by Nickolay Lamm, Founder

Before Teleplay, I founded Lammily, a doll company.

You may have seen it when it went viral in 2014 for making the world's first realistically proportioned fashion doll.

I became so acquainted with the toy world that it became blatantly obvious that toys are on their way out, UNLESS they can be integrated with technology in a seamless way. 

So I spent months working on my idea for a green screen studio for toys and released it on Kickstarter in December 2019.

But it was a complete and utter failure. After 6 months of working on it and good money spent on it, I remember breaking down in my office and giving someone a hug when it dawned on me that the Kickstarter would fail. Something I never did in a work setting.  

Maybe I was crazy for thinking my new idea could actually work? 

Maybe I was just a one trick pony and my company’s days were very much numbered because of that? 

Maybe the fact that I had never written a line of code finally caught up to me? 

In early 2020 my personal life became a living nightmare. 

A friend of mine died in a tragic accident and shortly after, my best friend, my grandmother died as well. 

Trying to bring back to life this simple idea gave me a purpose when it seemed that everything around me was falling apart. 

There was no plan B, I HAD to make it work.

I remember reading somewhere that if I just work, then it’s hard to feel sad, because my mind can’t think of two things at the same time. And maybe that’s what I subconsciously did.

In the past 2 years I look back, I sold 15,000 of the same product, which initially got no interest whatsoever, with no outside investment or partners. 

I get emails from parents saying their kids are playing with it for hours. I get thank you emails from parents of autistic children, who love it. 

If you had told me last year that that was what would happen, after my Kickstarter failed, I would have given anything for that. 

If the universe can create such awful events which, statistically, almost never happen. Then I can create my own events, which, statistically, should never happen as well.  

If I can uncover a truth which nobody else saw, I can say to myself that no matter how numbingly painful or boring life can be at times, there’s always something amazing worth fighting for. 

All I have to do is try.