A Message from Eliska Jezkova, CEO of BrickLink.com

To The BrickLink Community:

I thank all of you for sticking with BrickLink for the past nearly three years since my son Daniel passed away. When Dan died, I wanted his vision and life’s work that was and is BrickLink to live on. It has lived on, with many thanks to all of you who have supported the website since Dan left us.

I remember the beginning, when Dan was piecing together LEGO parts and information and coding what would become the early version of BrickBay, in our garage apartment in Kailua, Hawaii. That was nearly 14 years ago. He would often “bounce off me” his ideas of what he considered critical to listing, searching and buying and selling LEGO. Eventually Dan made possible the emergence of a huge, worldwide community of fellow builders, creators and playful souls.

When it came time to change “BrickBay” to something else, we gathered a list of available domains in 2002. I picked “BrickLink” as my choice for a best alternative. Dan agreed, and so it is today. Once I offered to take a more active role in his online business, more in jest than anything else. He grinned and said, “No, Mom, you’ll just raise the fees.” Well, I never raised the fees. (Dan just smiled.) Better to stay true to what I think Dan wanted for the Community and what he felt obligated to provide to so many people who rely on BrickLink, for their hobbies, for their livelihoods, for their sheer simple enjoyment.

With the help of Larry Hawthorne, general manager, “Admin” Eric Smith and a team of volunteer administrators, along with a worldwide community of many thousands of LEGO AFOL enthusiasts, BrickLink has been able to endure and even grow. Certainly there have been problems and yet we have made progress. Dan’s tenure with his beloved BrickLink came to an end September 24, 2010. I, his mother, have tried to carry it on in his place.

The last three years have been a very personal journey for me. Our struggles to bring better security, improve performance and restore functionality – a price paid for that security – was tinged with knowing many of the investments we were making through outside technical support were practically invisible to the folks on BrickLink. Our failings, where they occurred, were made clear to us, and we responded every time to try to correct things if we could. That is an on-going process.

I chose to remain behind the scenes and not go public until today. But I could not say, “Thank you” in any other way. Thank you for understanding, and thank you for your patience. Trust me when I say there are better times ahead for BrickLink and every member of our Community. Thank you for continuing to be a member of that Community.

So I am here and I am looking forward to hearing from those of you who remember Dan, who would have been 36 years old this coming June 25. I’d love to hear your own thoughts about BrickLink and what this worldwide marketplace means to you. Dan’s vision is something I’ve tried to share with all of you this past three years. I’d love to hear more and I can be reached at: eliska (at) bricklink.com.

Sincerely,

Eliska Jezkova