Storie Titus: 0:17

Welcome back to Market it with Atma, where we share the tips, tools and strategies to help your business be successful. We share the tips, tools and strategies to help your business be successful. I'm your host Story and today we have on the show Oliver Parr with Modern Brick House. Welcome, oliver, thank you for having me. You have a very unique e-commerce product that you've brought to our attention today. Can you tell us kind of about what it is you do the business and what inspired you to create it?

Oliver Parr: 0:44

Yeah, so I've been building Lego my entire life. That was one of the things that my parents put in my hands at a very early age, and it's just escalated from there. And then, after about eight years of working while continuing to still build Lego, I decided to branch off and start designing my own sets.

Storie Titus: 1:06

Wow. So when you say your own sets what is kind of the framework behind the business, the kind of creativity behind it. And it's not just you in the business, right, you have a partner in the business, yes, my business partner Gabe, so he is the e-commerce side.

Oliver Parr: 1:25

I gotcha and then I focus on product development and and that connection that we have with our customers right, that's one of the other, just big things, that that we, when it comes to the idea behind the company, there we have sets that we sell, but at at the same time, the difference that we wanted to portray was that and actually there's a story that just tells us even better, right. So we started.

Oliver Parr: 1:56

I met Gabe on a plane and after meeting him, I pitched him the idea for the products. He told me about his e-commerce background and two weeks later we started putting all of this stuff together.

Storie Titus: 2:07

Well as you can.

Oliver Parr: 2:08

Imagine that that was my turn to show what I knew that I could do which was build these sets right. So I started building the very first product and I built this product probably 50 to 60 different ways and every single time I kept going like, okay, well, what if I did it this way?

Oliver Parr: 2:28

This looks good, but then I could also do it this way. Well, this way would be better for instructions, but this way looks better. And so I kept going back and forth and I was just building a tree. I was building a bonsai tree, like it was very simple, but there were just so many because they're Lego bricks. It's like there's so many different ways that you can put it together. And so because of that, as I was going through that, I was like wait they all look good. None of them are the same. Why?

Storie Titus: 2:58

not have a?

Oliver Parr: 2:58

product be based on that exact same ideology, and so, because of that, we started the canvas. The canvas is actually the main product. It is a completely built out of bricks, no glue. It hangs up on the wall, it's sturdy, it's durable, but from there it's a canvas that has endless opportunity for it, because from there now all of our customers that have our canvas.

Oliver Parr: 3:24

We know the bricks that they have and so, because of that, we can now change out that picture on the inside with new sets. So what people don't know and this is probably the first time that we're really announcing this and making it public but, like right now on our website, you see moss gardens. Well, here in the next couple of months it's going to transition and you're going to see canvases and add-on sets, and the moss is actually an add-on set because the true product itself is the canvas.

Storie Titus: 3:56

Wow. So how do you identify with such a niche market? How do you find this audience for this creative design? Because it's no age range, right?

Oliver Parr: 4:08

It's no age range, but we actually didn't have to go out and find people. Our highest traffic driver is natural search results.

Storie Titus: 4:19

Really yes. People looking for Legos, people looking for Home decor toys, home decor toys, home decor toys.

Oliver Parr: 4:26

So after COVID the toy market increased. I think it was above 30% and most of those were adults buying toys for adults.

Storie Titus: 4:36

They were bored.

Oliver Parr: 4:37

They were bored, I think it also kind of stems back to the idea that people are having children later nowadays. It used to be that when you had kids that's when you're buying them toys you get to play with them too. And everybody kept coming over to my apartment and saying hey Oliver, do you have kids? She's like, no, I'm a child.

Oliver Parr: 5:00

I just had all of these Lego sets in my apartment and that's when I also realized I was just kind of like okay, I think it's cool to have a Disney castle just sitting in my living room, but when I moved in with my girlfriend, Hannah, she didn't think that the Disney castle deserved to be in the living room.

Storie Titus: 5:17

With no kids around.

Oliver Parr: 5:19

At the same time it was justifiable, right, the same time it was justifiable, right. But that was when I knew and I told her I was just like, if I can create something that is completely made out of bricks, that can go in the living room and not only look good but be an art staple piece, can we put it in the living room? She said absolutely, and that was where this transition went to. Why do things just have? Why does a toy have to look like a toy?

Storie Titus: 5:46

wow. So really, your, your bottom line and your debate to settle that debate is what inspired this whole thing, which is wonderful because it's it's so beautiful you've sucked me in from the get-go. Um, beautiful for weddings, beautiful for bouquets of. Just to keep it forever is a huge thing, but it's not hard. It requires enough brain power, it seems like, to keep people interested and stimulate your mind To your point. People weren't just bored, they wanted something that's going to stimulate them, but not too much, right.

Oliver Parr: 6:24

It's kind of like taking it back to the event that we met one another at right, it was the brick lug event right, and there were a lot of kids there. They were all playing and they took to it so naturally, like I put a bunch of bricks just out on the table and the kids just went nuts, right.

Oliver Parr: 6:40

And one of the things that I think about is like when it comes to adults. Nowadays, the Lego sets that Lego comes out with, they have transitioned over to focusing on adults, and one of that means they come out with very beautiful pieces that are staples for the living room. They are staples and they still have that aspect, but they don't have the play portion. The play portion yeah because once you build it, you put it up.

Storie Titus: 7:10

That's true. I didn't think about that. That's really true.

Oliver Parr: 7:13

Our set is designed to be taken off the wall, redesigned and then put back up. Wow, because at the end of the day, for adults it's one thing to build something. It's another thing to be able to build something and, as you're building it and following those instructions, to see other ways that it could have been. Wow Because that was the biggest thing for me growing up, like I would build something, and as I was halfway through, I was just like, wait, I could put that there.

Storie Titus: 7:42

Yeah.

Oliver Parr: 7:42

And this would make this look like that and that would just be. I'm not saying cooler, but like. To me it was just like that was. Those were the things like thinking past the instructions. So curate to create is our motto. We curate the set so that you guys can create whatever comes to your mind, which is the reason why we teach you how to build the canvas.

Storie Titus: 8:07

Okay.

Oliver Parr: 8:08

And then, once the canvas is built, we teach you how to build all of the sub-models for the moss and we provide you with all of the pieces, but we don't tell you exactly where to put it. So no two moss gardens actually look the same.

Storie Titus: 8:21

It's kind of like painting with a twist. I know I've heard of that. You paint the exact same picture, but everyone's is different and in your sense, you get to recreate it as much as you'd like. At Advent Trinity, we use the build, launch, grow scale. So how do you take that creative mind and how do you entice your audience through your digital presence? How do you get them to feel what you feel and how do you get them to be creative with something they really need in their hands?

Oliver Parr: 8:51

That was one of the questions that we had to answer. That was one of the big things that, like we were talking earlier, right, it's like I knew that content was going to be a part of this and I knew, like, in person, it's very easy to be able to show somebody the creativity and allow for them to have it in their hands, but before they actually have it, before they touch it, before they feel it, how do you get that? And I think, for me, the biggest thing that I learned was authenticity. The second if you are trying to shoot content, people see that you are trying to shoot content, especially when it's very new.

Storie Titus: 9:27

Right.

Oliver Parr: 9:28

Right, but some of the time, some of the, the content that not only I had the most fun creating, but also that that because so Gabe takes content as well as me.

Storie Titus: 9:40

Right.

Oliver Parr: 9:41

Gabe focuses on the content that is very product related. Mine is my studio, mine is chaos, mine is bricks everywhere, mine and, and every now and then there's some beautiful pieces in there as the studio continues to come together. But it was when we actually had the product too, because it was something that we had to learn like this was something. The product came out a year ago and it wasn't just one product, it was technically 10 products wow because the moss garden comes in five different sizes.

Oliver Parr: 10:17

And then we also have flower add-on sets, right? So those flower add-on sets each one of those had to be made and you had to have instructions. You had to made and you had to have instructions. You had to have packaging, you had to have the manufacturing for it, and so, instead of just starting with one product, we really started with 10 products all launched at the same time, and so, throughout the course of automation systems, strategic partnerships right.

Storie Titus: 10:49

How has Modern Brickhouse prepared for that rapid growth and what measures are you taking to ensure your success?

Oliver Parr: 10:56

When it comes to the scale portion, we instantly started going into affiliates. Affiliates were going to be huge for us because not only was that a part of growing our business, but it was also getting a lot of feedback, because the affiliates were the first ones to build the product. We sent them the product, they built it and we got to see because going back to the instructions curate to create is something new. There's that saying that if somebody goes to your website and they don't know exactly what you want them to do within the first five seconds, they're more than likely going to do something different than what you want them to do.

Storie Titus: 11:37

That's so true in this digital world now, yeah.

Oliver Parr: 11:39

And so, because of that, I had to make instructions that didn't tell them exactly what to do, but give them enough to know what to do so that they did it on their own and so, instantly, the feedback that we got back was okay. These are what our instructions say to do. This is the moss garden that we're seeing from our affiliates, and so that, in scale, that was not only helping us from a get out in front of people.

Oliver Parr: 12:07

And on Easter Day this past year we had an 11 million view video. That was one of our first affiliates and that sold out our entire product that we thought would last us for the entire year.

Storie Titus: 12:19

Wow, that is incredible. It's almost like you created focus groups from the affiliates to get their feedback. That's wonderful and it's a very smart strategy, right.

Oliver Parr: 12:30

And it's also fun too, because we went out into different sectors. So one of the things that we actually did was we did not use any Lego affiliates and we did not market to anybody that was a anybody within the Lego demographic. We did not market to them in the beginning, specifically because of the fact that we knew that those were the people that were really going to tell us how good our product was.

Oliver Parr: 12:57

They build Lego all the time, and so because of that, like we didn't, I went, even though we could have been ready. I wanted to make sure that we really had everything dialed in before we started focusing on the Lego market.

Storie Titus: 13:09

Wow.

Oliver Parr: 13:10

And so we were focusing on not even our largest demographic and we had a video that went viral. That wasn't even our video. Somebody made it after creating the product and you could tell it was an authentic video. Yes, and from there that helped us sell out there Through that. This is when I was boxing and bagging everything in my apartment, and so, again, we were planning on having this over the course of the next year.

Storie Titus: 13:36

Right.

Oliver Parr: 13:37

I had to have everything done within, like the next month. Oh my gracious and so, going from Oliver being focused on product and content, went from that to Oliver is now bagging, boxing and shipping out all of these orders. Otherwise we're going to have unhappy customers, Wow.

Storie Titus: 13:57

So now you've grown from your garage or your house, right we?

Oliver Parr: 14:01

have a full, brilliant fulfillment. It's actually our fulfillment center over in Flower Mound. Wow, and we so. We met them. Gabe was just driving back from his house one day on his way to our place and we were just looking. We weren't even thinking that we were ready for a fulfillment center at the time. And he drove by, he saw Brilliant Fulfillment. The sign Funny enough, they told us, they put that sign up like a few weeks beforehand.

Oliver Parr: 14:31

So had that sign not even been there, we wouldn't have seen it. We went in and we got to meet with everybody and we started almost like a mentorship program with them, because they told us their backstory it's a completely woman-owned business and she said that somebody gave them space in order to build out her business. And we told her we were like we don't think we're going to be ready for another year for a fulfillment center.

Oliver Parr: 14:53

But, if you can give us a little bit of space to do some stuff, get my stuff out of my garage, get it out of, and then maybe we can start working together earlier. And we were able to start working with them a month and a half later.

Storie Titus: 15:06

Wow, that's incredible. So the collaboration and really having that partnership with Gabe, with the people that you're just randomly running into, has been a huge strategy and really helped your business by building strong relationships, right.

Oliver Parr: 15:22

Absolutely.

Storie Titus: 15:23

It's funny how you fall into it. It's almost like it was supposed to happen, everything lined up just right. So what are the plans for the future for BrickHouse?

Oliver Parr: 15:33

Modern BrickHouse. So I am currently in hardcore R&D for product development. We have multiple products that are going to be coming out early next year.

Storie Titus: 15:46

January.

Oliver Parr: 15:47

January. March Fair, fair First quarter, first quarter and that's because the cool part is I've had the past week and a half to really now that we're done with our big sales push. This was the first time that I had ever done Christmas before Thanksgiving. I'm sure you know this as a marketing agency. We had to have all of our Christmas content.

Storie Titus: 16:12

Three months ahead.

Oliver Parr: 16:13

Exactly, and so we've been celebrating Christmas in our household since before Thanksgiving, and so, after doing all of that, then now I'm able to. I've rearranged the studio, made it to where it's no longer really about content and it's completely focused on getting new products out, and so we had our first meeting yesterday, which I was able to present all of the new products that are in beta right now, and it went well it went very well, which is very cool, because again it's it's different it is, and that's one of those things that, again like showing it to my partners and and the people that are very close to us within the company.

Oliver Parr: 17:00

I I've had ideas for months, just not being able to act on them. Now, all of a sudden, it's that time and so now I'm just up in my workshop just sitting there, like you know, santa's taking his time off right now, and I'm sitting there working.

Storie Titus: 17:16

There's a little elf behind it all.

Oliver Parr: 17:18

Exactly.

Storie Titus: 17:19

What advice would you give to entrepreneurs wanting to start kind of an e-commerce whether it be anything, especially a creative niche, product, information or feedback can you give on what influences you need to be with, what collaborators you need to be with and how to really launch your digital presence with this?

Oliver Parr: 17:41

you want to make sure that you do it not only the way that you want to, but well, that is. That is the one thing that I that. That is the main advice. Like you, you have to trust your instincts, because there there were times throughout the past year and a half where I talk about it like my spider sense. If you couldn't tell, I'm a huge nerd and so, like, one of the things that I love is that a lot of superheroes have abilities or just they're different ways of expressing emotions and things that happen to us on a daily basis, just in ways that exaggerated a little bit more, so that we think about it in a different way. Right, absolutely. And.

Oliver Parr: 18:27

And there were times over the course of the past year, like, as you can imagine, when I told Gabe that we weren't going to be marketing to Lego people from an e-commerce perspective that's, that's our largest market, and so that's one of those things where, like, I knew and I just couldn't explain and there are a lot of times where you have that feeling where you know something but you don't fully know how to explain it. That doesn't mean that it's not, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have a big impact.

Storie Titus: 19:02

Right, trust your gut.

Oliver Parr: 19:04

Truly trust your gut. Truly trust your gut because that is one of and that's coming from a standpoint, obviously because decisions are one of those things where you have to start ending up making them. Absolutely and then I would say the other thing is, I know that I am a creative, I know that I have lots of ideas, but the thing is I needed somebody to be able creative, I know that.

Storie Titus: 19:28

I have lots of ideas, but the thing is, is I?

Oliver Parr: 19:29

needed somebody to be able to Reel them in Focus me in Right. Because I would not have been able to do the things that I did this past year without Gabe.

Storie Titus: 19:37

Because that's a good point. How do you plan to keep innovating this product in this business?

Oliver Parr: 19:44

So that, again going back to the canvas idea, right, so with the canvas, the entire idea behind this is now our clients, they all of our customers. We know what they have.

Storie Titus: 19:57

Right.

Oliver Parr: 19:58

And so, instead of having to buy a full new set, if you already have our large canvas and we come out with a new picture that goes on top of the large canvas, you don't have to pay the $350 to get the entire canvas and the moss garden.

Storie Titus: 20:15

Right.

Oliver Parr: 20:15

We're going to have add-on sets to where you can change it out seasonally.

Storie Titus: 20:19

That's what I was going to mention. You can go from oranges and browns to spring flowers. It's wonderful.

Oliver Parr: 20:26

The Four Seasons is the name of one of the products that will be coming out this upcoming year. It may not be exactly what you think it is, but again, just going back to that whole idea of curating to create right, it's like the fun part about it is. I do love home decor. I my parents were very big on decorating. They were also very big on hosting. I'm very big on functionality.

Oliver Parr: 20:52

I like things that have purpose. I like things that that make things easier and so at the same time, like for our first product, it was something that went on the wall. That is more decor, but it still had functionality to it, because the nice part is is, if I'm a parent and I have a kid, you know when you, your your child, draws something and you go and you put it up on the board or on the refrigerator. Now imagine that box of Legos that's sitting in the closet. You take the frame off the wall, let them play with it for an hour, and then you can just put it right back up.

Storie Titus: 21:30

I absolutely love the idea. It's inspirational almost because I have pictures in my office right now, but I would love something like what you have for my children to be able to create it, or even me to be able to create it and change.

Oliver Parr: 21:43

it would mean a lot to me and I think that one thing that has happened with products lately is ease and entertainment Ease of entertainment is something that people just grasp to now. Ease of entertainment is something that people just grasp to now. Right, it's like I could pick up a stick and figure out how to play with it, or I could just pull out my phone and I know instantly that I'm going to be entertained if I go through TikTok right.

Storie Titus: 22:13

Yep, that's true.

Oliver Parr: 22:15

But with this now, all of a sudden, it's like okay, instead of having a spinner in my hand right or one of those, like everybody has, fidget toys right. Legos, Sensory Bricks, Legos all of these things are sensory, but they also take creativity.

Storie Titus: 22:32

They do, they inspire creativity. It seems like.

Oliver Parr: 22:36

That is a result of playing with them, but, at the same time, if you don't have something that you can actually play with, if you just have something that has no interaction, has no input from your side, it's not going to produce anything. All it's doing is keeping you entertained, and so that's one of the reasons why, when I was working my first job, I would sit in the office and I would have Lego sets that I would just sit there and build while I was on the phone.

Storie Titus: 23:02

Wow.

Oliver Parr: 23:02

Because, as I was sitting there building, it was just sparking, it was energizing my brain and making it to where I was, just natural on the phone and could just come out and people didn't have to know that I was playing with Lego on the other side right?

Storie Titus: 23:17

Absolutely not, but it inspired that creativity and that's wonderful that you chose a route other than Lego, it's not just a toy. These are beautiful works of art that are so easy to manipulate, and I truly appreciate the inspiration that you had behind it, and I'm so glad you and Gabe created this business, because I think it's going to really, really take off even more. Can you share how anyone can reach out and maybe try one of the kits or the packets?

Oliver Parr: 23:45

Yeah, so if you go to modernbrickhousecom, all of our sets right now are available. Buy them, build them yourself. But then on top of that it is I think before the podcast you meant or weddings, stuff like that. The fun fun part is is we've designed a company that can do almost anything. It's just a matter of whether or not we have the time for it. Right, because I've been reached out to by people already wanting me to put together stuff for weddings. I had a piece in the World Trade Center for a year a few pieces actually and then I've had people ask for custom pieces and and and.

Oliver Parr: 24:27

We now are past that first year phase. We launched a product. We know how to do it. We just got our inventory order in for next year because and and it was fun, we were. I was on the call with yesterday and he was mentioning he was just like it still took time but it was so much easier than the first time. And so we're getting to the point now where we are on our second attempts, third attempts, fourth attempts, to the point where we're dialing things in and now have time to start doing other things, but again going back to honing in and focusing.

Oliver Parr: 25:04

I think one of the best things that could have happened is I'm very big on all different sales channels.

Oliver Parr: 25:13

If it were up to me, we would have been doing in-person stuff, we would have been doing in-store, we would have been doing all these different, different ideas that I have right but, honing in and just focusing on e-commerce allowed for us to truly not only get good at that one platform, but it allowed for us to take all that time back that we would have had to take going into all of those other different avenues and hone in and focus that just on product and all of the steps that that took, because that's such a good point.

Storie Titus: 25:46

Yeah, man, I love that. You guys. You really went through the build, launch, grow, scale and now you're in the scaling phase.

Oliver Parr: 25:52

It seems like I feel like we went through build launch scale at the same time. Wow, that was because I was building parts of the product as we were doing other things, and so I'm not saying that the order in which we did things was the correct order. But it doesn't matter, because it's done Absolutely, and that's where I think that just taking action, yeah, and it's great that you have two.

Storie Titus: 26:20

There's two of you. You can handle that creative side and the variety and he can handle that structure behind it. And I really think collaborating with people that are even opposite of you or somewhat interested in what you have is so important, because you have to have that different perspective. Like you mentioned, this is an item that you can have probably 30 different perspectives of and create from, and I think that's very important. In any especially e-commerce business. You have to be able to look at all areas that people are going to be interested in.

Oliver Parr: 26:52

Right, and that's, that's one of the reasons why I do just, I believe that find what you're good at, stick to it, because if you can do it better than most, then there's a reason right. But that doesn't mean that you don't have those other areas that are not requirements right, they're vital, and so, because of that, that's one of the reasons why I call it fate, call it whatever you want, but again, just thinking back to the story of how we met and how these things came to be, it's like it was all aligned.

Storie Titus: 27:28

We're here now from a compromise to a random meeting, and now you're here and it's a beautiful thing what you've done. So please everyone, not only on your website, but do you have social media platforms?

Oliver Parr: 27:41

Yes, so Instagram, tiktok, it's all at Modern Brickhouse.

Storie Titus: 27:47

I would encourage everyone to go. Look at those. Any last thoughts or any advice you'd like to give our listeners before we go?

Oliver Parr: 27:55

The customer. Emotion is a bigger factor than I think a lot of people.

Oliver Parr: 28:04

Emotion is something that a lot of people don't think of nowadays, right, Because I worked in the restaurant industry for a very long time, and so I would hear people talking about customer service and just all of the different ways that you want to make sure that you have that best experience possible Right. But I do believe that people are starting to tilt more towards actually caring more about the feedback afterwards than focusing on the actual experience that the person is having during, and when you switch that thought process to focusing on what you're getting back afterwards, to what they actually feel at that time, you're going to be very happy with the end result. It's just transitioning. That, and then also I think that taking things seriously is is something that I love to remind people of.

Storie Titus: 28:57

Taking it seriously. What? What you do, just making? Sure that you're following through.

Oliver Parr: 29:01

Anything that you're doing, just take it seriously. Funny story is is like I, I have uh swords at my house. Um, they're, they're nothing, not metal, anything like that.

Oliver Parr: 29:13

They're literally just styrofoam nerf swords, right okay anytime somebody comes over, I I always pull them out and I always think it's funny because people they laugh at it the second they see it and then I toss it into their hands. They grab it and I hit them a few times and then all of a sudden there's a click that happens and they start taking it seriously. They actually start thinking about their footwork. They look at my sword and they actually start, and then at the end they always say that was the most fun I've had in a long time and all we did was take two nerf swords and swing them back and forth with one another.

Oliver Parr: 29:50

And I always tell people that at the beginning they weren't having fun. They were just kind of like oh this is silly, why am I doing this, like I'm taking. But then the second that they started actually taking it seriously, all of a sudden their perspective changed. They actually enjoyed what they were doing, Like they weren't even thinking about the actions that they were doing. They were literally just in the moment taking it seriously. And that's one of those things that I think about while I'm doing activities with work, while I'm doing activities with my family. Right, Like when you're currently doing something, take it seriously, Because if you're not taking what you're doing at that moment seriously, then you're wasting your time.

Storie Titus: 30:34

Wow, that's inspirational. I've never seen it from that perspective. Thank you for that and please, all of our listeners out there, take a look at this product. It's truly, truly amazing. If anything, it would be a good experience. We'll see you next time on Market it With Atma.