Greetings to all our Toy lovers out there in the world wide web. Today I have an interview with Founder and CEO, Ryan Hauge who comes to us from a great company known as Brick Warriors. They took ideas on how to make Legos better and ran with it. I for one really love there stuff and wanted to share them with all our fellow NERDS. So, lets stop the rambling and let’s start enjoying the interview that I constructed (see what I did there, lol).
SWN: Who are you and where are you from?
BW: I’m Ryan Hauge from Wilmington, Delaware.
SWN: How was the idea for Brick Warriors launched?
BW: I’ve always loved Lego, but as a kid I always wanted more accessories for the minifigures. There were generic helmets and swords, but I thought my creations would look so much cooler if there was more variety with the minifigure accessories. While I was in college, one Christmas my mom bought me a CAD program. It sat on the shelf for a few months getting dusty, but one day I got bored and decided to try designing a few Lego accessories on it. They turned out okay. Meanwhile, my girlfriend at the time (now my fiancée) encouraged me to take some entrepreneurship classes with her. By the time we graduated, we were ready to have a few molds cut, and BrickWarriors was born.
SWN: Has LEGO ever gotten in contact with you about the cool customs you make?
BW: I’ve spoken with a number of people at TLG about our customs. The talks have all been very positive.
As long as we don’t cross the line into becoming a dreaded clone brand by creating clone minifigures, I don’t think they’ll have a problem with us.
SWN: What is your most popular item that you create?
BW: We have so many popular products and always release new products every month so it’s hard to say what the most popular item is! It changes every month.
SWN: How long has Brick Warriors been around?
BW: We opened for business on Sept 1, 2011, so we’ve been around for about 4 and a half years.
SWN: What are your plans for the future?
BW: More products! We have hundreds of designs ready to roll, it just takes time to produce them all. I want to make sure we have something for every single Lego fan that comes to our website.
SWN: Where can our readers learn more about your creations?
SWN: If you could work with anyone or any project, who or what would it be and why?
BW: My fiancée, Amanda. She’s been my partner on Brick Warriors since day 1 and I know that it would not be nearly as big as it is without her. I couldn’t ask for a better business partner (or fiancée…).
SWN: With all the new comic movies coming out, do you have any plans to tackle on any designs that coexist with the LEGOS for the films?
BW: Not really. I like to stay away from intellectual property that LEGO is already working on. Historically accurate and fantasy designs of our own making are much more fun and a lot less likely to land us in a courtroom.
SWN: Do you have any advice for aspiring toy makers?
BW: Only a bad businessman would give free advice to potential competitors, which I guess means that any advice found in an interview like this is either a)advice that a good businessman knows is false or b)advice that a bad businessman believes to be true. Either way, the advice wouldn’t be very valuable!
