Featured Q&A Interview with RJ Ruggles, Entrepreneur and Founder of PlayTyme & BigKid Merch
We are beyond excited to launch our FIFTH article for Polyworld Magazine, and our FIFTH celebrating our LGBT+ Community Members for #Pride Month 2021! 🏳️🌈💜💚💛💙
RJ’s Bio!
RJ is the founder of PlayTyme, a community-based lifestyle company, and BigKid Merch, a company that builds brands for YouTubers, streamers, influencers, and creators. RJ is based in San Francisco, CA, and is a passionate advocate for the #BuildinPublic movement and primary colors. RJ’s badges include Boardgamer, Shopify Stan, Virtual Reality, Home Barista, and Cat Daddy! 🎲🛍🎮☕️🐈
Q: What was your childhood dream job?
A: From the age of 8, I had the exact same answer to this question every time a teacher or authority figured asked. I wanted to be an architect! I’ve always loved art, and architecture felt like the ultimate form of artistry: designing entire structures that actual people could inhabit. It seemed so exciting! 1 year of architecture school later, and I realized it was not the career for me. But I have zero regrets. I loved every moment of living out my childhood dream.
Q: We see you’ve got the boardgamer badge, what’s your favourite one and why? :-)
A: You can’t do this to me; there are so many to choose from! I suppose if I had to choose, it’d be a tie between Gloomhaven and Charterstone. I greatly enjoy games where each campaign can affect future ones. It keeps the game fresh, and you never know what’s coming next!
A: You can’t do this to me; there are so many to choose from! I suppose if I had to choose, it’d be a tie between Gloomhaven and Charterstone. I greatly enjoy games where each campaign can affect future ones. It keeps the game fresh, and you never know what’s coming next!
Q: What’s the one thing people don’t know about you professionally that you think they should?
A: One of my biggest passions is virtual and augmented reality. I’ve spent many hours working directly in VR with Virtual Desktop, as it allows me to tune out all outside distractions and become completely immersed in what’s in front of me. I’ve written many email marketing campaigns and designed several products in virtual reality. In fact, I’m writing these responses in VR right now! I’m hoping to find a technical co-founder for my other company sometime this year. That way, I can truly begin to explore my desires to blend e-commerce, streaming, virtual reality, and augmented reality into an entirely new experience.
A: One of my biggest passions is virtual and augmented reality. I’ve spent many hours working directly in VR with Virtual Desktop, as it allows me to tune out all outside distractions and become completely immersed in what’s in front of me. I’ve written many email marketing campaigns and designed several products in virtual reality. In fact, I’m writing these responses in VR right now! I’m hoping to find a technical co-founder for my other company sometime this year. That way, I can truly begin to explore my desires to blend e-commerce, streaming, virtual reality, and augmented reality into an entirely new experience.
Q: What project are you working on right now that you’re most excited about?
A: My company PlayTyme is about to launch a Discord server (community.playtyme.co) to provide a new home for fetish and kink communities like ABDLs, Pup Players, and various other kink lifestyles. Over the past few years, social media platforms have sent these communities into a tailspin due to creating barriers for adult content creators or banning adult content entirely. We see it happening left and right, with situations like the NSFW Tumblr purge or OnlyFan’s crackdown on “acceptable” content (after building a multi-million dollar company off the back of sex workers). I aim to finally create a well-moderated, age-gated, and inclusive community where members can express themselves freely, without fear of losing ownership over their content or losing connections with the friends they’ve made.
A: My company PlayTyme is about to launch a Discord server (community.playtyme.co) to provide a new home for fetish and kink communities like ABDLs, Pup Players, and various other kink lifestyles. Over the past few years, social media platforms have sent these communities into a tailspin due to creating barriers for adult content creators or banning adult content entirely. We see it happening left and right, with situations like the NSFW Tumblr purge or OnlyFan’s crackdown on “acceptable” content (after building a multi-million dollar company off the back of sex workers). I aim to finally create a well-moderated, age-gated, and inclusive community where members can express themselves freely, without fear of losing ownership over their content or losing connections with the friends they’ve made.
Q: What path led you to becoming an Entrepreneur?
A: Honestly, I think it was inevitable that I would end up as an Entrepreneur due to my extreme desire to create. I was constantly building things from a young age, whether it be creating buildings with Lego and K’Nex or designing entire empires with a matching backstory for my Civilization 3 mods (yeah, I was a THAT kid). As I grew older, that desire to create became the main driving force behind my career path. Once I launched PlayTyme last year and saw my first glimpse into true success, I knew it was time for me to jump headfirst into building something that reflected my vision and dreams for the future.
A: Honestly, I think it was inevitable that I would end up as an Entrepreneur due to my extreme desire to create. I was constantly building things from a young age, whether it be creating buildings with Lego and K’Nex or designing entire empires with a matching backstory for my Civilization 3 mods (yeah, I was a THAT kid). As I grew older, that desire to create became the main driving force behind my career path. Once I launched PlayTyme last year and saw my first glimpse into true success, I knew it was time for me to jump headfirst into building something that reflected my vision and dreams for the future.
Q: What’s one thing you wish you knew earlier in your career?
A: The importance of planning and execution. I’m a very excitable person, so I quickly found myself distracted by new projects or tasks on the regular basis. As a result, I ended up taking on way more than I could handle, and I never had enough time to finish one project before moving onto the next. Once I understood the value in planning my work, executing it well, and then moving onto the next step, it drastically improved my work output. Because now I can figure out precisely what I desire to accomplish, see it through, and use the lessons I’ve learned to make the next task even more successful!
A: The importance of planning and execution. I’m a very excitable person, so I quickly found myself distracted by new projects or tasks on the regular basis. As a result, I ended up taking on way more than I could handle, and I never had enough time to finish one project before moving onto the next. Once I understood the value in planning my work, executing it well, and then moving onto the next step, it drastically improved my work output. Because now I can figure out precisely what I desire to accomplish, see it through, and use the lessons I’ve learned to make the next task even more successful!
Q: What does the ideal future of work look like for you when it comes to diversity and inclusion?
A: In my opinion, embracing diversity means embracing new ideas, thoughts, and perspectives by building a team of various backgrounds and identities. As a business owner, it’s easy to become convinced that your way is the right way. This is a common mentality we see in the startup world and American workplaces as a whole. However, one of the most important things to remember is that a company isn’t just a collection of owners and employees. It’s a team of people working together to accomplish a common goal. So when it comes to the future of work with respect to diversity, it means embracing the fact that sometimes you will be wrong or ignorant about some things. Such as how your hiring practices could negatively impact POC applicants, your workplace environment being toxic to some of your team, or just flat out making an insensitive comment. My ideal future would be one in which those kinds of mistakes are acknowledged, reviewed, and worked upon. So everyone in the workplace is being respected, not just the loudest voices in the room.
A: In my opinion, embracing diversity means embracing new ideas, thoughts, and perspectives by building a team of various backgrounds and identities. As a business owner, it’s easy to become convinced that your way is the right way. This is a common mentality we see in the startup world and American workplaces as a whole. However, one of the most important things to remember is that a company isn’t just a collection of owners and employees. It’s a team of people working together to accomplish a common goal. So when it comes to the future of work with respect to diversity, it means embracing the fact that sometimes you will be wrong or ignorant about some things. Such as how your hiring practices could negatively impact POC applicants, your workplace environment being toxic to some of your team, or just flat out making an insensitive comment. My ideal future would be one in which those kinds of mistakes are acknowledged, reviewed, and worked upon. So everyone in the workplace is being respected, not just the loudest voices in the room.
Q: Favorite thing about Polywork so far?
A: It absolutely has to be the user interface and user experience. As a design nerd, I obsess over every interaction a customer has with my company and our products and services. It’s clear that Polywork has a similar mentality. The UI is clean, minimalistic, and easy to navigate. Information I care about is displayed prominently, and without the mess of unnecessary ads or irrelevant posts from people I don’t know. And best of all, the timeline feature means I can showcase who I truly am as a professional and highlight what I do. Regardless of what job or company it may be tied to.
I’ve said it many times before, and it bears repeating: no one’s job can be boiled down to a few bullet points or paragraphs in a LinkedIn profile. For all of us, our “jobs” are the sum of each project or task we accomplish: GitHub commits, Figma updates, email marketing campaigns, podcast interviews, public events, new product features, blog posts, Twitter threads, the list goes on! Polywork is the only platform that provides a complete picture of who you are as a working professional in a way that stays true how you want to present yourself. I genuinely believe Polywork is the future of professional social media. It’s why I recently made an entire video on why I’m dropping LinkedIn and will only be using Polywork for my professional profile from here forward.
A: It absolutely has to be the user interface and user experience. As a design nerd, I obsess over every interaction a customer has with my company and our products and services. It’s clear that Polywork has a similar mentality. The UI is clean, minimalistic, and easy to navigate. Information I care about is displayed prominently, and without the mess of unnecessary ads or irrelevant posts from people I don’t know. And best of all, the timeline feature means I can showcase who I truly am as a professional and highlight what I do. Regardless of what job or company it may be tied to.
I’ve said it many times before, and it bears repeating: no one’s job can be boiled down to a few bullet points or paragraphs in a LinkedIn profile. For all of us, our “jobs” are the sum of each project or task we accomplish: GitHub commits, Figma updates, email marketing campaigns, podcast interviews, public events, new product features, blog posts, Twitter threads, the list goes on! Polywork is the only platform that provides a complete picture of who you are as a working professional in a way that stays true how you want to present yourself. I genuinely believe Polywork is the future of professional social media. It’s why I recently made an entire video on why I’m dropping LinkedIn and will only be using Polywork for my professional profile from here forward.
Q: What kinds of polywork are you most excited about doing in the future?
A: I’m very excited to begin exploring more of the VR space. Now that I’m on Polywork, I’ve been able to use the badge feature to discover others interested in the same areas I am. Already I’ve begun to find a host of creators and developers I could work with in the future. I’m also very pumped about “No Code” and finally having the ability to build fully functional apps as a no-code visual developer. The future is bright in the world of polywork, and I honestly feel so happy I get to live in a time where a queer black man can have the opportunity to build a career on his terms. And create opportunities for himself that just ten years ago wouldn’t have been possible. I’m thrilled to be in the space I find myself, and I’m so excited about the future of polywork as a concept and Polywork as a platform. I’m excited to be along for the ride 🚀.
Thanks!
