The Story of Figventory

Right off the bat... thank you for being here. Whether you found this page through a guide, a Reddit post, or a friend, the fact that you're reading the story behind this thing means a lot to me. Truly. It's one that hits close to home and that is deeply meaningful to me.

The Beginning: So many blocks

If you look through my family photo albums you'll see a theme. Blocks. There are dozens of photos of me as a tiny child standing next to some block tower I constructed that is taller than I was, and at least a few of me very seriously hammering a nail into a piece of wood at an age where some might argue, I shouldn't have had a hammer! Suffice it to say, I've been a builder and tinkerer in one way or another for as long as I can remember.

LEGOS: Safer than Hammers

As I started to get a little older, and learned that tools can be used both to build... and destroy, I think my parents began to rethink their philosophy on whether or not access to hammers was in my best interest. It was around this time that my parents surprised me with a safer way to build, my first LEGO set, the Black Seas Barracuda (6285) and I was immediately hooked. Next up was the Forestmen's River Fortress (6077) and for the next 6-7 years our home was filled with LEGO. I wonder to this day whether my parents regretted taking the hammer out of my hands every time they stepped barefoot on the bricks I left on the floor.

Around 12 or 13, as Skateboarding and adolescent rebellion grabbed my attention, I slowly drifted away from LEGO and before I knew it MANY YEARS passed before I was reminded of how much I loved LEGO and how important its role in my life would be.

Brick in My Stomach

2020 through 2025 was easily the hardest stretch of my life for many more reasons than I can list here. But the biggest reason was watching helplessly while we cared for my Mother who was in the final stages of her battle with Parkinson's and Dementia. In the final months of her life, when the world felt dark and it was exceedingly difficult to find comfort in anything, my wife's cousin randomly gave me a LEGO set to thank me for watching their dog (named Fish). It was a Technic set. The Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut Grey Hypercar (42173). One afternoon, home alone and not doing well, I opened the box and started building.

As the pieces clicked together something clicked in me. Building that set, I felt the most at peace I had felt in months. There was something about following the instructions and getting lost in each step that was deeply relieving. For the few hours while I was building that car, my mind calmed and my heart slowed. It was the first time, in a long time that I actually felt alright.

A week or so later, I was at my childhood home with my Dad and I started talking about the calm I felt building the set. As we talked he casually mentioned that my mother had been upset with him for throwing out my childhood LEGO years earlier. I hadn't thought of those sets in years, but I told him that I would have loved to dig through them if they were still around.

He paused, stood up and walked over to a corner of the living room and picked up a small bucket that I don't think I'd noticed for years. He brought it over to me, showed me what was inside and said, “This is all that I kept. I'm so glad I kept this bit because anytime we've had kids over since you guys left the house, we've poured these out and played with them.”

So we did the only thing that made sense. We poured them out all over the floor. That night, we sat there together. My sister, my Father and I, sifting through the loose pieces, pulling out minifigures and trying to figure out who they were and which sets they came from. We used Google Lens to try to figure it out, but mostly we just guessed. It didn't really matter. For those few hours we were laughing, remembering, and thinking about Mom. It's a moment that I'll never forget and the lightest any of us had felt in a long time.

Sorting through Grief

In my Mother's final days, we stood vigil at her side. After days of spending hour upon hour, wondering when her final moments might come, I was exhausted and running on fumes. On the afternoon before her passing, I needed a break, got in the car and just...drove. I somehow ended up passing an annual 5-block long garage sale on Fair Oaks Street in San Francisco. Driving by, I looked out the window and saw a kid around 12-13, standing by a HUGE clear bin of LEGO. I pulled over, walked up to the kid and his Mother and asked if they were sure they wanted to get rid of it (relaying my own experience). They assured me they did and $70 later I was lugging a 40-pound bin of bulk LEGO back to my car.

My Mother passed away the next day, early in the morning on the Sunday of May 11th, 2025. Mother's Day.

In the weeks to come, my Dad and I sat together for hours, sorting through that bin of LEGO, seeing what figures were hiding inside and being together as we grieved. Once we got through that bin, I immediately found another bulk lot (and then another...and another) so that we could keep sorting (literally) through our grief.

We found a lot in those bins. Peace, comfort, connection, tears, laughter.... And SO MANY minifigures and their loose parts. Another thing we found... identifying minifigures, checking to see if they had the right parts and figuring out what you could build from loose parts was... wildly time consuming at best and impossible at worst.

Figventory's Foundation

In the months that followed, I can't even begin to describe the amount of time I spent trying to identify, complete and build minifigures from loose parts. I spent countless hours (honestly probably well over 100) sitting in front of my computer trying to unpack and price the minifigures I discovered. Finding Brickognize was a game changer, but even with the power of accurate identification at my fingertips, identifying parts and minifigures one at a time was brutally slow. I wanted a better way and so I started creating a workflow for myself to save time.

Over the next six months, using scripts I wrote (mostly after midnight) I refined a process that allowed me to identify multiple photos of a single part at once and then tracked them in spreadsheets. It was a solid foundation, but I still wanted something more: the ability to process 100's of parts or figs from a single photo, tell me every figure I could build from my loose parts, and verify which figs were complete or missing parts without hours of manual cross checking. Honestly, I became obsessed with making it easier.

And so began a journey that consumed my nights and weekends (really any spare time outside of work and normal life) to building and thinking through a better way to sort minifigures. 16-hour days, nights, working on the weekends... it was A LOT — and it all felt worth it. That journey led to launching a Beta, meeting the most incredible group of LEGO enthusiasts, getting incredible feedback from likeminded minifigure maniacs and finally launching Figventory.

The way LEGO has reentered my life, connected me to my family and so many incredible people, and brought calm amidst the storm of life is a gift I never saw coming. And one I am truly grateful for.

Dedicated to my Mom and Dad

The last thing I want to close with is dedicating this site to my Mother who introduced and then led me back to LEGO in the most profound way, and to my Father who still sits and sorts with me to this day.

Thanks for reading all this and I truly hope that Figventory helps you with your collecting, reselling or whatever else might have brought you here :)

— Matt