I Quit Teaching To Build A Fidget Business With My Dad—It Brings In $428,000/Year
Victoria Baumann and her father Charlie Moreton run Victoria Essie Studio, a 3D-printed fidget toy business based in North Carolina that generated $428,000 in gross revenue in 2025. Victoria pivoted from teaching and jewelry-making to fidget toys, while Charlie contributes his 3D printing expertise while maintaining a full-time job as a network security engineer. The business grew organically without any loans, averaging 1,500 orders per month.
Summary
Victoria Baumann, 32, and her father Charlie Moreton, 51, co-run Victoria Essie Studio from their homes in North Carolina. The business specializes in 3D-printed fidget clickers — tactile self-stimming toys with mechanical keyboard-like components — along with home decor, pill cases, and acrylic laser-cut jewelry. In 2025, the business brought in $428,000 in gross revenue with a net profit of $94,000.
Victoria's entrepreneurial journey began in 2018 with watercolor paintings and polymer clay jewelry, motivated by the financial strain of a preschool teaching career she held from 2015 to 2019. After burning out from teaching and taking on extra work just to cover basic expenses, she quit in 2019 and later left a part-time ice cream shop job in 2022 to pursue her studio full time. The business pivoted to laser-cut acrylic jewelry in 2020, and then to 3D printing in 2025 when Charlie joined, bringing his personal 3D printing experience to scale the operation.
Charlie, who still works full time as a network security engineer, contributes an additional 40 hours per week to the business, working up to 14-15 hours per day total. He manages the printing operation from his home, where printers are placed throughout the space. The workflow involves selecting designs, test printing, running full production sheets, and assembling in a dedicated room before shipping products to Victoria's house for final processing. Print times range from 17 hours for simpler pieces to 3-4 days for complex multi-color designs, with assembly of 100 units achievable in 45 minutes to an hour.
The business grew entirely through reinvestment of profits — starting with two personal 3D printers Charlie owned, then using cake figurine sales to fund additional printers and filament. They have never taken out a business loan. In 2025, Victoria paid herself $36,000, while Charlie took no payment; in 2026, Charlie began paying himself $750 per week. The duo is now looking to purchase land and build a consolidated facility to house operations under one roof and eventually bring on employees. Victoria expresses deep satisfaction with the business, particularly valuing the ability to stay home with her young daughter — something her teaching salary could never have supported.
Key Insights
- Victoria argues that her teaching salary was fundamentally incompatible with the cost of her college degree, framing low teacher pay as a structural problem that pushed her toward entrepreneurship rather than a personal choice.
- The business generated $428,000 in gross revenue in 2025 but only $94,000 in net profit, reflecting high operational costs from materials, equipment, and licensing fees for third-party designs.
- Charlie states that the business grew entirely organically through reinvestment of sales revenue — starting with two personal printers — and has never required a business loan to scale.
- Charlie works 14-15 hours per day total, adding roughly 40 hours per week to the business on top of his full-time network security engineering job, making him the production backbone while taking no salary in 2025.
- Victoria credits the success of the fidget pivot not to market research but to audience feedback — she says it only made sense to commit after she observed that her existing audience responded positively to the new products.
Topics
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