Turning passion into profit: Entrepreneurship with LEGO
Posted by Huw,
This article has been contributed by Jackson Reid (@Jacksontreid), a student journalist in Australia. It was originally written for an assignment, but he felt it would be of interest to a wider audience, so asked if I'd like to publish it here:
It’s said that if you find a job you love doing, you’ll never have to work a day in your life, and with the growing popularity and acceptance of the Lego brand amongst adults, Joss Woodyard is aiming to do just that.
A greater influx of products targeted towards adults, the Lego Masters TV show, and the recently announced collaborations with Levi’s and Adidas are all examples of how Lego has become increasingly more mainstream in pop culture. With this rising popularity, the 22-year-old Australian is breaking into a growing new market.
Before getting into Lego, Joss (or ‘Jayfa’ as he is widely known as across the online Lego community) enjoyed playing with Thomas the Tank Engine toys, but when he was 5 his mum suggested he try out the new toy all the other kids were playing with – Bionicle.
“I’ve been building since I was five years old, there was rarely a year when I wasn’t building Lego from then onwards honestly. I mean a little bit through high school when you go through that phase of thinking ‘oh Lego’s for kids,” Joss said.
“But you end up growing past that and realising that it doesn’t really matter, everyone plays with Lego (chuckles).”
Coming straight out of high school, Joss moved out and went to university to study a bachelor’s degree in music, majoring in jazz piano. Music was what he was best at in high school, and he hoped to make a living out of it.
“It was a whole lot of fun and I don’t regret it at all, but I just didn’t see it as something that I wanted to use as a career path. But I still play piano on occasion.”
Making bank from bricks
Joss is currently enrolled in a small business training program to learn how to make a living from his Lego creations. At the moment he’s not working his retail job due to the pandemic.
By creating and selling PDF instructions for his models, Joss makes between $50 to $100 dollars a week. Most of the funds have been coming from his instructions for building Toothless, inspired by the How to Train Your Dragon movies. In the first month of releasing his dragon instructions, Joss made over $2,000 solely off this model. Although sales have slowed down, they have still been consistent for the past year and a half.
Toothless
“I was expecting to like make 100 bucks off it, tops. I thought that would’ve been incredible if I did that, and it just kept coming like I was swamped with emails the first day that I announced it,” he exclaimed.
Some people buy Joss’ instructions as gifts for their significant others or for their children. Other customers are new to the hobby and want to learn Joss’ building secrets as a starting point for their own creations. Although he isn’t the only person out there selling instructions through Instagram, Joss is confident he’s got a future in this.
“I don’t really plan to go back to work anytime soon because I’m finding a way to make money at home with Lego, I want to somehow make that full-time.”
To make these instructions, Joss photographs all the steps required and then edits the pictures in photoshop (apparently a pain to do). Then he collates all the parts necessary to build the figure on Bricklink and saves it as a file so people don’t have to spend time tracking down ever part they need.
But some people who are more apt to the hobby don’t necessarily see the point in buying third-party instructions. Viacheslav Krivosheev is an aspiring Lego designer from Russia who also shares his ‘mocs’ on Instagram.
“I actually already considered buying instructions from other builders, not necessarily from Instagram, but I haven’t pulled through with that idea yet,” Viacheslav said.
Though just because he hasn’t bought any of Joss’ instructions, that’s not to say that Viacheslav doesn’t think Joss is an influential figure in the online Lego community.
“Jayfa is looked up to in the community, because of his incredibly beautiful and high-quality mocs, because some people strive to build like that.”
Rygas the Cockatrice
Building
Joss likes taking inspiration from mythological creatures and real-life figures, the two often overlapping throughout his creations. When he builds, Joss tries to use his existing collection as much as possible.
“As far as Lego builders go, I don’t spend a great deal on parts, you see people who have monumental collections, all sorted, they have millions of each part, but for me I kind of just roll with what I’ve got.”
One of Joss’ current projects is a massive leviathan primarily composed of system bricks, which is outside the comfort zone for someone who typically builds with CCBS pieces that the Hero Factory sets introduced.
“It is really weird and it’s also difficult to make it structurally sound, because when you’re dealing with ball joints, when that’s on there, that’s not going to come off,” he said.
“Whereas with system bricks, you’ve really gotta make sure everything’s locked in there, and doing that with several small portions is really frustrating because if they’re not locked on properly then they just pop off all the time, and it’s super frustrating.
“I’ve never made a technic frame for something of this size before, and so it’s very daunting and very frustrating to get right but I’m sure it’ll really pay off in the end.”
The Simurgh
The impact of Lego Masters (Australia)
It’s impossible to talk about making a living off Lego, without bringing up the Lego Masters television show, with some contestants having gone on to become Lego influencers after their season.
When we got onto the topic, Joss mentioned that back before the first season had started production, himself and fellow Lego Instagrammer Andrew Steele actually applied to be on the show. The pair drove from Newcastle to Sydney for the audition.
“They provided a bunch of Lego for us, and then told us to build whatever we wanted but it had to include a sphere somehow, and then they recorded us doing that and then had a little interview afterwards. But yeah, we didn’t make it, by just a small amount apparently,”
“They encouraged us to try again the next year which we did, and we didn’t even make it past the application phase, that was a bit discouraging,” he confessed with a sigh.
He wasn’t sure if it was due to their building ability, or just because they weren’t cut out for television. Nevertheless, Joss still appreciates what Lego Masters has accomplished in terms of changing the general public’s perceptions of adults enjoying the Lego hobby.
“It’s really helped in that regard because now everyone who hears about what I do they’re like ‘oh! Just like on Lego masters’, ‘you should apply for Lego Masters’ so there’s that immediate interest there.”
However, even before Lego Masters, Joss’ friends, family and girlfriend have encouraged his hobby and thought that it’s cool.
“It makes me feel like I’m not wasting my time doing this, they’re all very supportive and think it’s a valid use of my time.”
It’s a new commodity for people to make money off Lego without working as a designer in Denmark, but Joss is determined to make this a reality. And with the Lego brand’s growing notoriety, Joss’ business opportunities will keep stacking up like a pile of bricks.
Cyber-Punk
All photos courtesy of Joss Woodyard (Flickr)
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26 comments on this article
Great aesthetics. organic. fantastically fanciful!
This article is so freaking interesting and relevant for me personally! I've started my own business in selling instrucions online very recently, and I'm so shocked some people can actually make a living out of it! My store hasn't made any profits yet, but this is super encouraging! I've got some real masterpieces that I'm working on right now and by reading this I've gotten much more hope that those will have a bigger impact than the ones I've uploaded so far. Thank you so much @Jacksontreid for writing this!
Ah, I remember his work in a Blocks magazine a while back. Amazing!
Jayfa is a legend in the ccbs community, I had no idea his toothless was that popular!
I'm amazed it can provide an income, I've always seen it as more a way to supplement the hobby. Would be interested to know how many purchasers actually go on to build the MOCs and not just look at the pretty pictures (I find nicely designed instructions to be an artwork on their own).
Love these.
I am shocked to find out how much money Jayfa made off just one single MOC... 2000$?! That's insane!
That's a well written article with great pictures about a talented builder, a very enjoyable and interesting read. Thanks for submitting it @jacksontreid.
Beautiful MOCs and an inspiring article.
I think it's a good indication that the adult market is still growing, even TLG is shifting gears and opening up entire product lines for this audience. The next 5 years will be interesting to follow, especially for those with BL stores or MOC designs to sell.
@thehornedrat said:
"Nice to see real actual builds rather than renders. Such kek those. zero talent at all if you use renders, send them to Lego Ideas and make bank... Unfair! But this is real talent. Unfortunately they dont seem to be taken into consideration nowadays."
I'd love to hear your reasoning here. What makes renders zero talent? You still have to build the creation (even if digitally), so you still have to have skill. Sure you have access to infinite parts and non-production colors, but it still takes skill to make something that looks nice.
Loved reading this, gave me an insight into an aspect of the hobby I’m super curious about but don’t often hear much about.
Those models in the photos are beautiful.
@mr_Fikou said:
"This article is so freaking interesting and relevant for me personally! I've started my own business in selling instrucions online very recently, and I'm so shocked some people can actually make a living out of it! My store hasn't made any profits yet, but this is super encouraging! I've got some real masterpieces that I'm working on right now and by reading this I've gotten much more hope that those will have a bigger impact than the ones I've uploaded so far. Thank you so much @Jacksontreid for writing this!"
Thanks man, best of luck with making some money off your store!
Toothless is adorable! I just bought Joss' instructions 3 days ago. Can't wait to build it!!
Amazing article. Probably made my day!
Great, interesting article! Nice to see an Australian Lego fan getting credit! Aussie Aussie Aussie! It is a shame more Australians dont appreciate our hobby...
Those 50-100$ per week are money he makes after or before paying taxes etc? :)
I have great respect for Jayfa and hope I won't come off sounding negative.
If you're good at art, get a job as a designer etc. Life teaches us to not put too much faith in that which is temporary and shifting, you have to look at the bigger picture. Just a word of caution for everyone out there.
@thehornedrat TLG is the main culprit here - they render everything save for the press-releases! Whereas good digital MOCs do take talent and effort and should be respected for that.
I didn’t know so many people were selling their own instructions. Is there a marketplace with all individual/independant instructions available for selling, with links?
@BS1122 said:
"I didn’t know so many people were selling their own instructions. Is there a marketplace with all individual/independant instructions available for selling, with links?"
Rebrickable.com mostly.
What an interesting read! This side of the community is so inspiring. I had a few days off last week, installed LDraw and ended up publishing my first MOC yesterday. While I never intend to charge anything for my MOCs (they are mediocre at best), I find it awesome that 1) individuals are able to come up with such beautiful creations, and 2) others enjoy it so much that 3) there is a market for helping those others underway to re-create these beautiful creations themselves. I love that.
These are beautiful models. And the article is very well written and enjoyable to read.
Selling instructions is a way for the designer to obtain some reward for their time and costs involved in sourcing pieces for real builds, but does exclude you from Lego ideas which is a shame as I think these designs would have a lot of support, especially as difficult to recreate because of hard to find pieces or rare colours.
However, I always worry if you sell or give away instructions for intricate designs that a 3rd party will start producing their own pieces and sell them directly, and there is nothing that the designer or TLG can do as not a Lego set.
Amazing! Could you please make a Balrog ? LOTR fans would love it :-)
Amazing creations, and great to see an Aussie designer on here & getting props! :)
My question - is the “$50-$100 per week” a typo? Or perhaps PER MOC, rather than a total?
If it’s total income, That’s nice extra pocket money to have, but doesn’t come close to replacing a decent salary or wage.
Sounds like the sale of designs would only form one part of an integrated Lego business?