One of the stereotypes about college students is that they are constantly struggling financially and often rely on their parents’ money to get by. Kolbie Foster, a linebacker for the Wayne State College football team defies this stereotype.

Foster is focused on online marketing and used his experience to turn a hobby into a way to pay his monthly bills while in college: selling Legos for a living.

Foster got his start in ecommerce at a young age, selling products such as shoes and clothing online through Facebook and eBay.

“My parents saw me selling shoes and clothes online and asked me if I wanted to sell some Legos that we had in our garage for over a year,” Foster said. “My aunt works for Lego and we had some extra Legos left over and that is how I came up with the idea to sell Legos.”

After the first couple of months, Foster noticed that people kept buying his Legos online and realized that he really could make a living from it. The plan since the beginning was only to use his revenue from the sales to pay his bills. The profit that he makes stays on his PayPal account and is used at the end of each month to pay his landlord.

Although Foster enjoys the entrepreneurial aspect of his business, the process of selling items online is labor and time intensive.

“We get the Legos and we have to take a picture of it, then we have to read the number out of the package to see what the exact model is, and then we need to put all the information in the EBay listing and post it,” Foster said. “When somebody buys it I get a notification on my phone with their shipping information and that’s when I ship it to the customer.”

Once the item is shipped, Foster’s job is not finished. He often has to work as his own customer service operation when the customer’s package arrives.

“You have to agree with the customer, losing fifty dollars is worth it if the customer is going to be happy,” Foster said. “If the customer is not happy they can go and tell other people to not buy from him or they might give you a negative strike on your account which means eBay is not going to put you on top of the list if someone wants to buy something.”

Foster’s girlfriend and online business partner, Seinna Garner, said that one of the good things about selling products online is that you can take a break whenever you want and you can make your own work schedule.