Cumming pilot forges business selling fictional robots | Business News

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — Something inexplicable awoke inside David Leyva when the Forsyth County resident saw a toy robot sitting in a Tokyo shop. 

Specifically, it was an RX-78 from the Japanese science fiction anime Gundam series, a franchise that has spawned numerous television shows, movies, novels, manga and plastic model kits. 

For Leyva, who grew up making models of military jet aircraft, the robot was simultaneously familiar and electrifyingly new.

“It’s weird to explain, but it just really inspires you,” Leyva, 46, said. “It really opens your imagination, like, ‘Wow, imagine if this was real. How gigantic this thing would be.’” 

That experience started Leyva on a path that would hijack his free time, lead him to an enormous like-minded fan community and inspire him to start a business that now outearns his job as an airline pilot. Looking back, Leyva said he could never have guessed the model robot would open so many doors. But he admits the pieces were always there inside him.

More than a decade after his fateful experience in Japan, Leyva, a husband and father of two, is the proud owner of The Gundam Place, which boasts a storefront at 580 Atlanta Road in Cumming, warehouse and almost a dozen employees. 

As a kid, Leyva was fascinated by military aircraft, painstakingly assembling the plastic parts with glue. He spent many hours building the kits, which included some of his favorite aircraft like the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-14 Tomcat. 

That childhood interest developed into a dream to one day fly, and as Leyva grew older he left behind the models and pursued the rigorous training to become a pilot. He now flies for a major airline in a senior role.  

“I worked all my life to be where I am as a professional,” he said. “It took me 40 years to become a captain.” 

Building obsession

But amid his career and life goals, Leyva found a pleasant distraction in the world of Gundam, a hobby he admits became an obsession. 

After long days spent as a father and pilot, he often would recede to his desk to build Gundams. 

“Once everybody at home goes to bed, and I have a couple hours on my own, I start building,” he said. “I just forget everything. There’s nothing else at that point.” 

As a pilot, Leyva said he appreciates the realistic detail of the robots. Unlike the more fantastical fictional machines like Transformers, Gundams are grounded in rational technology and engineering.

A pilot sits at the controls within an aircraft-like cockpit. The metal-alloy chassis are covered in removable armored plating. Each weapon-covered limb is movable, allowing the builder to imagine they are assembling a real, futuristic piece of military hardware. 

“You start putting it together, and you start seeing how it’s transformed into an arm or a leg, and everything moves like it would in real life,” he said. “Those pieces are becoming like a freaking machine, like pistons and so many details. Everything works, and it starts looking like a robot.” 

Leyva, who now has built almost 50 of the models, quickly became hooked. 

“It was weird. I even thought, ‘Wow, I have never been like this,” he said. “It was like holy cow, I can’t stop buying these things.”

Model opportunity

Leyva admits his wife, although supportive, shared no part of his interest, leading him to seek out others who shared his interest. After connecting with some groups on Facebook, he learned his experience was hardly unique. That realization sparked an idea inside him. 

“Everybody was desperate to get the new model kits,” Leyva said. “I started thinking, ‘Well, this could be an amazing business.’”

He started buying the kits wholesale and selling them online, using Google and social media to advertise. 

Customers were eager to take them off his hands, and some who lived in the Atlanta area began messaging him if they could avoid shipping costs with in-person pickups. Leyva obliged, meeting local fans in person in shopping mall parking lots.

The meetups became so frequent he decided to purchase a warehouse to store the robots, doing retail business out of a small storefront there. A promotional partnership with a popular Gundam influencer and burgeoning word-of-mouth notoriety led him to finally open a shop dedicated to in-store purchases. 

Leyva never looked back, and his business has since found a level of success that still surprises even him.  

“Every year, I get surprised,” he said. “It just keeps happening. We grew at least 30-40 percent every year.” 

Robot shop

Tucked into an unassuming strip mall, the shop is easily overlooked, customers said. But once found, Gundam aficionados have found it represents a kind of home to them.

On a February afternoon, first-time-visitor and Cumming resident Chris Holte said he had no idea the shop existed in his backyard. Holte, who works in sales for a traffic control safety company, said he was pleased to find such a wide selection of models and customers and staff who share his interest. 

At home, Holte said he has little opportunity to talk about the robots with his wife, who often rolls her eyes at his niche interest. 

“It mostly goes in one ear and out the other,” he said, chuckling. “She likes to make fun of it.”

The shop’s walls are lined with shelves of more than a hundred model kits, providing an impressive selection, sales advisor Jason Tang said. The space also includes plenty of stimulation for the imagination. A 6-foot-tall robot costume stands at the entrance, and numerous dioramas and models, some valued in the thousands of dollars, sit behind clear display cases. 

Gundam community 

But The Gundam Place also offers something less tangible than kits and perhaps more important, a sense of community, Tang said. 

While assisting Holte, Tang was pleased to see long-time customer Smeet Patel, who has spent almost $10,000 at the shop over several years. 

Patel, who now counts as one of his friends, often stops by to visit and enjoy a bit of friendly banter about Gundams or otherwise. 

Like Patel, many have found the shop to be a place to connect with others. 

The models are available for purchase from internet vendors, but many local Gundam fans prefer to stop by in person, Leyva said. 

An after-hours monthly model building meetup routinely attracts anywhere from a 20 to 40 or more. Tables fill the floorspace during those nights, allowing customers to spend long hours chatting and forging friendships. 

An annual gathering night attracts hundreds, requiring the shop to sometimes rent out additional space next door.

“Those are on another level,” Leyva said. 

Leyva said he never could have imagined a chance encounter with a model robot could enrich so many aspects of his life. 

He is deeply thankful for the business opportunities the hobby has created for him, and he still finds time to revel in the world of Gundam.

But perhaps most of all, he is glad to be a part of a warm community that forges real relationships through an imaginary world. 

“It makes me think it was worth all the effort,” he said.