Lego Cuusoo: Free Kickstarting of Your Lego Ideas Where You Can Earn Money

Jun 6, 2012

Lego Cuusoo is a new innovative idea from the Lego Corporation. By signing up at the Lego Cuusoo website, you can vote for your support of various Lego projects developed by people from all over the world. Participants build a unique Lego model and then they submit them as a project on the Cuusoo site. The site has a Kickstarter type look to it, and you can look at all of the different projects that folks have submitted. If you like some of them, you can support them by clicking the “Support” button.

Once a project receives support from 10,000 people it will be reviewed by the Lego product development department on a quarterly basis. Lego says: “During the review, projects will be evaluated for brand fit (is it appropriate?), strategy fit (does it conflict with anything we’re producing?), business case (can we sell enough of them profitably at the necessary price point?), model design (can we make an appealing model that adheres to our standards?), and other criteria. Each project will be considered independently, but now we’ll review them at the same time.

At the end of the review, projects will either be approved or not approved based on how they fit our review criteria. When we announce the review results, we’ll also reveal the final production models for each approved project. We can then potentially pick one project per quarter to put into immediate production as the next LEGO CUUSOO set.This potential set is chosen based on strategic fit and the business case from the review.

The remaining projects that pass Review will be placed in a queue where they will await an open production slot and may be chosen for production at a later date. The order in which they are produced is also dependent on strategy and the business case for each. As the LEGO Group alone takes on the cost of production and associated risk, we will choose LEGO CUUSOO sets for production at our discretion.”

This means that Lego will choose at least one submitted project per quarter to produce, which is absolutely cool. Additionally Lego says: “If your project passes review and is chosen for production, you will receive 1% of the total net sales of the product.”

Did you read that? Lego will give 1% of the total net sales to the project developer!

You have to have the skill to put together your own marketable ideas to submit, but there are already several thousand projects on Cuusoo. It would probably help if there was a Lego store near you to pick up those hard to find pieces you might need.

The project has been in beta testing for the past six months, and actually is still in the beta stage. However, they have already reviewed and scheduled three projects for production. The latest is Lego Minecraft Micro World. This set was the first to reach the 10,000 supporter level, and will be released next week from Lego. It is available now for pre-order.

The set is based on the popular Minecraft game with the following description: “Help Steve survive his first night in a strange new world. Avoid the creeper and start mining for resources that will help you survive and thrive. Configure your four micro-scale LEGO Minecraft modules any way you like. Build your own mines and hills, and expand your world with multiple sets. Includes four LEGO Minecraft modules, hidden resources, extra pieces for wood, dirt, and stone, two “Micro Mobs;” Steve and a creeper.”

You can have your own creeper now, and build a Minecraft World in the real world, instead of a virtual one. Really a very good idea which is sure to sell well. The original project team worked with Lego designers to develop the final produced playset. It is available for around $35.oo.

This is really an excellent idea. Lego gets great ideas from fans, the fans get to see their ideas brought to life, and all of the risk is assumed by Lego. If the idea is good enough, you have the potential to make a nice chunk of change in the process.

Cuusoo is Japanese and is loosely translated as “Wish”.