You don't know what you've got until it's gone, people say.

But sometimes, that's not about loss. Sometimes it's about opportunity. 

Case in point: Toys 'R' Us.

If you're a Millennial, Toys 'R' Us likely had a special place in your heart as a kid. The company was a category killer: For a time, it was the leading toy seller in America, by far.

Its founder, Charles Lazarus, was once the highest paid CEO in the country too. But then, a few things happened.

Ultimately, Toys 'R' Us filed for bankruptcy in 2017, and closed all of its stores in 2018. 

People were sad. Requiems were written. (I might have written one of them.)

But a funny thing happened on the way to extinction. Toys 'R' Us's intellectual property was up for grabs during the bankruptcy, and it ultimately wound up in the hands of WHP Global, which specializes in acquiring beloved but mismanaged brands.

Over the past year or so, Toys 'R' Us has rolled out a series of plans to keep its brand alive in America, and engage its most devoted fans. Among other things:

Now, I don't know about you, but I'll root for Toys 'R' Us to succeed, simply because I think it would be a good thing for a lot of other American businesses. And because I think it will make some people happy.

Example: When the big Toys 'R' Us opened in New Jersey, a customer in her 40s told The New York Times that she'd awakened at 7 a.m. and driven from Baltimore for the occasion. ("This has got to be heaven," she said.)

But I'm also interested in what the Toys 'R' Us experience suggests about other opportunities that might exist for businesses like yours -- and chances to leverage nostalgia and abandoned brands.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. People feel their attachment to some brands and experiences deeply, even if they don't always remember them accurately.

Granted, maybe you're not in a position to raise hundreds of millions of dollars like WHP Global did, and seek out well-known national or international brands. But that doesn't mean you can't leverage the idea on another scale in your industry.

Find a way to do that, and you've found something powerful.

"We didn't create the brand, and we're not changing it," Yehuda Shmidman, CEO of WHP Global, told the Times. "All we're doing is bringing it back to Americans who have been yearning for it."