Kelly Perdew

Daily Deals Platform Exclusively For Members Of The Military Community To Debut In Hampton Roads Virginia Prior To Memorial Day

Hampton Roads, VA May 2, 2011- Troopswap.com, a Daily Deals site exclusively for members of the military community today announced a major milestone, securing in excess of $585,000 in private funding from investors who believe a life of service should have its perks. The company also announced a team of private/public sector individuals who will help guide their next level of implementation and development, featuring a management team led by former Army Rangers and Harvard Business School Alumni Matthew Thompson and Blake Hall and a product team headed by William Kern, formerly of AOL and Mixx.com.

“This represents an important step not just in our business but in the improvement of the lives of those who serve, and have served, in America’s Armed Forces and their families around the world,” said CEO Blake Hall. “The establishment of our community outreach campaign, led by Matt Thompson, as well as the infusion of capital puts us in a position where we can go from conceptual to actual in our business, and we are excited for the opportunity to delight the military community.”

Well-known investors backing the offering include: Frank Monestere, former Green Beret and current President/COO of LegalZoom.com, Paige Craig, former Marine and Founder/CEO of Betterworks.com and Kelly Perdew, former Army Ranger, winner of Season 2 of NBC’s The Apprentice, and CEO of FastPointGames.com Mr. Perdew also serves on the company’s board.

TroopSwap.com only employs military spouses and veterans for community outreach, providing much needed employment opportunities for those groups. 10% of TroopSwap.com’s profits are donated to the Wounded Warrior Project. COO Matt Thompson said, “I served on four combat deployments and observed the Wounded Warrior Project in action on the front lines. It’s an incredible feeling to be part of a business where all of our activities are focused on creating social good for the community that we serve.”

The business model is structured along the lines of some of the biggest consumer deal platforms in the market but offers are exclusively for military members, defined as veterans, service members, spouses and their families. TroopSwap.com aims to take advantage of its unique distribution network and eventually provide a platform where military family members can buy and sell goods, find services and generally come together to get tips, advice and best practices from their peers in dealing with the challenges of life in the service – all without leaving a values based community that forms the most tightly knit fraternity and sorority in the world.

The TroopSwap.com Team is rounded out by an impressive array of talent. Tony Huynh leads the engineering efforts for the platform. Arjun Dhillon handles front-end engineering tasks and design. Caitlin Horn headlines a group of eight military spouses recently hired to spread awareness for TroopSwap.com on bases in Hampton Roads, Virginia – the largest military community in the world.

TroopSwap.com was recently featured at StartupXLR8R, an event hosted by iStrategy Labs at Microsoft’s Chevy Chase offices, and has received glowing reviews from the media and the military community. The first deals will debut in Hampton Roads, Virginia prior to Memorial Day. The company plans to expand the platform to more bases soon thereafter. Matt Thompson explained, “We are on a mission to make military life better.”

For more information about TroopSwap.com or to sign-up for the first military-only deals, visit http://www.TroopSwap.com or tweet @TroopSwap

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Blake Hall
Co-Founder and CEO
Phone: (615) 293 – 4702
Fax: (202) 600 - 7611

New offering from one of the world’s fastest growing game developers enables any independent publisher the ability to brand their own high impact fantasy football game at no cost

LOS ANGELES, CA—(Marketwire – August 25, 2010)- RotoHog, one of the fastest-growing and most innovative fantasy sports and entertainment game operators and developers, today unveiled their latest product offering, a syndicated version of their award-winning, Fantasy Football Salary Cap game for independent publishers. The new game is first in a series of sports and entertainment games to be syndicated in the coming months.

As consumer content engagement continues to shift towards niche sites and games, RotoHog recognized the opportunity to extend its games-as-a-service model to deliver a turnkey solution for publishers who search for new ways to engage and monetize their audiences without the expense of licensing or managing a game themselves.

RotoHog has been developing and operating custom and configurable games for some of the world’s leading media and sports companies, and in so doing has developed a highly scaleable, sophisticated gaming platform. “We are excited to be offering an accessible gaming solution for an expanding market,” said Kelly Perdew, RotoHog CEO. “Our syndicated model will provide our associates an engaging, branded game experience and introduce new audiences to the quality of our games.”

The syndicated Fantasy Football Salary Cap game launches this week with SportsFanLive, the premier sports content and social network, dozens of independent bloggers, and Weplay, the leading online youth sports network participating.

Publishers that join the RotoHog’s Associate Program, will have access to personalization and marketing tools to co-brand the RotoHog games and share in the revenue generated by their audiences.

RotoHog is currently accepting applications and inquiries for their syndicated Football Salary Cap game. For more information go to http://bit.ly/clAVJ9 or email Associates@RotoHog.com.

Fantasy football games with Military.com and Los Angeles Times, an Us Weekly Celebrity Fantasy Game, a new Premier League fantasy game with hi5, as well as a series of RotoHog fantasy football games, all on tap in August

LOS ANGELES, CA—(Marketwire – August 10, 2010) RotoHog, one of the fastest-growing and most innovative fantasy sports and entertainment game operators and developers for major brands, today unveiled the first of a series of new partner games using the SCP(TM) platform. The games, which include a celebrity fantasy game with Us Weekly, a military-focused fantasy football game for Military.com, a casual fantasy football game for the Los Angeles Times, a Premier League fantasy soccer offering with hi5.com and white label fantasy games under the RotoHog brand, represent the most aggressive and widespread use of the RotoHog customizable game platform for partners at one time. The RotoHog-created games will touch over 50 million fantasy and entertainment game enthusiasts by Labor Day.

“This product release is a great example of how diverse the business has become in the last few years, and we are proud to be able to partner with such a wide group of elite brands to deliver a high level experience, whether you have an interest in celebrity, football, or soccer,” said Kelly Perdew, CEO of RotoHog. “ We also recognize that there are so many quality sites out there that are small and looking for content, so we have developed syndicated versions of RotoHog-branded football games for smaller or growing sites to co-brand and offer their subscribers. It will show that no matter who the partner is…major media company or hard working independent fantasy site…we have a platform that can work.”

The new offerings include:

Us Weekly – For Wenner Media’s Usmagazine.com – the companion website to Us Weekly – RotoHog created the one-of-a-kind Celebrity Fantasy League which launches August 16 tied to a major mobile sponsor. In the CFL, fans get to play Hollywood agent and pick a roster of celebrities to put on their team. Each week they decide who to “start” and who keep in the Dressing Room. Fans score fantasy points when their chosen stars show up in the pages of the magazine, or on the website. Now in season II, the popular game increases migration from the magazine to the website and further engages fans into the Us Weekly brand. Find the game at http://www.cfl.usmagazine.com/splash

Military.com – RotoHog is proud to build on the success of last season’s customized Salary Cap Fantasy Football game for Military.com – a news and entertainment portal for active armed forces and veterans. Players can play in private, public or global leagues for prizes, with branches of service competing with each other for the ultimate bragging rights. Find the game at: http://football.military.com/scm/

hi5 EPL – Season starts 8/15: On the heels of the resounding success with the hi5 World Futbol Challenge (which had over one million participants), RotoHog and the leading social network for games created the very unique Confidence Pick ‘Em fantasy soccer/futebol/futbol game around the English Premier League. The EPL game allows players to use hi5 coins to buy Points Packs and place points on the outcome of each match. There is a global leaderboard, a friend leaderboard and the opportunity to earn virtual trophies and give virtual gifts to fellow players. Find the game at: http://hi5.com/friend/games/Premier_Futbol_Challenge-g2515-Arcade_Games.html?sourceId=5

Los Angeles Times – Pro Football Pick ‘Em – Season starts 9/9: Returning for its second year, and now powered by RotoHog’s SCPÔ, Pro Football Pick “Em, is a weekly casual fantasy football game which complements the enormously popular and respected sporting news coverage and commentary from The Times. The game enables Times Sports’ readers to register a team, create or join an existing league, invite friends and pick game winners. The game will be available at www.latimes.com/football

RotoHog has built some of the most advanced, fantasy games ever, which will soon be available to smaller platforms looking for a turn-key gaming solution to offer and engage their audiences.
The first will be:

RotoHog Salary Cap Fantasy Football: Set up for commissioner leagues, individual play in fantasy cash leagues and global fantasy leagues, the addicting style of the game keeps players involved every day of the week – not just Sunday mornings.

ABOUT ROTOHOG

RotoHog builds powerful, award-winning games around any set of structured data (statistics, website activity, appearances on magazine covers, ticket sales, song downloads, etc.) for media partners such as BloombergSports, Sports Illustrated, NBA.com, NASCAR.COM, Turner Digital, Military.com, Los Angeles Times, Pro Football Weekly, AVP, Fox Sports International, UsWeekly and MySpace. Their gaming platform allows major brands and media companies to engage and monetize their audiences via a Games as a Service model. RotoHog is privately held, and based in Los Angeles, CA. Investors include Allen & Co, Mission Ventures, DFJ Dragon and Sports Capital Partners Worldwide.

For more information on RotoHog, or to sign up for league play, please visit www.rotohog.com.
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Media Contact:
Joe Favorito
917-566-8345/ Fatherknickerbocker1@yahoo.com

‘Apprentice’ champion turned fantasy sports website into major player by adjusting the game plan.

By Alfred Lee, LA Business Journal link: Game Changer Story with Photos

Monday, June 21, 2010

Today, RotoHog hardly bears a resemblance to the fantasy sports website Kelly Perdew took the reins of in June 2008.

The Westchester company has recently made a name for itself as a creator of fantasy games for other businesses, including Sporting News, NASCAR and Us Weekly. But it was initially launched in 2006 as a stand-alone game site that could compete directly with fantasy sports giants like ESPN and Yahoo Sports.

The 43-year-old Perdew was brought on as the company’s new chief executive two years ago with one main objective: to make it profitable. His resume included running companies such as amateur sports website Eteamz.com, but he’s perhaps best known as the winner of season two of the NBC reality television show “The Apprentice.” He beat other contestants for the chance to work for Donald Trump under a 14-month contract.

Almost immediately after arriving at RotoHog, he put into motion a complete transformation of the company’s strategy.

“I don’t think a lot of people could have pulled it off,” said Kent Smetters, who co-founded the company with his partner David Wu. “Kelly evolved the model into a different kind of company.”

Rotohog.com went live in early 2007 offering fantasy leagues for the National Football League, Major League Baseball and other sports with a twist. To make the leagues more competitive and protect against bad trades among contestants, each player was valued in a unique stock exchange.

However, despite raising about $9 million, the site struggled for nearly two years. The problem? Perdew saw that bigger competitors such as ESPN had a captive audience by virtue of their news content, whereas at the end of the football or baseball season, RotoHog’s users left the site.

“They had spent a significant amount of money to drive eyeballs to the website,” Perdew said, “but there was no path to profitability.”

However, Perdew knew that ESPN and other competitors such as Fox Sports were running their games on older computer platforms that would likely need significant upgrades in a few years. He saw an opportunity for the company to reposition itself from a fantasy sports website to a games provider for other brands, moving from a consumer model to a business-to-business model.

“So I said, OK, we should become a platform that could basically replace their entire back end,” he recalled.

Not only that, Perdew moved for the company to expand its games beyond sports to broaden its appeal to other industries that want to use online games to interact with their customers.

After selling RotoHog’s board on the idea, Perdew had the company hunker down for a year while it developed a new Internet platform that could serve as the template for scores of websites.

Within the first three months, he had let go of 25 of the company’s 40 employees, many of whom had been hired to build content for a website that was no longer the focus. But the head count went back up to about 30 as he hired a new team of software developers.

“Don’t mention that time to any of the guys here,” he said, referring to the turmoil.

In September 2009, after more than a year of development, RotoHog launched its new platform. In the 9 months since, it’s developed 37 games for other companies, including those in the entertainment, consumer brands and gaming industries.

Online future

Among the games are one developed for ABC reality television show “The Bachelor,” which features trivia questions and gives out sponsored prizes, encouraging users to go back and watch old episodes online to get the answers. Another for Us Weekly allows fans to guess who will be featured in the magazine.

“I think more brands and more webites are looking at different ways to engage readers, and gaming for a certain demographic is interesting,” said Romina Rosado, executive producer of UsMagazine.com.

The company has also been working on a fantasy game on Facebook for newly launched Bloomberg Sports, which sells sports analysis to fans and fantasy players. The game will challenge users to pick successful hitters and will go live by the end of June.

Bill Squadron, the head of Bloomberg Sports, said the idea behind the game was to encourage users to buy the company’s baseball analytics for a leg up on the competition.

“Hopefully that’ll both let them know about it and drive sales of that product, and at the end of the day that’s the real goal we have,” he said. “You’re going to see a big number of major brands experimenting with this in different ways.”

RotoHog hasn’t yet reached profitability, but Perdew said the company is “this close.” Competitors such as Fanball also provide fantasy games for other companies, but Perdew claims no other providers cut across as many industries.

Another edge appears to be Perdew himself. He said the recognition from being on “The Apprentice” has helped the company get exposure through media coverage and speaking engagements. It’s even helped get meetings with potential investors.

“We’re pretty much able to get to anybody we need to talk to about stuff,” he said. “It’s a nice icebreaker for discussions. People are always asking me what’s up with Donald’s hair. I never answer that question.”

RotoHog

FOUNDED: 2006

HEADQUARTERS: Westchester

CORE BUSINESS: Creates and manages online games for varied clients.

EMPLOYEES: 30 (up from 15 in 2008)

GOAL: Profitability.

THE NUMBERS: More than $1 million in revenue in the last 12 months.

I hope this note finds you well. It has been some time since we updated you on the progress we are making with RotoHog and our new partners and applications, and with three of our newest partners launching games two in last two weeks for World Cup and one in the very near future for baseball, we wanted to provide you with an update on our continued progress as one of the world’s fastest growing and most efficient developers of white label games for high level media properties both in sports and entertainment.

When I last wrote, we had just launched two very successful games in the entertainment field, one with US Weekly (Season 2 is starting soon: http://bit.ly/bQnAc1) and the other for “The Bachelor.” Those games have been very successful as brand extensions both for the magazine and for the reality show series, and they have led to another series of games that will be announced in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

However as you know our biggest focus has been in the sports world. Our continued work in producing games for NASCAR.com, Pro Football Weekly, Turner Digital and NBA.com has led to more work in the space, with the afore mentioned new partners. In the last few weeks we have been able to secure a deal to develop a Facebook game for BloombergSports, the recently launched consumer arm of one of the world’s most successful business data analysis brands. This new game, which will be launched in the coming weeks, will take Bloomberg’s new consumer baseball analysis product and give all the data a new fan-friendly platform that can be used by millions of followers and fans of baseball on Facebook. It will be a fun and very easy application that we think will expose this high functioning and very elaborate product BloombergSports has created to a new, wider level of engaged baseball consumer, and we are very proud to be working with them on the project.

Our other two new developments are for the coming World Cup. The first is another Facebook application, this one with Sports Illustrated allows fans to handicap their favorite countries throughout the World Cup draw, giving a new legion of digital soccer fans the ability to enjoy the world’s largest sports spectacle online like never before. You can play it here: http://bit.ly/91NADw.

Our second World Cup application is on a more global level with hi5, the largest social entertainment site for games in the world. We launched “The World Futbol Challenge” for hi5’s 50 million global users. The game, which is featured on hi5.com leading into the start of World Cup, is a confidence “pick em’ game, which gives the user the ability to earn added points in a pari-mutuel-like pool for picks they feel are the real value. Make your own picks here: http://bit.ly/bCR7La. Both these games for our two new partners continue to support our plan of global expansion for all of our games.

Soccer is the fastest-growing sport outside the United States in the fantasy space, and by working with these two premier brands to build their games, we are confident that our position on a global basis will be just as strong as we currently are domestically. When the world’s media companies look to build games, Rotohog will be their partner of choice.

Again these are just some of the new projects we are undertaking as the spring continues along. We are having another solid quarter in challenging times, and are looking forward to continued expansion both in sports and entertainment as the year plays out.

As always, thanks for your support and input, it is invaluable as we grow our business and it is very much welcomed. If there is anything we can assist with or questions we can answer please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards,

Kelly

“Operation Stores & Stripes,” where military veterans have the chance to win his or her very own Sears Hometown Store.

Now through June 25, qualified military veterans can enter the “Operation Stores & Stripes” contest online at www.searshometownstores.com/veteran where they will complete an application which serves as their official entry to the contest. Once the recruitment period closes, all applications will be reviewed and qualified candidates will be notified that they will continue on the second phase of competition. Ultimately, one deserving military veteran will earn an entrepreneur’s dream – their very own business. The winner will receive their own Sears Hometown Store which they will independently own and operate. All Sears Hometown Stores are locally owned and operated by dedicated, hard working individuals that take great pride in serving their communities nationwide and we couldn’t think of another group, other than our nation’s military heroes to honor with this program.

Please tell any vets that you think might be interested!

Hello Friends and Colleagues:

March is perhaps the most interesting time of year for sports and entertainment fans in general, as virtually every sport or area of entertainment is engaging its audience at some point. From the NFL Combine to the start of baseball, as well as March Madness, NASCAR and soccer in the sports world to the Academy Awards in entertainment, there is perhaps no busier or more exciting month on the calendar. For all of us at RotoHog, the levels of fan interest and engagement at this time of year are never higher, and all the projects we are now involved with are reflective of both what the consumers are looking for and where we have grown as a company in the sports and entertainment space. Here are some great examples of all the fan engagement areas we are touching in such a busy month:

BASEBALL. In baseball, spring training is now in full bloom, which means fantasy baseball is now upon us. Our crowd favorite Stock Exchange Baseball game is available for those of you that like to “play the market” and we have launched our first ever League Manager Fantasy Baseball game here: http://www.rotohog.com/corporate/baseball/ League Manager 2010 offers traditional commissioner style draft and trade products to the fantasy enthusiast at a reduced price and we also offer our first ever Salary Cap Baseball game on RotoHog. All games include cash competitions!

BASKETBALL. In college and NBA hoops, we launched the March Madness NCAA bracket application for MySpace (Go Wildcats!); and we continue to run the very popular NBA Stock Exchange with our partner Turner Sports.

NASCAR. As NASCAR continues to rev around the country, our recently launched NASCAR Stock Exchange game is doing well on Turner’s NASCAR.com platform.

I’m proud to say our team has created, developed and launched 26 games on our new platform since the last football season.

ENTERTAINMENT. We continue our expansion into the entertainment vertical with the March 2nd launch of the Us Weekly Celebrity Fantasy League. The game challenges user knowledge of which celebs will be making or breaking news. To get in on the action, users create a team of 25 celebrities they think will be in the news the most during a given week. Each week players put 10 stars from their team that they think will make the magazine and be featured on UsMagazine.com on the Red Carpet, while the other 15 hang out in your Dressing Room.

Those are just the latest projects on top of all the other work we are doing building and implementing games and applications for our partners around the world. With all this great work and expansion across so many platforms, we have added some new members to our team, including Jeff Daniel, who recently joined us after helping ESPN and FOX Digital build their fantasy platforms. Jeff’s addition gives us another experienced leader who can help us continue to manage and expand all the work we are doing with such a wide array of partners.

As we have said in the past and it continues to be true, we are still just getting started. A recent piece in the Sports Business Journal pointed to the continued growth of casual gaming, an area in which we will be expanding over the next few months. The World Cup and other international events will provide us with some great opportunities to show the versatility of our platform, and we are looking forward to also expanding even more into the entertainment space. We have seen interest growing for games like we are running for Us Weekly and The Rose Ceremony game we just finished with our TV Network partner.

Yes, March is a very crowded and exciting month for the sports and entertainment fan, and we share that excitement from a business perspective. Our recent work has again shown that our model is working and growing, and we know that will continue with more exciting news and new partners in the coming months.

As always thanks for your time and support, and let us know what else we can do to assist you. Enjoy the games!

Regards,

Kelly

Kelly Perdew
CEO, RotoHog.com

A Wicked (Virtual) Googly The Wall Street Journal

What Fantasy Veterans Can Learn From a New Cricket Game Catching On in India

FEBRUARY 5, 2010, 3:22 P.M. ET
By NANDO DI FINO

It was only a matter of time before cricket and fantasy sports found each other.

You can now play with an avatar of Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
.Cricket is the second-most popular sport in both England and Australia, and tops in India. It’s wildly popular in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa, and a host of other British Commonwealth nations. Only soccer can make an airtight case for being more popular around the world.

India alone has a population of about 1.1 billion people, and its cricket madness reaches heights that even the most fervent American football fan could never understand.

“India shuts down when there’s a cricket match,” says Swetha Iyengar, a 25 year-old television producer in Atlanta whose parents emigrated from India. “It’s big in a way that no sport here can compete with.”

It’s only natural, then, that a fantasy cricket game would emerge. How it happened should have Americans taking note. In its first eight months, fantasy cricket site Dream11.com has, according to chief operating officer Yashraj Vakil, signed up over 450,000 registered users, enjoyed up to 9 million page views per month, and users are spending an average of 16 to 20 minutes per visit on the Web site. According to Internet tracking Web site Quantcast.com, Dream11 has more monthly page views than pepboys.com, celebrity-babies.com, and thejaylenoshow.com (It still trails awkwardfamilyphotos.com by a healthy margin).

These numbers are even more impressive when one considers the myriad roadblocks to marketing fantasy cricket as a viable gaming option.
Cricket itself has no set season. It’s a year-round sport, with a focus on international play, so Dream11 had to build its game around the individual matches and ditch an “overall” type of scoring system (like in baseball or football), instead focusing on individual tours or matches. There are also several forms cricket takes, ranging from test matches that can go on for up to five days — sometimes without a result — to the more compact T20 matches, which can last around three hours. To make this game practical, fantasy gamers are limited to picking 12-player teams (their so-called dream 11 plus an alternate in case someone doesn’t play) from two squads or clubs competing against one another, across multiple formats during a particular tour.

Once the minor rules of tournament eligibility were ironed out, there was still one obstacle to overcome – few in India had any idea about fantasy sports. But the country’s computer-users do play plenty of online games. Using Adobe’s Flex software, Dream11’s engineers specifically designed their system to mimic online strategy games that Indians were more familiar with.

They are presenting fantasy cricket to the masses as a strategy game, complete with graphics and tutorials. But at day’s end it is the fantasy game we all know and love: the only way a player scores points is if his real-life counterpart scores them.

Not exactly intimately familiar with all the rules of cricket, I decided to give the game a try. I selected 12 players in the Australia-Pakistan T20 match for this weekend, staying enough rupees under the salary cap. When I selected a wicket keeper, that keeper was then represented on a screen by a digital rendering of a player in his country’s uniform. Eventually, the entire pitch fills with these avatars. The final product ends up looking more like an old Nintendo game on pause, but this offers a foundation that American designers should build on. It’s hard to believe that, in the land where fantasy was born, this hasn’t caught on.

The game’s 12th man wrinkle could also make a splash stateside. Each year, more and more fantasy football players shout expletives at their laptops after learning their running back was declared inactive just five minutes before kickoff. The 12th man solves this problem. If a wide receiver is declared out, no problem. There’s a sub already designated and ready to go.

Mr. Vakil hopes to someday expand the portfolio of Dream11’s fantasy offerings to include more sports than just cricket. His angle, he says, is to continue with the philosophy of selling fantasy as a strategy game, and hope that the consumers see it in that light. For the immediate future, though, cricket is key to the site’s success, and Mr. Vakil is banking on the growing number of Internet users in India to help the numbers climb. He points to the estimated 60 million Internet users in 2009, up from 2 million in 2000.

Mr. Vakil can only expect more potential customers. India will have the third-largest Internet user base by 2013, according to Forrester Research, with China and USA first and second, respectively. This growing international market provides an opportunity for American-based fantasy games to explore the overseas markets, as well.

In March 2009, RotoHog.com raised $2 million in Series B funding and successfully created fantasy soccer games for media companies in Brazil (in Portuguese and English) and for Fox Sports International (in Spanish and English). Their platform is even designed to deliver in multi-lingual capability, including Mandarin.

“I absolutely believe that international is a huge growth opportunity for fantasy sports,” says RotoHog CEO Kelly Perdew .

Several other companies are exploring the same possibilities. A company like Dream11 may not successfully move out of the fantasy cricket niche, but it may not have to. If just 5% of Indians decide to try fantasy cricket, the number will double North American fantasy sports participation.

Conversely, it may take a while for Dream11 to catch on in America. But if it works in India, there are plenty more potential customers in England, Pakistan, Australia and other cricket-crazy countries. Either way, it’s a game the big boys in this country should be studying.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704533204575047453983677716.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Catching Up With Kelly Perdew, The Apprentice Season II Winner and CEO of Rotohog.com

Peter Robert Casey

First media credentialed microblogger in college hoops history

Posted: February 2, 2010 03:16 PM

As the fantasy gaming space evolves more and more into the mainstream, no one is more positioned to be a leader and innovator in the space than RotoHog.com Chief Executive Officer, Kelly Perdew . Kelly’s entrepreneurial experience and vision, as well as his track record of success, puts him in a very unique position in a space that most media experts see as emerging as a viable, long term financial investment in the sports and entertainment world.

Rotohog.com, an industry leader in the creation of fantasy sports platforms for leagues, portals and major media companies like the NBA (official fantasy basketball game provider), Pro Football Weekly (commissioner and exchange football games) and Brazil’s ClicRBS (the largest online fantasy soccer game in the country) has quickly carved its spot in a crowded field under Perdew’s guidance.

The former Army Ranger is one of the veterans in the relatively new fantasy activation space, and his track record of delivering successful results with solid start-up planning is almost unparalleled in the business. Prior to taking the reins at RotoHog.com, Perdew turned two start-ups, one in the grassroots sports area and one in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, into the leaders of their genre. First, as president of the largest amateur sport portal on the web — eteamz.com - he oversaw the strategic build of a company which addressed the needs of recreational athletes and teams to connect, and is now serving more than three million amateur sports teams as part of Active Networks. Then as president of ProElite.com; he created an online social network that was among the most innovative in the highly popular sport of MMA. Under his leadership, ProElite, Inc. raised over $40M, including $5M from CBS, inked a three-year exclusive deal with Showtime for airing its fights and televised the first network primetime MMA fight on CBS.

Although known to the public mainly as the winner of the second season of the NBC hit TV show “The Apprentice,” and as the author of the critically-acclaimed book “Take Command, 10 Leadership Principles I Learned in the Military and Put to Work for Donald Trump,” Kelly’s real success has been behind the scenes, building and managing forward-thinking and innovative emerging brands. In addition to his three successful digital ventures, he has been a Manager at Deloitte Consulting in the Braxton Strategy Practice and served in the US Army as a Military Intelligence Officer and Airborne Ranger. He has also held numerous leadership positions in such companies as the Trump Organization, CoreObjects Software, K12 Productions, and eteamz.com.

Perdew has a BS from the US Military Academy, West Point, a JD from the UCLA School of Law, and an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA. He also hosted a show on the Military Channel called “GI Factory,” and is a celebrity spokesperson for Big Brothers/Sisters and The National Guard Youth Challenge Program. Kelly received a Presidential Appointment to the President’s Council on Civic Participation and Service in June 2006. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Here’s a transcript of my conversation with Kelly:

PRC: West Point grad. Army Ranger. Winner of Donald Trump’s celebrated reality show, The Apprentice (Season II). JD/MBA from UCLA. Author. Successful entrepreneur. The list goes on and on. You’ve accomplished a lot in a little time. What inspires you?

Kelly Perdew : Fear of failure? (Smiles) Seriously, I love the hunt and the entrepreneurial spirit that these times present and games and sports really are still like the Wild West in the digital space. We have just started scratching the surface of what can be done, and fantasy gaming (not just for sports, but for entertainment, social and even regulated gaming) is really a very interesting place to be right now.

PRC: How did your military academy background and Ranger training prepare you to succeed under pressure on such a large stage (national television)? What is the single-most valuable piece of advice that Trump instilled in you?

Kelly Perdew : I wrote a book titled, Take Command: 10 Leadership Principles I Learned in the Military and Put to Work for Donald Trump, that specifically outlines why I think my military leadership background has helped me in business and helped me succeed on the show. I was very fortunate to be able to attend West Point, where they actually train leadership as a course of study. It is an amazing institution and they do a great job at training leaders, not just for the military, but for a lifetime of service to the country.

Donald taught me to think big. Too frequently people look at a problem and then frame the solution in a very small and specific way. Donald does a great job of solving problems in a very big way. He is also a master at using the media to his advantage - a very important tool in business.

PRC: Working for Donald Trump and the Trump Organization is a fantasy for many MBAs. You’ve moved on, but the fantasy concept didn’t go away. Talk to us about RotoHog.com, your fantasy gaming platform, where you serve as CEO. How did you position the company and your entrepreneurial experience to become a leader in the fantasy sports activation space?

Kelly Perdew : Upon my arrival at RotoHog 18 months ago, we looked at the assets we had and determined where the best position would be for the future. RotoHog has developed two amazing assets - a highly configurable gaming platform that is scalable and flexible and a team of game designers that can create very compelling games for our clients and their end users.

We have invested a lot of time and money in the platform and the team can solve any objectives for our clients (growing and engaging their user base, monetizing, exploiting social media and mobile environments, and we can do this in any language). We have created partnerships with major brands who need help accomplishing their objectives. It has worked very well for clients like Turner Digital, Fox Sports International, NBA, AVP, The Sporting News and now NASCAR and others. They can concentrate on what they do best and leave the below the line to us.

PRC: Fantasy gaming has evolved from its modest beginnings. RotoHog has worked with some very successful brands as you just mentioned. What unique value does your product offer to clients?

Kelly Perdew : The flexibility of our gaming platform allows us to configure very compelling games for our clients and we do it very quickly. The rotohog team can build and integrate a game for our client within 2-3 weeks. This gives our clients the ability to respond very fast to their sponsors for promotions, campaigns and we also provide very deep activation hooks in the games for the brands. These games are fully integrated into the clients’ sites, have open APIs for bi-directional sharing of information with social media sites, and can have features that monetize the user base.

The bottom line is we provide best in class game applications that are fun, scalable and adaptable to the audience. We can build games for any sport, reality show, movie release, social media site, mobile device…really anything with structure data. They run well, they look great and the technology is constantly evolving. For instance, you can see the broad range of capabilities we offer by comparing the NASCAR.com stock exchange game we just launched with “The Bachelor” game we launched for ABC.

PRC: Where is this trend going? What drives the growth of fantasy sports participation?

Kelly Perdew : It is all about fan engagement. For sports, it used to be with board games and baseball cards, now you get to really see what it’s like to build your own teams and really be the coach or the GM. It is going more global very rapidly. Yes football and baseball are still king, but anywhere there is statistical data to be mined and there is a passionate fan base, fantasy will be in play. Also, the styles of games we can provide allow for broader audience appeal - simple games that exist across all media platforms are allowing brands to grow their audience.

PRC: How does RotoHog.com leverage social media for your brand and for your partners/clients?

Kelly Perdew : The great thing about games is the way information spreads virally and some of our partners are the pioneers in the social media marketing space. They literally have millions of people online and engaged around the world every day. So by powering a part of that network with our games we are able to communicate in real time to a worldwide audience any new offerings or innovations that are a part of the gaming platform we continue to grow. All of the games we build can live in a social media environment in part or completely, depending on what our clients’ goals are. RotoHog is a B2B company and our brand to end users is not as important as our clients’ brands.

PRC: What is your vision for RotoHog.com? What does ultimate success look like for the brand?

Kelly Perdew : Success is simple: We succeed when our clients accomplish their objectives. As we focus on delivering compelling games that grow, engage and monetize for our clients, success fill follow.

PRC: How about for Kelly Perdew ? What will your legacy look like?

Kelly Perdew : My wife and i just had twins, so the definition of legacy changes a bit with something like that! (Smiles). On the business front, I love leading and building companies. The RotoHog team is the best at technology delivery, especially in sports and entertainment, and to some day see that we were part of the wave that created fun products for consumers to use as an escape from everyday life, and to further engage with their favorite brands, is pretty cool to me.

PRC: I would have to agree with that. Congratulations on all of your success, and double congratulations on your newborn twins. I really appreciate your time, considering how limited and valuable it is. Thank you!

Kelly Perdew : Thank you for the opportunity!

You can keep with Kelly via Twitter, http://www.twitter.com/kperdew, or by frequenting his blog: http://www.twitter.com/kperdew.

Follow Peter Robert Casey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_R_Casey

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-robert-casey/catching-up-with-kelly-pe_b_446367.html

From Socaltech.com Newsletter….
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A new endowed fellowship fund, which will be awarded to a graduate MBA
student at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California,
Irvine, has been established to honor the Tech Coast Angels’ Luis
Villalobos. According to the Tech Coast Angels, the new fellowship–the
Luis Villalobos Endowed Fellowship in Entrepreneurship–will be awarded to
a student with an interest in entrepreneurship and/or starting or being
part of a new business. Villalobos, founder of the Tech Coast Angels,
passed away on October first. The Tech Coast Angels is now the largest
angel investor group in Southern California, and is among the largest in
the U.S., with over 250 members. According to the TCA, applications for
the fellowship will be reviewed by a committee of donors, and will only be
awarded in years a suitable candidate is identified. The group said the
fellowship will be available for application in 2010.