I just launched a LEGO rental business
Yep, I’m somehow still doing LEGO stuff.
It has been a little over 4 months since my last day at Microsoft. Since then, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect, relax, and explore new opportunities. Today, I’m writing about something really exciting – the launch of my very own LEGO rental business! What started as just an idea last July (and was featured as just a bullet point in a previous Substack post) is now finally a reality. Starting today, anyone in the US can rent the LEGO set of their dreams from my business, Rent a Build.
In this post, I wanted to tell the story of how I got here, and why I think it makes a lot of sense to rent out LEGO. Below: the launch video I posted on my YouTube channel.
Really? You’re still doing LEGO? (Yes. Yes I am.)
Since childhood, LEGO has been a cornerstone of my life, significantly contributing to my decision to pursue an engineering degree and fostering my passion for building. As many of you may know, I created the YouTube channel called “Superlegosam”, where I posted videos of my own creations (such as fully functional vending machines and arcade games) for years. I ended up getting millions of views on my videos and acquiring over 45,000 subscribers, which I sometimes still find hard to believe. But when I left for college, I left my LEGO bricks behind, and that essentially meant the end of an era.
However, the story felt incomplete. I just couldn’t shake the idea of one day doing something with LEGO again. I never lost my love for this wonderful plastic brick and its endless possibilities. To this day, whenever I find myself in the mall, I stop by the LEGO store, just to take a peek at the latest sets. Unfortunately, I always walk out empty-handed, mostly because LEGO is just insanely expensive. This got me thinking: If even I can’t justify spending 500 dollars on a Lord of the Rings set, who can? Let’s be real: the group of people able or willing to spend over 500 dollars on a box with plastic bricks is tiny. More importantly, it’s much smaller than the group of people who would love to build those sets. With that realization, a seed was planted in my head.
Over time, that seed grew into something more: the possibility of starting a rental service. My cousin in the Netherlands had rented a LEGO set before and was a fan of the experience, so I knew it was a feasible concept. From a quick Google search, I found there were other companies doing it in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands; but not really any in the US. That was a good start.
To convince myself of its viability as a business, I created an Excel spreadsheet and started figuring out whether renting out LEGO would make financial sense. The model in my head was simple and essentially like all other rental companies: Rent out high-value products that people want but find too expensive to purchase, do so a few times, and then sell the used item for a reduced price. After some basic calculations, I concluded that this model would work pretty well for LEGO. It holds its value well, so even after a few rentals you can sell it for a decent price. The idea for Rent a Build was born. Except, I didn’t know that that would be the name.
What am I going to call this thing?
That’s the question I was asking myself ever since I came up with the idea in the first place. What I learned: Naming is hard, and I’m not very good at it. With a highly critical partner to shoot new names down (for which I am very grateful), I came up with about a hundred different options. All the best website names are already taken or cost thousands of dollars—and, to add to the pain, LEGO doesn’t allow the use of the word LEGO in company or domain names. After many weeks, I landed on “Rent a Build”. And while it’s not perfect, I’m happy with it and I think it conveys the right idea. For the curious, here are some candidates that lost to Rent a Build:
Rent a Brick Set
Build Your Dream Set
Brimming Bricks
Rent the Bricks
Keep Building Sets
Stack a Brick
Brick Set Rentals
Craving Bricks
Rent Build Repeat
It’s Brick’n Good (courtesy of my wife)
In the end, what I really wanted was a name that was somewhat catchy and easy to remember, but also not completely ridiculous. Something that would roll off the tongue easily and be appealing to a wider audience, while still conveying the essence of my business. After a lot—a LOT—of trial and error, I finally landed on “Rent a Build”.
From idea to reality
And so I began. With a name picked out but without much of a plan, I just kind of got started. Bit by bit I started building my website, while simultaneously figuring out what the rental experience would even be like. I decided it’d be easiest to sort the bricks by color and, for everything to be manageable, have renters disassemble the sets themselves. Once I got the sets back, I’d weigh each bag of bricks to make sure a set is complete (fun fact: this is how LEGO does it in their factories too). The Dutch LEGO rental company essentially offers the same experience, so I figured that was a good a place as any to start.
For the website, I started with a basic template so that I wouldn’t have to design every button and layout from scratch. But, I had to create everything else. The building process definitely made me realize how involved even a simple-looking website can be. I had to account for every possible action a visitor might take, and deal with it in a proper way. What if someone tries renting 10 sets at a time? What if someone tries to delete their credit card from their account while they’re actively renting a set? What if someone returns half a set? What if someone enters a fake email address? What do you do with items that are left in a shopping cart for a while? The answers weren’t always obvious and getting it right was crucial for a smooth customer experience.
Luckily, many of these questions weren’t unique to my business. Often, I just looked at how others do it. In general, throughout the process of building this thing, I always tried to avoid reinventing the wheel as much as possible. Inspiration from other (LEGO) rental businesses, and importantly the LEGO website itself, was very helpful.
In some cases, I needed more than just inspiration. A good example: writing the Terms of Service. I knew I would need them – after all, you need to put into words what happens when someone doesn’t return a rental, or how payments are collected, for example. That said, I’m obviously not a lawyer. So, I went to the most similar business I could think of: Rent the Runway (a designer clothing rental service). I was so “inspired” by their Terms of Service that I more or less hit “find and replace” to change “Rent the Runway” to “Rent a Build”. Of course, I had to make some edits to make sure it all made sense – but it did the trick and I saved myself countless hours and probably a hefty stack of dollars by doing it this way.
The final steps
Now that the name and website had been addressed, there were still some bridges to cross. From a PO box to a business license and a tax ID, it took some effort to figure it all out on my own. But once the administrative part was complete, all that was left for me was to do some shopping: a printer, packaging materials, labels, a precise scale for weighing the LEGO, and bubble wrap. It felt like Christmas day when it all arrived.
With everything ready to commence operations, I started preparing for the actual launch itself. I quickly realized it’d be a mistake to not leverage the following I had built up on YouTube over all those years. I decided to record a launch video to post on Superlegosam, in the hopes that my remaining subscribers would forgive me for the video not being about a new LEGO creation. I created an Instagram account, drafted posts to go out on my personal social media, and wrote this Substack post. At the very least, all of that will generate some initial traffic to my website. We’ll have to see if it leads to any orders, of course!
Now what?
Now, we wait and see what happens. I’m not going to lie to you: if I don’t get a few orders, I’ll be very disappointed. That said, I have already derived a lot of joy and satisfaction just from putting this all together. Much like building LEGO, I probably like the building process itself the best. But now that the bricks are all in place, it’s time to begin – to advertise, to sell, and to tell the world about this great new service. In doing so, I’d love to have your help. If you know of anyone who might be remotely interested in renting a LEGO set, send them my way!
PS: To sweeten the deal a little bit: If you enter the code “SUPERLEGOSAM” at checkout, you’ll get 30% off your first rental with Rent a Build.
Rent a Build LLC is not affiliated with LEGO® in any way. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse the Rent a Build site.
This is awesome!
Love this idea!