Doug Phares sits on BAM’s marketing advisory council and sells its new franchisees a $995 course that promises to teach what corporate won’t. He is running his own kind of marketing campaign.
The course is called “Solid Start for Bricks and Minifigs Franchisees.” Its seller’s website says “We Teach What the Franchisor Cannot.” Its brochure says “You will run out of cash.” It is sold on the platform of the training company BAM’s disclosure document requires every new owner to pay. Its instructor owns three Florida stores, and the stores have been doing some marketing of their own. In July, in the middle of a story about a U-Haul and a Star Wars collection, one posted a rented truck heaped with Star Wars sets. On September 15 another posted a bird and the words “we keep looking for the family of this little guy.” Eleven days earlier BAM’s head of marketing had given the company’s second account of where a plaintiff’s pet bird went.
PRIMARY SOURCEthe course listing, its thirty-lesson table of contents and its brochure; the seller’s own site, under the heading “We Teach What the Franchisor Cannot”CONFIRMEDBAM’s 2026 disclosure document requires new franchisees to take “Wizbang or equivalent training,” estimated at $2,500; WhizBang’s own platform sells the Phares courseCONFIRMEDthe Clearwater, Brandon and St. Petersburg stores are one company, Bricktopia Tampa Bay, Inc.; its officers are Douglas, Margaret and Connor PharesPRIMARY SOURCEthe truck post, as shown and read aloud in EchoBaseNetwork’s video the day it went up; the bird post, live on the St. Petersburg store’s Instagram, with a laptop in the photograph whose clock reads “Sat Sep 5”INFERENCEthat the two posts are aimed at the people BAM is fighting: two posts, one owner, each built on the most specific image in the story, each when that image was hottest
The council member
Doug Phares is not an owner who wandered into a fight. By his own LinkedIn profile he spent thirty years in newspapers: Copley, Boone, then Sandusky Newspapers in Ohio. He was publisher of the Sandusky Register and, from 2011 to 2019, the group’s chief executive: “a privately held $100 million firm with 1,000+ employees, operating in 12 regional markets.” His headline today reads “Strategy Consultant / Board Member / Re-Directed CEO.” He knows what a caption does.
He sits on BAM’s marketing advisory council. BAM’s disclosure document describes one advisory council, the one that advises on the advertising fund, and says how a franchisee gets onto it.
“Membership of the Advisory Council is determined by appointment by us. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we have the power to select and approve the members and to form, change, dissolve or merge the Advisory Council.”
“The Advisory Council will not be separately incorporated, and therefore, it will not have any written documents.”
BAM holds him up. On May 21, the day the company published its first statement about the consignment, Franchising.com ran his column: “From Owner-Operator to Multi-Unit Leader: The Mindset Shift Franchisees Must Make.” It ends with the line “Doug Phares is a multi-unit franchisee with Bricks & Minifigs.” BAM’s official LinkedIn account promoted it: “Doug brings firsthand experience in building and leading within the franchise model, making these insights especially relevant for current and aspiring franchise owners.” The most-liked thing under BAM’s post is a reader’s comment about Oregon, with about four times the reactions of the post.
The course
In May 2025 Phares and a Sandusky attorney, Kula Hoty Lynch, formed LaunchWell Strategies, LLC in St. Petersburg. His profile describes the customer: “We start when you choose a franchise and get you to corporate training, READY TO LEARN your new business.” LaunchWell sells one program, and its website sends buyers to one place to enroll. The listing there is titled “Solid Start for Bricks and Minifigs Franchisees.” Thirty lessons. Six and a half hours. “Starting at $995.”
Where it is sold matters. BAM’s 2026 disclosure document tells every buyer: “You will be required to attend a retail training program… We currently utilize the Wizbang retail training course as part of this program.” It prices that training at $2,500. WhizBang! Retail Training runs an online platform called Brilliance, and the Phares course is on it. A new owner sent by BAM’s own paperwork to BAM’s required training vendor finds, on that vendor’s shelf, a second course with Bricks and Minifigs in its name, taught by a member of BAM’s advisory council. BAM’s disclosure document mentions neither LaunchWell nor the course.
The pitch is that BAM’s training leaves the important part out.
“The Unseen Challenge: We Teach What the Franchisor Cannot.”
“Business Skills Crucial to Success NOT INCLUDED.”
“Franchisors give you a proven playbook to operate their concept. They do not and cannot advise on the many critical business skills you must master to be successful. We do.”
“Even with a franchise, common pitfalls like unexpected undercapitalization, cash flow challenges, inadequate management skills, or overlooked lease complexities remain top reasons for business failure.”
The table of contents says which part.
Chapter 1, lesson 2: “Bricks and Minifigs Special Extras.”
Chapter 1, as described: “understand the critical challenges of undercapitalization and unforeseen costs… set clear expectations regarding the boundaries of franchisor support.”
Chapter 2: “What Your Franchiser Won’t Do For You.” “Decoding the Franchise Agreement.”
Chapter 3, bonus content: “How to Read a Balance Sheet.” “How to Read a P&L.” “Proforma Workshop.”
Chapter 4, seven lessons on the lease: “even a tiny oversight can compound into a loss of $10,000 to $20,000.”
Look at when the buyer gets it. The listing calls the program “the needed bridge between signing your agreement and opening your doors.” The brochure says LaunchWell “operates in the critical gap between Signing the Franchise Agreement and Opening Day.”
A lesson called “Decoding the Franchise Agreement,” sold to people who have already signed it.
“Franchisor training focuses on operating their business. What it does not prepare you for is mastering skills and strategies as a new owner… This knowledge gap is the single greatest risk to a strong start.”
“You will run out of cash. Every business does at some point. The business ‘plan’ your bank wants is not the answer.”
“What day do you run out of cash?”
“We learned the hard way, you don’t have to.”
Phares opened his first franchise store in April 2024. It was a Bricks & Minifigs.
Set the course beside what BAM puts in front of the same buyer. The disclosure document’s cost table allows “Additional Funds, 3 Months” of $45,000 to $110,000 inside a total of $303,500 to $597,500. Its sales page leads with a revenue figure fewer than half its stores reached. A former BAM recruiter has said the screen to buy a franchise was whether you could use the software. Then a member of BAM’s own advisory council charges the people BAM just signed $995. For that they get a lesson on how to read a profit and loss statement, a chapter on “the boundaries of franchisor support,” and a brochure that asks what day they run out of cash.
The course page carries testimonials by first name. One is “Connor (Franchisee, Florida).” The Florida registry lists Connor Phares as a director of his father’s store company, and the local press calls him Doug Phares’s son and partner. LaunchWell gives no surname.
His own kind of marketing campaign
Phares’s stores do their own marketing, on their own pages. Twice since July it has landed on the sorest spot in the story.
The truck. On July 9 the Facebook page of Bricks & Minifigs Clearwater posted a photograph of the inside of a rented box truck, loaded loose to the ceiling with new-in-box LEGO, most of it Star Wars.
By July the public story of Bricks & Minifigs was a story about U-Hauls and a Star Wars collection: Bryan Mansell’s consigned sets, the store BAM took in Oregon, and the trucks that left it.
“This entire controversy with Reckless Ben, Bryan Mansell’s collection, all of it involved a U-Haul truck riding away with the collection owned by Bryan Mansell. That is a major part of the controversy. So, here is a local franchise posting a U-Haul truck full of LEGO sets. Really?… I am of the opinion that this is definitely a troll post. If I happen to be wrong about that, Bricks & Minifigs Florida needs to clear that up.”
Only accounts that had followed the page for more than a day could comment, EchoBaseNetwork noticed. The photograph of the truck was later taken down and replaced with one of Star Wars sets in the store’s party room. Three weeks before the post, Phares’s leadership column had told its readers that “making the wrong decision is not a problem. How you react and deal with that result is what makes you a leader.”
The bird. On September 15 the Instagram account of Bricks & Minifigs St. Petersburg posted a photograph of a grey cockatiel standing on a laptop keyboard.
There is a bird in this story, and a family looking for it. Tattle belonged to Chrystal Law and lived in her Salem store. He was there the night BAM took the store in November 2024. BAM’s chief executive later said the bird was “taken to a no-kill shelter.” On September 4 BAM’s head of marketing, Katelyn Fagan, wrote that it “was taken in by a vet to be rehomed, kinda like Ammon said months ago,” and linked the clip in which he says something else. This site set the two accounts side by side that day, and a creator’s live stream that night carried Tattle’s name in its title. Chrystal Law is a plaintiff in the racketeering case against BAM.
Look at the laptop. It is open to the store’s own Facebook and Instagram management screen, and the clock in the corner of that screen reads Sat Sep 5, 12:27 PM.
The picture was taken the day after the head of marketing’s answer. It was posted ten days later.
In life, the family is looking for the bird. In the post, the store is looking for the family.
Two pages, one owner
A reader who saw the truck in July saw “Bricks & Minifigs Clearwater.” A reader who saw the bird in September saw “Bricks and Minifigs | St. Petersburg,” a store BAM’s 2026 disclosure document lists under other owners: “Jacob Goldburg and Melinda Rokoz,” as BAM spells them. The state spells them Jake A. Goldberg and Melinda J. Rokosz, managers of Brick & Mortar FL LLC, which still holds the fictitious name “BRICKS & MINIFIGS ST. PETERSBURG.”
On August 25 the St Pete Catalyst reported that acquiring the store “was a logical next step for their Bricktopia Tampa Bay company.” The article does not say when the store closed, why, or on what terms it changed hands. Phares told the paper why he wanted it.
“We’d like to be able to move products back and forth and do a lot of marketing and events between the two. The more we talked about that, the more it just became apparent that we need to own both.”
Bricktopia Tampa Bay, Inc. is a Florida corporation filed in September 2023. Its president and registered agent is Douglas Phares; its directors are Douglas, Margaret and Connor Phares. BAM’s disclosure document lists “Doug Phares” as the franchisee in Clearwater and in Brandon, and the company holds the fictitious names for both stores. On September 15, the day of the bird post, it registered a third: “BRICKS AND MINIFIGS ST PETE.” The truck and the bird came from different pages and the same hand. Facebook’s transparency line lists BAM Franchising, Inc. as the party responsible for each of the three pages (Clearwater, Brandon, St. Petersburg), as it does for other stores’ pages this site has looked at.
Under his own name
Phares writes a column on leadership, which the course biography links as “his blog.” It has never mentioned Bricks & Minifigs, a consigned collection, or a bird. In August, the month he took over St. Petersburg, it said this.
“A leader is a protector of systems, serving to keep them normal for as long as possible… Even when things are crazy, a leader can’t show how upset or unsettled they are, even when they’re really upset and unsettled. Instead, your job is to provide stability in the chaos.”
The columns go out under his name. The truck and the bird went out under the stores’. All of it is his.
The fair reading, and its limit. Stores receive truckloads of stock, and Phares told the Catalyst he wants to move product between his stores. Cockatiels get loose in Florida, and the bird in the photograph is not Tattle. Neither post names anyone, and Phares has not said what either meant; what they were for is this site’s inference from two posts, one owner and the dates. Nothing on a public page shows BAM sending its new franchisees to the course or sharing in its revenue. The ownership, the dates, the council language and every word of the course are on public pages. Everyone named is presumed to have acted lawfully, and the accusations at the center of the wider case remain unadjudicated allegations.
Sources. LaunchWell Strategies, its brochure, and the course listing on WhizBang’s Brilliance platform. BAM Franchising, Inc., 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document: Item 7 and its notes, Item 11, Exhibit F. Florida Division of Corporations: Bricktopia Tampa Bay, Inc., document P23000065336, and its fictitious-name registrations, the newest filed September 15, 2026; LaunchWell Strategies, LLC, L25000227291; Brick & Mortar FL LLC, L23000117883. Doug Phares’s LinkedIn profile, his Franchising.com column, BAM’s official LinkedIn post promoting it, and his leadership columns of June 16 and August 4, 2026. The Clearwater post as shown in EchoBaseNetwork’s video, July 9, 2026. The St. Petersburg store’s Instagram post. St Pete Catalyst, August 25, 2026. On Tattle: here. On the U-Hauls: here and here. On the council BAM appoints and the fund it advises on: here and here.