Design Buddies

Hey Los Angeles Buddies! We're hosting a fun creator hangout this Friday, Apr 4, starting at 5:30 pm 🎉 RSVP (free): https://lu.ma/la-creator Come hang out with other creators in LA, make new friends, talk shop, collaborate on content, and have fun. We don't care about how many followers you have, you are welcome if you bring good vibes~ We'll have some snacks and drinks. You're welcome to bring your other creator friends! We can also go for dinner at a Korean restaurant nearby after! Design Buddies founder, Grace Ling 🐰 is here in LA for the month now until May 2!! #LA #LosAngeles #Creator #ContentCreator #CreatorMeetup

Networking hack: wear loud outfits so people come up to you!! I feel uncomfortable reaching out to people if I don't know anything about them, so I'll also go up to people with a cool outfit as it breaks the ice! 👀 What's your go-to conference outfit? would love to see photos This is what I wore during SXSW!! I post more fun outfits on my IG @ irungracepace :D hehe I post more fun travel and meme stuff there~ #SXSW #Outfits #Fashion #Networking #Creator

I’ll be in Los Angeles Apr 1 - May 2, would anyone like to hang out? I’m also co-hosting another creator house with Justin Strong and hosting events for creators here! Our first one is this Friday April 4 (Koreatown): https://lu.ma/la-creator We are considering moving to LA. Half time SF (love y’all) and half time LA. Would love to meet the community here and also Design Buddies community!! Does anyone also know any cool communities/group chats for creators and founders here? 👀 #LosAngeles #LA #Creator #Designer #Founder

I started 2024 as a sheltered child and ended the year in Antarctica. I’ve transformed the most in 2024, here are some highlights: - New fashion, new kawaii style, new confidence, and owning it  - Quit my dream UX design job - Spent 6 months traveling, across 21 countries and 5 continents. Mostly no clear plans, going with the vibes and having a great time  - Hosted 36 in-person events/parties across 7 different countries, 3 different states, and 3 different continents  - Hosted my first conference with Design Buddies!!! - Spoke at 14 in-person events - Moved out of my parents house from Cupertino to San Francisco - Surpassed my big tech UX design job income with my side hustle that has now became my main hustle  - Was able to work much less hours and make more money  - Started Bunny House in San Francisco and Bunny Villa in Bali with Justin  - Made a big decision for a merger with Design Buddies and UXGO, offering more design educational  - Grew my audience by about 2 million I’ve wrote this on my way home to SF from Antarctica, and realized I’ve never gotten around to publishing my 2024 wrapped until now. 2024 certainly set the stage for 2025. (2025 has been crazy busy, but in a very good way)

Fun day in my life in San Francisco one year after quitting my UX design job ✨ Featuring (+3 Justins): Justin Nguyen, Justin Wong, Justin Strong, Brian Pang, Katrine Chow 周嘉玲, Rohit Sarathy, AI User Group Currently building Design Buddies/UXGO community, yelling on the internet, making videos, and co-hosting How Creators Make Money podcast!! Still making nice designs and art but for my own ventures!! ---- 👀 Check us out~ Design Buddies + join button on website: https://lnkd.in/g27f9TX How Creators Make Money podcast: https://lnkd.in/g4dpZe9b 🫡 Do y'all wanna see more day in my life content here? 🤠 How does a typical day in your life look like? #Dayinmylife #Podcast #SanFrancisco #Founder #Creator

SXSW was lit. Here are some conference hacks! 🐰Wear something loud and fashionable. It will help people come up to you. Also, you can reach out to someone 🐰Have more interesting questions because “where do you work” is soooo boring. I like to ask “what are you excited about these days?” and dig deeper! 🐰Getting into those “closed doors” is really about who you know. Be kind and offer to help. Rizzing people up goes a long way! (The genuine rizz of course) 🐰Instead of scheduling too many sit-down 1:1 chats, offer to wander around the events and chat with a friend! Bc we all want to explore too. (learned this from Justin Nguyen!) 🐰Have a conference buddy! Hang out with a veteran who is super-connected and you’ll meet all their friends. You’ll never know what kind of side quests you’ll go on. 🐰Follow up immediately! I try to get their email or phone, depending on the vibes, and send a message right away. Then, schedule a message to send to schedule a time to meet up after the conference after things have calmed down. SXSW has been my favorite conference ever. I've gotten to speak and host events here with Design Buddies, Singapore Global Network (SGN), Austin Creator House, Panda Express, and Ginsa. I’ve met so many creator friends and have business partnerships in process and we’re discussing over 6 figures of brand deals. My typical day was running 7 miles in the morning at 8 min/mile pace along the river, and going to 7-10 events lol. (I do competitive running, grind don’t stop!) Shoutout to my buddies for helping my SXSW experience be so memorable, it’s been amazing party hopping and chatting with you all and attending your events + also vibing around in Austin: Justin Nguyen, Jerry Won, Uptin S, Delia Lazarescu, Carol Chen, Chris Do, Jean Kang, Linda Le🌻, Lorraine K. Lee, Megumi Calver, Andrew Yeung, Melissa Wong, AJ Eckstein 🧩, Justin Strong, Katie Xu, Janice Lee, Annie Carrasco, Bryce Ellis, Shaoshao Chen, Kasey Randall, Joelle Phua, and more!! We dive more into conference hacks and how you can get into rooms that you don’t on paper “belong” in on our latest episode of How Creators Make Money with me and Justin: https://lnkd.in/dvquiU9g https://lnkd.in/dYxG6ewD #SXSW #Conference #SXSW2025 #Creator #Founder

I interview creators at SXSW about how they make money and their personal finance tips! Creators featured: Swerve, Justin Strong, Isiah, Sennai Atsbeha (Disclaimer: We are not financial advisors) Resource mentioned: Manifest Financial (app) to help you manage your finances as a creator, check them out (link in bio)! #manifestfinancial #sxsw #ad

Cool kids post on LinkedIn. Join us for a fun AMA session with Dani Markovits (Creators + Community + Sports @ LinkedIn), hosted by Design Buddies! Thus Thursday, March 27, 9 am PT (UTC-7) America, Europe, and Africa time friendly!! We'll cover how you can create engaging posts while being yourself, future of content creation on LinkedIn, LinkedIn video, and more! 🎉 RSVP (free): https://lnkd.in/gZb9Kadp More resources!! 🐰 Join the fun on Discord: https://lnkd.in/g294uZQ ✉️ Design advice: https://lnkd.in/g5z4x-Sn #LinkedIn #LinkedInCreator #SocialMedia #Creator #CareerAdvice

With the recent news about ADPList on LinkedIn and Reddit, many people have been asking if Design Buddies will build an alternative I don't know. I don't think mentorship is something that can be productized or commoditized. In my experience, mentorship happens organically and can't be forced. Find someone who you vibe with and want to learn from! But sometimes when starting out, it's hard to know where to go. For finding mentors, I recommend BobaTalks by jeff nguyen, going to your local or virtual design events and meeting people organically, or searching people on LinkedIn. At Design Buddies/UXGO keep focusing on the goal - helping designers get experience and land the job. Stay tuned for an epic launch coming May 2025!! We're hosting another big event in San Francisco, all day Sunday May 4, right before Config! #Mentorship #Designer #EarlyCareer #Career #Mentor

I dreamed of being a game designer since I was a kid playing MapleStory, Animal Crossing, and Pokémon I spontaneously went it GDC this week! The Game Developer’s Conference was one of my first conferences I’ve ever been to and motivated me even more to work in the games industry 🫡 I wanted to be a level designer in school!! I designed and developed a virtual reality game called Cell-fie, where you can become a cell!! Then I became a VR robotic surgery game developer intern at Intuitive, somehow putting my bioengineering degree into use 🫡 After undergrad, I was a UX designer at Electronic Arts! I grew a lot as a designer here and made some lifelong friends. I quit my job almost a year ago now to go all-in on Design Buddies community building, content creation, traveling the world, and more! What if we made a Design Buddies bunny game? 👀 stay tuned for an epic drop coming to you May 2025 Also thank you fellow Design Buddies members for saying hi here!! I spontaneously got invited to join GDC on the last day and it was fun~ just came back from an intense week of SXSW haha but that is my random life #GDC #GDC2025 #Gaming #Designer #GameDevelopersConference