining other design communities just to like learn more about design get feedback on my work and just like find out why I wasn't getting anywhere um but then other design communities they felt really gated and just like I was just like called out for not studying design being a noob and I didn't feel welcome in there I also had professors telling me that to stay in my lane how I shouldn't pursue design how I should pursue engineering um so I had professors telling me that I'm wrong and also other designers telling me that I'm wrong I should stay in my lane um so and I also like want to learn more about design so I was like I feel like when I've always been like kind of rebellious and people tell me I can't do something I just go ahead and do it so I can prove them wrong so I create design buddies and I branded it as buddies and bunnies um so they're just like really inclusive and just like a non-judgmental safe space for people um so I started that and then and it just kind of just like took off from there and took on more admins along the way and just like made people feel welcome also like really well moderated people cause problems and we ban them right away um yeah I'm just like kind of finding like leadership skills of delegation and being able to moderate well and hiring we're not hiring but just like like letting people um be good moderators and like making sure like things are not exploding and people are being civil and constructive is really important so to maintain like the overall experience and reputation and quality of the community so that's what we focused on and just kept going from there adding events doing partnerships um later launching a merch line and now we're at like almost at 10,000 so it's been really exciting overall just seeing it grow and um just it all started for me just like being told I shouldn't do design.

25:59 Hey, sometimes that's like the best motivation, right? Being seen like, you have no place here. Like, why not? It's something I like. This is something I want to pursue. Like, why can I not make my own lane? You know? So I think that's awesome that you started doing that. As a college student, and just as a person who's like, if I don't do this now, how will other people who may be in the same boat find a place with it either? You know? So why can't I do that great for people, other people like me, I hope you don't want. I really like that. I really appreciate you just sharing that too. Thank you so much for coming out. Yeah, of course. I'm sure you have a lot of gems for people who are just like, college age, and who are probably thinking like these same things right now. Like, how can I find, you know, help or advice to like, move forward and either create my own lane or find a game field that they're interested in. And yeah, just looking for like a place to start. I thought it was really awesome. So thank you so much for sharing with me. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you again for coming out. I appreciate you. Thank you guys for watching this episode of Funny Moments.

26:11 Bye.

26:11 Bye-bye.

26:27 Sorry.

26:41 You know.

27:01 Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. This is fun.