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The Monsuno cartoon and toys are a global effort between
Nickelodeon, Topps, Michael Eisner, Fremantle
Media, and leading toy design and marketing company
JAKKS Pacific—where Padawer works as executive
vice president of marketing and entertainment brand
development.
This kind of success, however, seemed like a far-off
dream when Padawer was confronted with a school
full of intelligent and dedicated classmates and his
own mounting debt.
“I found myself a little desperate to be great at something
and even more concerned about cash,” Padawer
says. His answer to both conundrums was to explore
a side business online. “I resigned myself to being an
average law student, an above-average entrepreneur,
and a way below-average sleeper. I averaged about five
hours a night.”
A (NEARLY) OvERNiGhT, ONLiNE SUCCESS
Padawer devoted his days to law and his nights to
learning HTML coding. He eventually developed a series
of websites where consumers could buy and sell
collectible items. As a child, Padawer loved anything
considered collectible—autographs, sports memorabilia,
toys, coins, and stamps.
“I focused my online efforts on the subjects I knew
and loved—collectibles, toys, and the concept of buying
and selling on a secondary market,” he says.
By combining a lifelong love with a business venture,
Padawer had half the formula. The other half
involved playing the system of a young search engine
called Yahoo!.
“Yahoo! was nothing more than a phone book,”
he recalls. “It was an alphabetical search engine. I
named all of my websites with two A’s—AAbsolute
Beanie Babies and AAbsolute Furbies. I treated the
Internet like a phone book, and as a result, 20,000
unique visitors per day enjoyed the sites.”
Both passion and the motivation to pay off law
school debt fueled his effort to create one of the
most successful networks of collectibles online.
By early 1997, only eight months after beginning
his entrepreneurial ventures, Padawer was debt
free with a thriving business.
Padawer took some of the money from his early
Internet interests and bought generic domain
names. The sale of Padawer’s act.com domain
to Symantec in 2000 still stands as one of the
largest domain name sales in the history of the
Internet.
“If you can sleep a few less hours and create
value then that is amazing,” he says.
He’s confident that his success can be replicated
with good old-fashioned hard work. “I had good timing,
but you can, too. It’s never too late. Minimize your
debt. Work at night. Bust your ass. Be a little haggard.
Enjoy it later.”
TiNKERiNG wiTh ThE TOY MAKER
Law school was not the last stop on the educational
road for Padawer, who went on to earn his MBA at
Vanderbilt University in 2001.
After Vanderbilt, he was recruited as a brand manager
at Mattel, the world’s largest toy manufacturer.
Geoff Walker, the general manager at Mattel Europe,
noticed Padawer’s potential and hired him out of
Vanderbilt’s MBA program to work in the entertainment
business at Mattel Toys.
“His critical thought process, legal perspective on
business decisions, entrepreneurial spirit, and sheer
love for toys and collectibles separated Jeremy from
other employees,” says Walker.
In 2003, Padawer was recruited to JAKKS Pacific to
head up Entertainment Brands. In six years, Padawer’s
divisional sales increased by more than 500 percent,
aLumnI briefs
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