For the last eight years I spent my time writing mostly about tech and coding, and occasionally about a few other bits and bobs, including LEGO. This last one I was never convinced whether it would be a niche I'd focus on or not, so didn't give it too much attention. That all changes now. Fast approaching 3000 followers, I felt it's a good time to consolidate the niches I focus on going forward.

With that effect, I set up a new publication called Bricks n' Brackets. The brackets part is pretty obvious as it's a nod to tech and programming. The bricks part is the one I feel it's worth expanding on.

A bit of history

I started playing with LEGO at the age of 7, and I have never really stopped since. That makes my brick-building journey about 29 years long at the time of writing. Just the other day, my dentist, a lovely Lithuanian girl the same age as me, was surprised to hear I was on my way to buy LEGO after some dental work I had scheduled for that day. To quote her, "I guess not everybody does this thing… you know… growing up." To that, my reply was:

Nobody ever grows up, we just grow old.

I truly believe that adulting is something we do because, well, frankly it comes with growing older, it's something society dictates for us all. Having said that, it is entirely up to us to keep the child inside us alive, and I am pretty sure every AFOL (adult fan of LEGO) would agree with me. It's been 29 years of playing with LEGO for me, and I intend to make that 49 and even 69 while I'm at it. My first set was a little motorboat, and since that little set, I have added dozens more to my collection. Some small, some large. Some System, some Technic, some easy to build, while others incredibly difficult, but never, not once have I not enjoyed building a set. It's the best indoor hobby I can think of, and it unlocks infinite amounts of creativity.

My hobbies coming nicely together

It took me around 2 hours to come up with the name of the publication, and I have to thank my best buddy Andrew Gribben for polishing the name up for me. It is truly representative of what I am trying to achieve here. It's a public culmination of all my hobbies in written form.

I might have mentioned this before a couple of times, but coding used to be a hobby of mine, which I then turned into a career. The same goes for writing, which seems to be a budding side-career. The only remaining untapped hobby was LEGO, which is why bringing them all under the same roof with Bricks n' Brackets makes sense. The intent here is simple. Make a bit of cash with every single hobby of mine without making it feel like a chore. I am a true believer in the concept of combining pleasure with work, in essence turning one's passions into something that generates not just individual satisfaction but also additional income.

A unique influencer position

As I was posting more and more LEGO content, I realised I was in a quite unique position. First of all, many tech nerds and software developers are also LEGO fans, so it made sense to bring content about these three hobbies under a single roof. I speak nerd, I speak code and I speak tech, which means I can speak to a large enough audience while still keeping to a well-defined niche.

Medium also gives me an opportunity to be an influencer in a niche that is incredibly young on the platform at the moment. In fact, right now, when I check the LEGO tag on Medium, I find that I am the top 1st writer in the category, and I managed to get to that position fairly quickly. This tells me, it's a niche yet to be tapped. I intend to do that to the best of my LEGO building abilities!

With the new official LEGO shop opening in Dublin, Ireland in just a few weeks, it makes even more sense as I can form a good relationship with the local staff and eventually get sets from LEGO on loan to build and review, rather than just buying them, which while an excellent investment, it isn't the cheapest one in terms of upfront cost.

A long-term investment

Speaking of investment, I am well-aware this will be a long-term game. The good news for me is that LEGO is a sound investment either way. It appreciates in value better than gold itself, and you also get to play with it.

Having said that, I expect the true returns of these efforts will show maybe in 2–3 years. That's entirely fine by me, though. In fact, if I manage to just cancel out my LEGO costs by writing about LEGO, that will already be good enough for me, as it will not only keep feeding my hobby and countless hours of fun for free, but also lands me with a sizeable collection that will always have a better sale value than its initial cost. Even adjusted for inflation, my current used collection is valued at over 200% of its initial retail value.

Other intended side effects

Of course, Bricks n' Brackets is more than just LEGO, so I foresee some side effects of this publication becoming a focus of mine. First of all, all my Drunk Tech Takes are being moved to Bricks n' Brackets. They were never part of any other publication anyway, so this is an easy lift-and-shift. Other previously released tech articles that I never submitted to any other publication are also getting a home on Bricks n' Brackets.

Another aspect I am trying to improve with this publication is the reliance on other publications such as Codex, Illumination, and Level Up Coding. While they're outstanding publications, I have seen others close up shop in the past, like HackerNoon. I intend to rely less and less on these publications going forward, even if that might initially cost me up to 30% of my monthly revenue. I believe that with a high enough number of organic readers, shifting focus to a publication that I own and control will retrain the algorithm and distribution will be just as good as before. In fact, 90% of my articles already get distributed before they even get accepted into a publication, so I really have no reasons to worry.

Bricks n' Brackets is just as much a passion project as it is a branding statement. It's the next logical and mature step in my writing journey, and you are more than welcome to join. 🤗

So, that's Bricks n' Brackets for you. I hope you'll find a reason to follow either me or the publication, or both! Over the coming months, I will add carefully selected writers, so the content will be a tad more diverse than it is today. Andrew Gribben has already joined as a writer and wrote a very interesting piece on some Beta features that Apple released at WWDC 2022! A lot more content coming soon, so stay tuned!

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!