The Brick Connection – A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

LEGO fans assemble!

That was my reference to the Avengers. Did everyone see Captain America: Civil War over the weekend? I saw it opening night and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s better than both of the Avengers movies in my opinion. And those were good movies too.

I am #TeamCap in terms of the Sokovia Accords debate, but Iron Man Tony Stark is my favorite Avenger so I am really #TeamTonyStark. I just want to give that guy a hug, especially after everything that happened in Civil War.

Anywho…

Now that I’m completely off topic…it’s time to finally finish this look at LEGO jobs. We have covered three jobs that involve working for LEGO or in partnership with TLG: LEGO Designer, LEGO Master Builder, LEGO Certified Professional.

Most of the other jobs you can have working with LEGO don’t involve any official association with TLG.

LCPs are freelance LEGO entrepreneurs who do not work for TLG, but are recognized by TLG. If you recall, this is a very select group of people. But of course there are many more people who run businesses using LEGO products without the benefit of having TLG on speed dial.

For example, BrickWorkz, which makes custom LEGO mosaics for your home or office.

(In fact, LEGO Art has become a whole business in itself thanks to LCP and Master Builder, Nathan Sawaya. But most of those artists, like the people of BrickWorkz, are not “business partners” of TLG.)

Brickmania sells custom building kits that are made up of LEGO pieces and customized LEGO minifigures, but have instructions for building sets designed by them, not LEGO.

EclipseGrafx sells custom kits and customized minifigures. They will even customize minifigures at your request.

Then there is Pley, which is like Netflix for toys. You can lease LEGO sets at a reduced cost. Therefore you get a chance to play with many different LEGO sets, but you don’t have to keep them all in your house. (This is obviously a bigger deal for parents of KFOLs because I’m sure AFOLs would like to keep all the sets or at least all their pieces so they can build something else with them.)

This leads us to another kind of LEGO business that is not associated with LEGO: Brick Brokers.

I’m not sure how many of them actually call themselves that, but the name works. These people are resellers. But they’re not reselling boxed sets. They part out the sets and sell the pieces individually. This leads to marketplaces like bricklink that allow LEGO fans to track down specific parts they may want for a MOC or whatever they may be building. Some of these people even make a full-time living as “brick brokers.”

What’s great about a site like bricklink is that it allows anyone to become a brick broker. You just set up a storefront on the site and start selling. Just how big of a deal is this site in the world of LEGO?: Bricklink lists over 279 million items! All having to do with LEGO.

Fun fact: In the very, very beginning of BrickWarriors we sold our first custom accessories on bricklink. You can check out our now closed bricklink store here. 

Speaking of BrickWarriors custom accessories, that is another job that involves working with LEGO, but not for LEGO.

You can start your own custom LEGO accessory business!

…...

Actually, don’t do that!. BrickWarriors is the only custom LEGO accessory company you need!

I am aware there are other ones out there, but if I’m being biased, they are not my friends and don’t pay my salary.

If I’m being unbiased, I honestly think BrickWarriors accessories have the best detail, variety, and overall quality of any custom accessory company out there. And they have the coolest person as the customer service representative. That’s me! (Okay, now I’m being biased again.)

Plus we’re the only LEGO accessory company that sells our products in freakin Toys ‘R Us! I mean if that doesn’t prove our worth, I don’t know what does. (The rave reviews of thousands of LEGO fans is also pretty legit.)

Another interesting thing about us is that unlike many LEGO-related companies, we don’t actually sell anything made by LEGO other than one minor exception. We do sell custom limited-edition minifigs about once a month, but the minifigure bodies (with our custom-designed prints) are the only LEGO product we sell (and it’s always very limited.) This means, we do not infringe on LEGO by making money selling products that they manufactured. And a lot of the accessories we produce are from themes that LEGO doesn’t even make. We can do a lot more “adult” things. (Hmm that makes it sound dirty. We don’t do anything dirty.)

But since our products are LEGO accessories, specifically designed to fit on LEGO minifigure bodies or in minifigure hands, you have to have the minifigs in order to use them. Therefore we can only help LEGO’s sales, not hurt them. LEGO should love us! In fact, sometimes I get emails from people asking where they can get the minifigures to use our stuff……ummm, from LEGO or a toy store that sells LEGO? Duh! (I say it nicer than that though.)

Alright, enough bragging about the company that my livelihood depends on …what about other LEGO businesses...

Although I refuse to talk about other custom accessory businesses, the custom LEGO market goes beyond helmets, armor, and weapons. I mentioned a couple businesses above that sell customized minifigs and sets. There are also many companies that sell other customized or add-on LEGO parts.

Our friend Steve sells lights for LEGO with his company Blinky Bricks.

There is a company that will basically engrave/print whatever you want on a LEGO brick: BrickEngraver and BrickPrinter

Funky 3D Faces is a company that will make your face into a minifigure head. (It’s just a little bit creepy.)

And there are countless more LEGO businesses out there. Businesses that use LEGO, but that are completely unassociated with TLG.

Then of course you have the people that just straight-up resell LEGO sets. And I’m not talking about people that just sell one or two of their old sets on ebay. I’m talking about people who run an actual business buying and selling LEGO sets. Whenever I go to LEGO conventions, that always seems to be what most of the vendors are doing. (Some of them are even selling BrickWarriors products, even when we are a vendor at the same convention.)

But this can be a very lucrative business if you are a good collector. LEGO retires a bunch of its sets, and when they do, resellers knows that means $$$$$. Someone who owns a mint-condition retired LEGO set can then turn it around and sell it for 2, 5, or 10 times what they bought it for. (Depending on the set of course.)

If this is an endeavor you are interested in, there is a LEGO investment site specifically made for people trying to profit off the resale of LEGO. Brickpicker.com offers financial advice and has an intricate ranking system that “utilizes licensed eBay Terapeak data to show the LEGO investor popular trends in the secondary market.” (Whatever that means!)

Who knew the resale of toys could be so Wall Street.

As for other lucrative potentially profitable LEGO business ideas, there is the brickfilm industry. LEGO animation has been around for quite awhile now and most people do it as a hobby. But there are some that have turned it into a business. Like Brotherhood Workshop.

That is a YouTube channel that was first mentioned on this blog a few weeks ago. Not everyone can make money off a YouTube channel. But when you have 159,000 subscribers and nearly 43 million views, you can make money.

And the artists of Brotherhood Workshop are not the only ones that have made a living (or part of a living) off LEGO animation.

Check out one of Brotherhood Workshop’s most popular videos, with over 2 million views. A shot for shot recreation of The Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer:

I am sure I have just scratched the surface of potential jobs working with LEGO. Apparently Cambridge University was looking to hire a LEGO professor last year, so who knows what else the future has in store for LEGO-related employment.

Of course you can still consider working for the actual company. And you don’t have to be a designer or builder to work for TLG. Check out this interview with Jennifer Langone, director of HR services for TLG in the U.S.: Interview Insider: How to Get Hired at the LEGO Group

The LEGO Group employs 2,200 people in the U.S., about 750 of which work at the U.S. headquarters in Enfield, Connecticut.

If you are interested in a job with LEGO, check out the LEGO career site and keep this in mind about what they look for:

We look for someone who can be successful in our culture. We focus heavily on leadership, overall career potential, and specific competencies that will enable the individual to be successful in the current role but also provide them opportunities to grow within the organization.

They do paid internships too. And although your job with LEGO may not involve building with bricks, the job interview does include a hands-on building exercise where candidates are asked to “build something with LEGO bricks that they feel represents themselves.”

Don’t worry! It’s not LEGO designer or master builder-level building. It’s just a fun exercise for them to see how well you know the product and if you can have fun and be imaginative with the build.

But if you are unable to match your skills to a job with LEGO or working with something to do with LEGO, there is still a way to bring LEGO into your current job.

LEGO Serious Play is a consultant service and methodology, which employs an innovative, experimental process designed to enhance innovation and business performance.

Basically your organization can hire them to come to your company to do team building exercises.

And with that, I will put this topic to bed…for now. (That's not supposed to be ominous. It's more of a never say never situation.)

Have you ever thought of starting your own LEGO-related business? Or are you content to keep LEGO separate from your work life?

Let me know your thoughts!

Until next time…how shocked were you that Bucky was responsible for the [spoiler] of [spoiler]'s [spoilers]???

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*