Broken Field Run: How Domain Investor/Developer Chad Folkening Went from Mowing Lawns to Buying Mansions 1

發佈時間：2010-11-04
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Broken Field Run (noun) - A long run by a ball carrier who suddenly and frequently changes direction to successfully break through widely scattered opposition on a football field.

Chad Folkening's picture should be by that term in the dictionary. As an entrepreneur, the former football player has had to continually change directions to get around obstacles in life. A series of untimely events broke his body, derailed a business and, in the most unbearable one of all, claimed the life of a 25-year-old brother. Yet Folkening has managed to come through it all, learn from experience and emerge stronger than ever as a leading player in the domain investment and website development world.

For several years now I've thought that Folkening might be the best kept secret in the domain industry. Don't get me wrong. Certainly a lot of people in this business know the friendly Midwesterner and he has been one of the biggest players in the space since the mid 90s. However, the self effacing Indiana native, who was a two-time All-State football player at Westfield High School near Indianapolis, has never been one to talk a lot about himself or his business success. As a result, you haven't seen his name in industry headlines nearly as often as some of his famous contemporaries.

It's time for that to change and the fact is Folkening has his hands in so many timely enterprises these days that the spotlight was going to find him anyhow - no matter how much he might prefer to let someone else be the center of attention.

Folkening has just co-founded a new domain development and monetization company, Domain Holdings, LLC with web heayweights John Ferber (the man who build and sold Advertising.com to American Online) and Erik Simons (their bios are all available here). Folkening has also rolled out an award winning large scale domain development platform in RapidDomainBuilder.com and he has been instrumental in getting high level political figures to take an interest in protecting the rights of domain investors.

Domain Holdings LLC Co-Founders John Ferber (left) and Chad Folkening (right) get a lot of
love from legendary domain investor Frank Schilling at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Miami (October 2010).
(Photo courtesy of Barbara Neu)

It was Folkening who facilitated the first appearance ever by a U.S. Congressman at a domain industry conference - that being U.S. Representative Cliff Stearns (R - Florida) who spoke at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Miami on Oct. 18, 2010 (along with former Congressman Mike Ferguson). In addition, at press time just before the 2010 mid-term elections, Folkening's long time friend and former attorney, Todd Rokita, currently Indiana's Secretary of State, was expected to win his own seat in the U.S. Congress (Rokita has been running 10 percentage points ahead of his opponent in recent polls).

Like many of those who have found great success in this business, Folkening was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug at a very early age. Not long after he was born in the early 70s as the youngest of three brothers, Chad learned from his parents that if he wanted something he would have to earn it. His dad was a preacher who made due on a limited budget and made sure his kids understood the value of a dollar.

The Folkening Brothers: (Left to Right) Brett, Heath and Chad

"My parents taught me to be respectful and work hard in order to earn what I wanted," Folkening said. "I think having that kind of stable foundation and family structure helped me to find and rely on my own abilities. My parents provided me with the basics in life - a roof over my head, food and love. They wisely made me earn the other things I wanted. A friend got a dirt bike motorcycle for Christmas, which made me want one too. My parents didn't support that idea, but let me know that I could have one if I earned it on my own."

"My parents were extremely frugal with money. As they grew older that allowed them both to become hobby real estate buyers, which would influence me in the later years as well. Most preachers are not hobby gun collectors or guys who fly airplanes on the weekends either, so there was a balance there. My mom was the sports enthusiast and athlete in the family and a stay home mom with a knack for interior design," Folkening said. Chad must have picked up some of her athletic genes as he went on to star at linebacker and tailback in high school, rushing for over 1,200 yards in his senior year at Westfield. "Athletics taught me leadership, team work and that individual ability can change a team's dynamics."

Folkening speaking at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Miami
(October 2010)

Folkening also recalled stepping out of his comfort zone in high school, something that wound up helping him excel in his current business. "I took a Greek and Latin derivatives class during my study hall. My weakest point was writing and language but a kindly teacher was gracious enough to take her lunch period and my study hall to teach me the class," Folkening said. He would later learn that his father was counseling this teacher through her own life challenges on weekends at his church. so helping Chad master a difficult subject may have been her way of repaying the family. "I learned to step up to a challenge and face my own fears and ultimately learned a lot about language, it’s influence and writing structures, which in turn helped me later if life, in buying domains," Folkening said.

Folkening remembers getting serious about business when he was just 14 years old. "I asked my parents to let me “borrow” their lawnmower and use their phone number to start my own business," Folkening recalled. "They agreed, so one Sunday at church, I stuck fliers on the windshields of the cars in

the parking lot and picked up a couple of older clients. They were in the same neighborhood and they were small yards so I charged them $10 to $15 a yard. Soon I had a total of 10 yards to mow and my mom would have to drop me off on Saturday and pick me up later so I could get them all done. At the end of a long day I could walk away with $120 cash money and worked my tail off all day to get them done!," Folkening said.

"After a month I had enough money to buy my motorcycle, a YZ 80. It needed some work, but with my dad’s technical and mechanical inclination, we fixed it up and it was a screamer. My friends worked down the street at the world’s largest Dairy Queen all week long and came home with less money then I had just made in one day. I knew then that I would not work for anyone else, unless it was another entrepreneur," Folkening said.

"My little “company” started to expand over the next few summers, taking on more and bigger yards. I needed to scale and get better equipment. Plus I already burned up my parent’s mower and had to replace it. So I bought my first walk behind mower and a trailer. I wanted to get more clients so I did the guerilla marketing thing. I went to home building job sites and got the scrap wood they were throwing away, then picked up some 99-cent sign templates and a 99-cent can of spray paint at Wal-Mart. I made about 20 signs that had Student Services, Inc. and my new phone number on them. The trick was to put the signs a little higher on the telephone poles so the city workers couldn't just come by without a ladder to take them down," Folkening laughed.

"I put them at the best spots around town and that was the last form of advertising I ever had to do. I would get a job, provide a great service and price and establish repeat customers and word of mouth. At the homes where I was working, I noticed the realtors were changing their signs from metal ones to plastic so they gave me 20 metal signs which I used for my on-site jobs. If you went into one of my neighborhoods, you would see 3 or 4 of my yard signs - Student Services, Inc and my phone number. That was all I needed to have enough business every day of the year in some of the best neighborhoods in the Midwest. I worked extremely long days, literally running from sites to the trailer, then back to another yard and working from 7 am to 10 pm every weekend. I also expanded the business by landscaping, painting houses, power washing, and even baby sitting."

After graduating from high school Folkening enrolled at David Letterman's alma mater, Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. "They had one of the best entrepreneurship programs in the nation, ran by Dr. Donald Kuraco," Folkening said. Despite his football success in high school, Folkening had decided to give up the game so he could concentrate on the entrepreneurship program and enjoy the college experience. "I made it through three semesters but on the first day of the fourth semester, while walking to class very early on a cold, slushy day, I realized I couldn't spend two to three more years in Muncie to earn a degree," Folkening said. (Continue reading ... )

(Source from DN Journal)

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Above and below:
Chad Folkening introduces himself to fellow
attendees aboard the Carnival Imagination
cruise ship for the DNCruise conference.
(October 2010).

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