If you’ve been around the domain investment space for a few years, you probably know the story of Bobbleheads.com. The short version is that Warren Royal, a longtime domain investor, acquired Bobbleheads.com for $29,112 (and later Bobblehead.com for $36,000) and built a very large bobblehead business and brand on Bobbleheads.com.
Bobbleheads.com has received a considerable amount of press during the last several years. The business has been featured on Huffington Post, AdWeek, LA Times, Wall St. Journal, and quite a few other national publications. Most recently, Bobbleheads.com and Warren Royal were featured on an episode of CNN’s Mike Rowe: Somebody’s Gotta Do It. You can watch a video clip of Rowe’s visit on CNN.com right now.
On his personal website, Mike Rowe discussed meeting with Warren and the bobblehead selection and production process:
“In the course of exploring all the options, I met a man named Warren Royal who controls a decent chunk of the global Bobblehead business. Warren showed me firsthand why my request was impossible to fulfill, in a way that even I could understand. But he also agreed to produce a very limited run of high-quality, American-made Bobbleheads from his facility in Georgia, as a fundraiser for my Foundation.”
After watching the Mike Rowe video, I visited the Bobbleheads.com Facebook page and saw a promotional video created by the company (embedded below). One thing that struck me is just how large the company has grown. As one example, the video didn’t really “show off” the Bobbleheads.com warehouse, but if you look around you can see just how big the company has become. I remember when Warren first started, he was operating the business out of his basement.
There are many stories of success in the domain business. I think Warren Royal’s Bobbleheads.com shows just how far someone can go with a fantastic domain name and a solid business plan.
Thank you to Donna Mahony for letting me know about the Mike Rowe video.
I’ve been following Warren and his Bobblehead.com adventure since the day he walked into Rick’s old forum and announce he had won this great name! It’s been a fun ride and full of lessons for all of us! I’ve had the pleasure of working with Warren and his team and it was so much fun! Congrats to Warren and the entire Bobblehead team!
Thank you so much, Elliot! We are so excited about this opportunity that Mike Rowe has graciously given us to reach a worldwide audience through CNN. He is a great guy and he was fascinated by the story about how it all started with a domain name. We spent a lot of time talking about that, as we see that as a major factor to our success. He loves entrepreneurs and people who make things happen, and I think that is part of what intrigued him the most about our story. He is also interested in the challenges and difficulties of manufacturing products in the USA today and we spent a lot of time exploring that as well.
This episode will be aired tonight (Thursday 6/4) at 9:00 pm EST on CNN. Please check it out, if you can! There are multiple segments airing tonight, we might not be the first one shown. Thanks Elliot!
Just recorded it so I don’t forget!
Congrats to Warren and the whole Bobbleheads crew.