Where We’ve Been

I took a leap of faith when I quit my job to grow CatMage Dice into a fulltime business. I wasn’t sure how I’d land, but I needed to prove to myself that even if I failed, I still had the courage to try. I had been braced for the possibility of failure, but hadn’t anticipated the possibility of overwhelming success.

I’ve spent the past 1.5 years humbled and eternally grateful for your outpouring of love and support as I continued to push myself and grow. I set out to discover whether or not I trusted myself enough to succeed at being a fulltime creator: fully committing to seeing what I could achieve led me down a journey of self-discovery that has irreversibly changed how I view myself as an individual and as an artist. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Where We Are

Now I’ve arrived at a fork in the road and have another decision to make. CatMage Dice has grown beyond my expectations: the demand for my work far exceeds what I can keep pace with, I’ve reached the max number of hours I want to allocate from my day to productivity, and the pressure to continue monetizing my creative energy is chipping away at the joy of creating in the first place. The next step would be to scale up and hire more staff to increase productivity, but to do so would ignore the core reason I set out on this journey.

There is a thin but important line between doing what you love, and hanging your continued financial security on doing what you love. As an artist (with ADHD,) my creative energy is constantly ebbing and flowing in new directions, and I need to give myself the freedom to follow where it goes. I’ve already accomplished what I set out to accomplish with CatMage Dice: I won’t be any more fulfilled by continuing to grow a business centered exclusively around making dice. I’m an artist, not just a dicemaker; I have so many other creative projects that I want the chance to pursue in my lifetime.

Where We’re Going

So, it’s on that bittersweet note that I’m preparing to (slowly) close this chapter on CatMage Dice. I’m returning to my previous fulltime job, and have already closed my commission signups so I can shift CatMage Dice back to a side-business. I still want to honor anyone who’s been patiently waiting in the queue to work with me, and will be reaching out separately to discuss timing expectations. Going forward I will not prioritize restocking the shop regularly: instead, whenever I have enough extra dice made, I will batch them into larger –if more infrequent– shop updates. I will continue to post dice on my social media accounts, but I no longer feel the need to maintain a professional brand identity, and so my updates going forward will likely feel a little more personal and less marketing-minded.

Meanwhile, I’ve already begun working on my next creative project! I’m not ready to start sharing publicly yet, and additionally I’m planning to centralize my online presence and minimize how much I rely on social media to share my work. I’ll announce how and where you can follow my future creative ventures once I’ve sorted out what works best for me (I’m currently eyeing Patreon with its new ability to offer a free membership tier.)

I once again want to thank every single person who has followed my journey and helped me reach this point. I owe the happy ending of this chapter to you all– thank you!! ❤️