Phil Sklar (MSA '07)

By Sally Anne Flecker | Spring 2016

Printer Friendly

When the bobbleheads began spilling off the kitchen counters, Phil Sklar knew it was time to come up with a plan.

By then, the figurines had filled the living spaces in the condo he shared with his childhood friend and partner-in-collecting Brad Novak. Everywhere they turned, pint-sized heads, numbering in the thousands, stared back at them. Brainstorming led the duo to a surprising idea: the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. By the time the niche museum opens in fall 2016 in downtown Milwaukee, they expect to have amassed 10,000 springy specimens.

It’s not just amusement driving them, but a calculated business decision, based on the experience they had several years ago. They tried to get a bobblehead made to recognize a Special Olympian well known at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, their undergraduate alma mater. None of the main bobblehead producers were interested in a one-time job with a limited run of a thousand.

So they came up empty-handed in one sense, but they gained an idea for a business opportunity. “We filed away the fact that it’s difficult to get that process going for someone looking to have a bobblehead made,” Sklar says. Since then, they’ve produced more than 50,000 custom bobbleheads for 50 teams and individuals, as well as worked behind the scenes doing market research, testing their concept and building a website. Six months before they announced their plans to create a destination for all things bobblehead, they took a deep breath and walked away from their corporate-track jobs.

Meanwhile, they’re having fun. Avid sports fans, they’ve memorialized two viral images from the 2015 NCAA basketball tournament — the Villanova Crying Piccolo Girl and the ankle-cast-clad Georgia State coach falling off his rolling chair as his son shoots the winning basket. For Notre Dame fans, they’ve even created a Rudy bobblehead (of the real “Rudy,” Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger (ND ‘76) — not actor Sean Astin, in case you’re wondering).

Says the laidback Sklar, “We took a hobby and passion and turned it into a business.” Nods of approval all around.

Categories

  • Salt and Light1
    Just to say their names ... 6690
  • Class Notes2
    Class Notes 6748
    Here you are again ... 6668
  • Ask More of Business1
    One and Dunn 6610
  • In Memoriam1
    In Memoriam 6661
  • Mendoza News8
    Too big to fail? 6727
    It's not all about the money 6747
    Faculty in the news 6732
    Noteworthy collegewide news ... take one 6737
    Noteworthy collegewide news ... take two 6733
    A Single Word 6734
    MBA Entrepreneurship Gets an Overhaul 6741
    Passion + Savvy = Difference 6740
  • Mendoza Profiles7
    Play Like A Champion FOREVER 6658
    Lucky Me 6671
    More Cowbell 6669
    Irish cowgirl 6672
    Marathon Love 6673
    Threadies for Refugees 6687
    He's with the band 6689
  • Alumni Community7
    Class Notes 6748
    Here you are again ... 6668
    Club Profile: The Notre Dame Club of Chicago 6663
    Phil Sklar (MSA '07) 6665
    Tracy Elliott (MNA '93) 6666
    Sarah Lawless (MNA '12, FIN '08) 6662
    In Memoriam 6661
    Future Domers 6749
  • First Person1
    Why Not Say It Today? 6656