Building toward bigger things | Sammamish teen’s love of Legos and history leads to thriving small business

Like countless other youths, Sammamish teen Payton Dean remembers falling in love with Legos upon receiving his first Lego set as a 5-year-old.

“When I was 5, it was a new toy, it was Star Wars. What kid wouldn’t like that?” he said. “But now, I look at it in a completely different perspective.”

What began as a youthful love affair has grown into a passion and a thriving small business for the 16-year-old high school junior and Running Start student. Payton is the founder of X39 Brick Customs, his Sammamish-based operation that provides custom-printed Lego ‘bricks,’ minifigures and accessories.

Payton says his business is completely self-sufficient, relying on funds from revenue and his own personal financing.

He created the business with his late grandfather in 2010, initially starting his own YouTube channel as a sort of tutorial for how he created his custom Lego displays. His channel now has over 18,000 subscribers.

“I started making these weapon [pieces] and people said, ‘Hey, you should sell those. I would buy those,’” he said.

Using $200 of his own money, Payton made 10 minifigures and was able to double his money through sales. He said “saving pennies was what it took” to get his business off the ground.

Even with over 18,000 subscribers, Payton says he doesn’t make a lot of money, but he is making “good pocket change.”

“The $200 initially was what started that and then it’s kind of rinse and repeat as far as just selling and waiting for your cash to build up so you can do the next product,” he said.

Payton said his budding interest in history helped inspire him to start his own business. He began creating mock versions of historical battles from the Civil War and World Wars I and II.

“I guess it just kind of started because I wanted something that didn’t exist, which would be like World War II custom parts and weapons,” he said, noting that the Lego company doesn’t make such historic war or battle-themed pieces. “I decided ‘OK, we need to make this,’ because not only do other people want it, but I wanted it to make the most accurate display possible.”

With his grandfather, Payton began doing his own injection molding to create custom parts. The pair purchased a CNC machine, which Payton learned to operate himself. He noted that such work requires knowledge in programming, physics and metallurgy.

“There’s a whole bunch of stuff that you need to know and if you don’t know, it’s gonna be a very expensive trip to get to where you wanna be,” he said.

Payton would later purchase lathes for his garage and a UV printer for his shop, all funded by his business’ sales revenues or his own personal savings.

For his first big production project, Payton wanted to partner with another company to create 20,000 Lego accessories that were inspired by Minecraft. His mother, Shelli, was a little apprehensive at first.

“That was where I just had to trust him and say, ‘OK, you think this is gonna be good. You’re either gonna really succeed or you’re gonna learn this wasn’t good and now we have boxes and boxes of Minecraft tools that we don’t know what to do with,’” she recalled. “He did it, we took him to a show and they sold like crazy.”

Payton said he’s seen a steady increase of sales since he began his business, going from about an order a week to about 20 orders, with the average sale being between $20-$50. He estimates the average cost of his figures is between $15-$25, with his most expensive product, a Panzer Jager tank kit, costing $95.

Where some may simply see a teenager working with toy bricks, Payton sees avenues for engineering and innovation.

“I think it’s a great medium as far as art goes because it’s relatively cheap, it’s 3D and you can make all these different structures,” he said. “It’s the perfect medium for what I want to do. I can’t picture myself building military displays with foam and toy soldiers [because] there’s just not as much flexibility as there is with Lego.”

Aside from partnering with a designer for his custom prints and his website, as well as the occasional packaging help from his parents, Payton primarily works as his own staff. He prides himself on being as self-sufficient as possible.

“I kind of like doing everything because then that’s just more knowledge and power to me as far as quality,” he said. “I do everything from making the property from raw material to listing it on my website, photography and taking the pictures, replying to customers on email and YouTube, packaging the product, shipping the product, I do all of that. Granted, my mom will help me if I have 100 things to package, but everything pretty much relies on me. It is truly a small business.”

Payton said his experiences creating X39 Brick Customs may have helped shape his entrepreneurial approach to his work. It also may have introduced him to a possible career path.

“Going from molding to CNC machining, now I’m really into metal working, welding and that’s just been an offshoot of doing all this,” he said. “Now I’m taking CNC machining classes and I think that’s what I’d like to do as a profession. I would’ve never known that if I hadn’t done Lego and hadn’t wanted to do all this. It all ties together, which is kind of interesting.”

Whatever career path he chooses, Payton still plans to run his business as a side job. He said he’d have no problem focusing on X39 Brick Customs as his primary profession, should the opportunity present itself.

“This definitely could be full-time if I really tried. There are plenty of people that do similar things like this full-time,” he said. “If it’s possible, I’ll definitely do this full-time just because it’s one of those things [where] I love what I do, so I never have to work another day in my life type thing. If that’s possible, I’ll definitely choose that direction.”

For more on X39 Brick Customs, visit www.x39brickcustoms.com.