6 Retro Business Ideas That Could Be As Big As LEGO ($11.8B)

About this video

Sam and Shaan explore the booming adult fan of Lego (AFOL) market and discover two fascinating niche businesses built around passionate Lego communities: Rebrickable, a marketplace for custom Lego designs with 11 million users, and Bricklink, a peer-to-peer Lego marketplace with a remarkable origin story involving its anonymous founder Dan Jesick. They brainstorm other adult nostalgia products (Tamagotchi for babies, rebooted Connex sets, Rubik’s Cube variants, candle-pouring kits) and discuss principles for building enduring niche businesses.

Key takeaways

• Adults buying toys and nostalgic products (called ‘Cults’ or ‘Elder-tainment’) represent 25% of toy sales and 60% of toy industry growth, driven by nostalgia, anti-loneliness bonding, and phone detox benefits
• Rebrickable founder Nathan built an 11M-user marketplace for custom Lego designs with minimal marketing by staying true to the passionate community; similar successful adult products include Calm sleep stories, Squishmallows, Funko Pops, and Build-A-Bear After Dark
• Successful niche businesses share traits: they initially seem like jokes, should grow slowly to preserve community trust (a ‘reverse funnel’ building from hardcore fans upward), and develop strong moats through passionate, loyal audiences that are hard to disrupt
• Sam discovered that building sustainable products requires finding and serving your most passionate users first rather than trying to maximize broad appeal, protecting the community culture as you scale

Episode details: published January 31, 2024 · 36K views · 1:08:04 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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