One of the most energetic people I’ve met in the domain business, Jeremy Padawer balances his full time job as a Vice President of Entertainment Brand Marketing at the third largest toy company in the United States with his online domain investment business.

Jeremy is serious about his businesses, but he has an excellent way of balancing this with his wit and sense of humor. Frequently, when I have a conversation with him or read a domain forum post written by him, I can’t help but laugh with him. This is a “5 With…” interview that is unlike any I’ve done before. As promised, here is a complete and unedited email chain with Mr. Padawer!

ELLIOT SILVER:
Mr. Padawer,
Greetings!! I’d love to interview you for my blog now if you are still willing. There are 8 questions below, and I ask my participants to answer any 5 of them (or all 8 if they want). If you could provide a brief bio and a picture (if possible/desired) it would be great. You will be the next interview I post I hope.

How does your full time job impact your domain investments?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“I am the Vice President of Entertainment Brand Marketing at the 3rd largest toy company in the US. The toy brands that I manage include World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Pokemon (Pokemon USA), Neopets (Viacom), Dragonball & Spongebob Squarepants (Viacom).

My job includes:
– Licensing acquisition and new business development
– Sales to mass and secondary account management, analysis, and account management
– Divisional P&L responsibility (Product Margin and Operating Profitability Goals)
– CPG Marketing: Product, Pricing, Packaging & Promotions (Marketing/Advertising)
I’m constantly chasing the next trend, the next innovative item, the next big brand.

Regarding the impact on my style of domaining: I steer clear of any TM concerns as I deeply relate to brand holders. I chase trends. I’m not afraid to make a decision which will result in a moderate loss if it means I went for a home run.

My life is relatively non-stop. It’s almost 3AM in Europe. I am here for the week negotiating with a potential toy partner. I jump on an airplane in the morning to head back to Santa Monica, my home base. The following week I go into the Malibu office on Monday and then jump on another out of country (2-day) trip Tuesday/Wednesday.

And, yet, what am I doing right now? Emailing Elliot J Silver, my domainer colleague.

There is time to sleep and this isn’t the time. Maybe tomorrow.”

ELLIOT SILVER:
What was the best piece of business advice someone ever gave you, and how do you use it in your business?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“The best advice I’ve ever received was from my Evidence Professor in Law School. He told me to not practice law. I ultimately took him up on that. Thank goodness.

I started domaining in 1996. I was 23 and convinced that generic domain names had a significant future. I was living in a $300 relatively run-down apartment building in Knoxville, Tennessee, living on student loans, eating mostly turkey sandwiches. I still hate Karl Budding turkey. 🙂 After finishing undergraduate school at the University of Texas, I jumped directly into a legal education. I bought my first domain names (schmuck.com, uninsured.com, arrange.com, spaniel.com – all now sold) with student loans. I believe the cost was $100/domain at the time.

To make a long story short, I finished law school and went on to also complete an MBA program at Vanderbilt… My destiny was to have $200,000 debt. Because of the domaining world, and my sincere professor’s reminder, I paid for the JD/MBA, a few cars, and a nice down payment on a beach condo in Santa Monica with domain names.

By 2000, I sold all 50-60 generic domains in my moderate portfolio. I joined the circus… er, the toy industry. Same thing… Good decision.

Bad decision = selling all 50-60 generic names.

Good decision = clearing my head entirely and learning how to work, and then thrive and lead, in major organizations.

Bad decision = not jumping back into domaining in 2004, after my head was clear.

Good decision = starting over in September, 2006.

And, that is my clever and cloudy transition to the next question.

BTW – My stream of consciousness writing and probable misspellings are due to the ever advancing clock. It’s now 3:12AM. The car picks me up at 7:00AM. Sweeeeet. Plus, I suck at spelling.”

ELLIOT SILVER:
You are in an elevator at DomainFest and a fellow domain investor asks you why he should invest in the .mobi extension. You have about 30 seconds before you reach the lobby. What is the most compelling reason to invest in the extension?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“For kicks, let’s call the fellow domain investor “Bucko.” Just pulling that out of nowhere.

Bucko might ask, “Hey, Jeremy Padawer, why the heck did you spend a tonnage of cash on mobi domain names during the initial landrush phase? You have 30 seconds to answer me and not one second more!”

I’d reply, “Bucko, that’s not nice. Because you were rude, I will duct tape you to the wall and speak to you about mobi domain names for at least 5 minutes.”

I’d then duct tape Bucko to the wall of the elevator and tell him the following.

I am an opportunist.

I love trends.

I have an understanding of the domain name market. I have insight as to the needs of a brand manager. I travel enough to understand that .com is King, but that there are many princes… including country code domain names outside of the US as well as our friends .net, .org.

Bottom line… Com is King. Com is King. Com is King.

…….BUT……..

A domain name extension positioned in a niche area stands a chance.

…….AND……..

If you believe that promotional marketing people are so clear on the power of .com names, you are fooling yourself. You live in a world of domainers and domaining. A world where not even the biggest, baddest Madison Avenue players are still having a hard time figuring out what to buy and what to avoid.

…….AND……..

The timing is perfect. The domain name extension has been launched prior to the explosive growth of mobile content.

I’d then to go on to concede that mobi solves absolutely NO TECHNOLOGY ISSUES, and that mobi may never be adopted.

I’m just throwing my money on my gut. I smell something here. I believe the world has adopted many successful extensions… that this .mobi extension is well positioned to promotional marketers who may or may not understand the power of .com domain names… that the timing is great… and that there will be a massive explosion, an echo boom of investment into mobile.

So, will .mobi succeed – enjoy consumer adoption? Maybe.

Will .mobi replace .com? No

Will .mobi become a nice alternative (much like .org or a cctld)? My gut says yes.

I’d then say one more thing to my friend duct taped to the wall.

I could be wrong.

I could be absolutely wrong.

I’ve found the last 15 months enjoyable. The traffic is increasing. I’ve sold names and despite my 6-figure investment, I’m sitting on 94% inventory at a financial breakeven.

I hope I’m wrong 10 more times, if being wrong pays this well.

Regarding the duct tape. I’d remove it without harming anyone.

And, Bucko, I love ya man.”

ELLIOT SILVER:
When you buy a domain name for investment purposes, what are the most important aspects of that name that are of interest to you?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“Over the last 6 months, I’ve built up a nice portfolio of geo names (memphis.org, scottsdale.org, rye.com, abilene.org, tempe.org, and others…) I’m not necessarily interested in whether a domain name will achieve a 10X ROI. I still hold out that there is room for branding. Although, this year I am achieving about a 7X ROI against my investment all-in.

I am a big believer of self-branding. I picked up www.jeremy.com three years ago after chasing the previous owner for 7 years. Best investment ever. Nobody forgets my personal email.”

ELLIOT SILVER:
When developing .mobi domain names, what are the most important things people need to include to make them relevant?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“I have no idea, Elliot. It’s 3:49AM. Are you nuts asking me a question like this in the middle of the night?”

ELLIOT SILVER:
You are in the final round of Wheel of Fortune. The category is “Thing” and Pat Sajak gives you the letters RSTLNE, and you ask for the letters DMP and O. As the clock ticks down, you holler out “Domain Names,” winning the $100,000 grand prize! Do you spend the cash on a hot new car, or do you buy a domain name? Which car or which domain name would you choose?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“Hmmm… If I had to choose between a car and a domain name, I’d probably find a good name. Cars are depreciation monsters. No thought on a particular name or extension. If I could do anything with the money, I’d just dump it into an investment account and forget about it.”

ELLIOT SILVER:
What has been the biggest surprise/development in the domain industry over the last couple of years?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“Maybe the rebirth of .tv. I’ve been very impressed with the repackaging of that brand.”

ELLIOT SILVER:
What personal accomplishment are you most proud of in the domain business?

JEREMY PADAWER:
“I’m proud of jumping in early… and, then… jumping in late – having some success both times.”

Bodog Entertainment is one of the fastest growing entertainment and media companies in the world, offering online gaming, a record label, a publishing division, and a television production division. Headquartered in the beautiful Caribbean nation of Antigua, Bodog was founded in 1994 by Canadian entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, who is well-known and respected as an online and digital branding authority, recently appearing on the cover of Forbes Magazine’s Billionaires’ issue.

I have a deep respect for Calvin. Under his leadership, Bodog Entertainment grew from nothing into a HUGE lifestyle brand, recognized throughout the world. Calvin is a self-made entrepreneur, who has had to work hard for everything. I admire his tenacity in the face of adversity, and the charitable work he and his foundation do is commendable.

In August of 2007, Bodog was forced to deal with a major problem when a Nevada court issued a default judgment. 1st Technology filed suit alleging that Bodog’s software infringed on their patents. In addition to awarding 1st Technology $49 million in damages, the judge also awarded them all of Bodog’s domain names, which were removed from servers, without warning to the company or its customers. Bodog plans to appeal this ruling on several grounds, but in the mean time, any web traffic intended for Bodog.com has been lost. Imagine driving to your local mall only to find it boarded up without any signs informing you where it went or what happened. That’s what it was like for Bodog customers who were unaware of the issue.

Within hours of losing their domain names, Bodog informed its customers of the situation and let them know where the website could be found, ultimately choosing the appropriate BodogLife.com. Extraordinarily, the company saw an INCREASE in web traffic after these changes were made. What could have been a disaster due to lost SEO and confusion turned into a positive. In fact, this Google Trends graph illustrates the amount of searches for Bodog.com (pre-news) and BodogLife.com are nearly identical.

I recently had an opportunity to interview Calvin, and I thank him for candid answers.

1.) EJS: At a certain point in time, money has to stop becoming a motivating factor. You’ve built a wildly successful brand in Bodog. What drives you to continue to fight to grow the brand?

CA: “One of the many reasons Bodog has been so successful to begin with, is that money was never a primary motivating factor. I started a digital entertainment company because I felt it would facilitate a smaller gap between work and play in my everyday life.

I continue to do what I do simply because I love it. I am a builder, I love to build things. I would not know what to do with myself if I were to quit now.

In the future once I am satisfied with what I’ve built Bodog to be, I hope to put this same energy into my foundation work.”

2.) EJS: A company like Bodog needs to stay on top of marketing trends to stay on the minds of its target audience. Some recent trends that Bodog has been all over is online music, mixed martial arts fighting and social networking. What trends are exciting to you (mobile technology for example), and what partnerships are helping you stay in the minds of your loyal customers as well as potential customers?

“We are working on mobile technology as well as streaming video of our original content and continually trying to find innovative methods of combining TV, events and the online realm to provide a great entertainment spectrum. Of course, during this all, we always make sure to incorporate the brand message throughout.

We have run some groundbreaking campaigns with Myspace and Youtube and I am sure we’ll continue to be ahead of the curve with regards to integration amongst social networking and digital entertainment leaders.

Another great relationship for us is our new brand licensing deal with the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group out of Kahnawake Quebec. This is the first of what we hope to be a number of brand licensing arrangements that will evolve Bodog away from being an operating company in all areas of our business.”

3.) When will Bodog introduce Bodog Hotel, Bodog Vacations, and Bodog Cruise Lines and move a bit away from the online entertainment area?

“We have more off-line initiatives coming, but for the time being we are going to focus our offline resources on live music and original content television production.

The Bodog brand is clearly a lifestyle brand and can arguably exist in virtually any form. Achieving this degree of marketability has been the plan since day one. However, for the foreseeable future, we will be focused on internationally expanding the predominantly digital entertainment company.”

4.) EJS: What would be a better feeling – winning the case against the “Patent Troll” or when the United States allows unrestricted online gaming?

CA: “Clearly having the US be more favorable to our sector would be a great thing. For the most part, with the exception of having some humor and publicity value, the patent troll issue is already off my radar.

We won the war the first day when we got back up and running within a span of 12 hours. Bodog is a brand which is not contained within or defined by its domain. Had the Patent Trolls understood this, they likely would not have black-holed the domains as their first move.

Additionally, the company they have the judgment against, though using the Bodog name, is not part of our group and was shut down in September of 2006. Other than wanting the domains back that this company was managing for us, I would not even have an interest in the case.

At this point I am treating the entire issue as an ongoing PR opportunity to be leveraged at will. Now that we have re-established Bodog’s online residence at Bodoglife.com, there is no way we would ever revert back to bodog.com even if the domains were to be returned. At most, we would simply use them as redirects. Bodoglife.com is continually and increasingly rising in search rankings for all of our keywords, so its there to stay as we currently see it.”

5.) EJS: Because of US regulatory issues, PPC (pay per click) advertising revenue in the gaming industry has generally declined, driving down the value of domain names in this genre. Have you considered purchasing generic gaming domain names to forward to your BodogLife.com homepage? Using Frank Schilling’s InternetCasino.com example, would it be worth your while to cut out GooYahSoft, domain parking companies, and domain owners, and just buy some generic casino domain names to help boost traffic?

CA: “This isn’t actually a new idea. We already take part in this and have been doing so for years now. We have an enormous network of off-brand domains doing this for us as well. In addition we also work in conjunction with others who follow this same system. Needless to say, the overlap serves our interests well.

However, these are just secondary to what really separates Bodog from the masses and consequently, what drives traffic to our site. Our branding strategy plays a huge part in our success and this is clear as day when you look at how fast we were able to move to a new online home with no ability to re-direct from previous domains.”