Maybe everyone had this idea: Quit your job and make a living from whatever you like best. Many people like their comfort zone, though they don’t give it a try. I like my comfort zone too, but I try nonetheless… I have not quit my job (yet) but reduced it to a bearable minimum to be able to turn my LEGO passion into a business.
LEGO business? What? How?
A year ago, I started my venture: The qlib. The qlib is a giant LEGO brick that you can just clip onto IKEA furniture. I built those for my study once (google „besta lego shelves“ to check it out) but never thought about bringing the idea to the market. However, when my daughter was born 18 months ago, and I looked at kids furniture, everything was so uninspired, colorless and sterile. That’s when I sat down with some friends, and we developed the product.
It took half a year to get everything done from development to a marketing plan. In April we turned to Kickstarter, but the ‚community‘ didn’t catch on and our manufacturer let us down, so we stopped the campaign before it even begun.
I want my blankie!!
When you have worked so many nights to get it all done and it doesn’t go as planned, that is exactly the point when you want to go back to your comfort zone. You suddenly notice how much time and money you invested and start thinking that is was all a bad idea. You start to question everything - the idea, the team, the business plan, the marketing strategy, the whole damn project.
Luckily, I didn’t do this alone. The whole team pushed me to develop plan B with them and we did. That’s what friends are for. That’s why you shouldn’t do this alone.
Will we make a living out of it?
I would love to end this story with a success, but we’re not quite there yet. We have a new manufacturer, even better prototypes, and we are getting ready to restart the crowdfunding in November.
I don’t think this will be our breakthrough (unless IKEA wants to integrate the qlib into their product range...), but we will continue nonetheless. It’s been a great journey so far, we all learned so much and we are doing this to get the full experience from the development process to the market.
I’m certain that we’ll create our own comfort zone, better than the one we’re in at the moment. We have a ton of ideas and once we have the qlib venture up and running, we won’t go back to where we started, but to the next (ad)venture!
I would love to hear from you!
Have you tried something similar? Succeeded? Failed? Do you like the story and want to know how it will go on? Any other suggestions, ideas or experience you want to share?
All the best
Martin Storbeck
[email protected]
Stuttgart, Germany