How to Evaluate Potential Investors - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 9 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, IndieGoGo co-founder and entrepreneur Slava Rubin answers "What Criteria Are You Using to Evaluate Potential Investors?" First, Rubin notes the importance of aligning ambition and goals. Second, he looks for more than money with investors. With finding money getting easier, Rubin looks for investors who have contacts, expertise, and experience that can help the company improve and grow. Rubin is co-founder and CEO of IndieGoGo.com, a crowdfunding startup whose platform helps individuals and groups finance their passions. Before IndieGoGo, Rubin worked in management consulting for Diamond Consulting, now a PWC company. Rubin founded and manages non-profit Music Against Myeloma to raise funds and awareness to fight cancer. He earned a BBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What criteria are you using to evaluate potential investors?

Slava Rubin:  No matter who you’re trying to add in to the business, whether it be employees, or partners, or investors, it’s really important that it all has alignment as to what you’re trying to accomplish, right?  So you have a shared vision, you have a shared understanding as to what our goals are as a company.  Regarding investors, specifically, it’s a classic saying ‘you want to find more than just money’ or sometimes they call it ‘dumb money’ or ‘smart money’.  It’s becoming easier and easier to find the cash, whether it be credit cards, or loans, or IndieGoGo, or one off angels, or dentists, or lawyers, but really what you wanna find is folks that can give you advice based on their experience as running companies before, or maybe they have the right network for your industry to get you certain business development relationships, or certain distribution deals, or certain partnerships; or maybe they have expertise in areas that your founding team or your small team doesn’t have yet, whether it be in technology, or sales, or operations, or maybe scaling the company.  

So what we look for when we talk to investors is always about, you know, what is your participation going to be with us and how can we work together to make the company better.  It’s also – it’s just always very important as a default that we’re all on the same page as to what we’re starting to accomplish.  Some investors are looking in to only create billion-dollar companies, and some investors are looking to create ten-million-dollar companies and sell them.  So you just need to make sure that everybody is on the same page as to what we’re all trying to accomplish.

How Crowdfunding Empowers a New Storytelling Generation - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 10 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, IndieGoGo co-founder and entrepreneur Slava Rubin answers "How is Crowdfunding Empowering a New Generation of Storytellers?" Rubin shares how the rise of online payments and social media sharing have sparked new ways to finance passion projects. From cause supporters to business creators to artists, Rubin finds fulfillment seeing his company, IndieGoGo, provide them means to make dreams come true. Rubin is co-founder and CEO of IndieGoGo.com, a crowdfunding startup whose platform helps individuals and groups finance their passions. Before IndieGoGo, Rubin worked in management consulting for Diamond Consulting, now a PWC company. Rubin founded and manages non-profit Music Against Myeloma to raise funds and awareness to fight cancer. He earned a BBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How is crowd funding empowering a new generation of storytellers?

Slava Rubin:  You know, ten years ago, even five years ago, you have no YouTube; you have no Facebook; you have no MySpace; you have no Twitter.  You barely have attachments in emails.  You don’t really have as much transaction happening via credit card.  You definitely do not have the word ‘Obama’ being used anywhere.  And it’s just incredible that just in a number of years you start taking all these trends and resources, you put them into one place, and you create a platform like IndieGoGo, which allows anybody to raise money for absolutely anything.  And now you find out that if you give them these tools, everybody in the world is passionate.  Everybody in the world wants to create a campaign or fund a campaign.  It’s just not so easy for them to do that.  Now with IndieGoGo, we provide them those tools, and now all of a sudden, all these musicians, video game artists, business creators, cause supporters are making incredible, incredible stuff, and it’s just a world of validation, and now they can follow their dreams.  

We have a great example of that with Elaine Zelker, a mom in Pennsylvania with three kids.  She is a registered nurse and really focused on her day-to-day job, so that she can provide for the family with her husband.  And she’s always wanted to be in photography but never took that risk.  She gets on IndieGoGo, raises money, creates this gallery in a photo book, she gets exposure, and now is on Good Morning, America. Gets on Good Morning, America.  People see it left and right.  She gets a major agent from New York to wanna push out her book.  So now she has gone from, you know, super conservative, registered nurse of Pennsylvania to somebody who has thousands of dollars to do her photography that she loves, turning in to her business, and now has an agent out of New York.  It’s just incredible as you see people following their passions and that IndieGoGo can support those dreams.

Erik Michielsen:  And how did that make you feel to be part of that?

Slava Rubin:  I love it.  The coolest thing about IndieGoGo is different than just a, should we say, ‘search engine’, or maybe a regular e-commerce site, or even some whiz-bang amazing stuff that’s happening here at South-by, people love using IndieGoGo.  It becomes part of them and their fabric.  They get the emails when they get the money and it says you got money, and it’s just so exciting ‘cause it’s just little bricks being added to their foundation of a dream, and it’s awesome.

How Online Brand Builds Offline Customer Relationships - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 11 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, IndieGoGo co-founder and entrepreneur Slava Rubin answers "What Have You Learned About How an Online Brand Can Build Offline Customer Relationships?" He begins by creating a message that customers believe from the product experience. With his company IndieGoGo, it is "Anyone in the world can create a campaign to raise more money from more people faster." This online message transcends into the physical experience customers have creating and conducting campaigns. Rubin is co-founder and CEO of IndieGoGo.com, a crowdfunding startup whose platform helps individuals and groups finance their passions. Before IndieGoGo, Rubin worked in management consulting for Diamond Consulting, now a PWC company. Rubin founded and manages non-profit Music Against Myeloma to raise funds and awareness to fight cancer. He earned a BBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What have you learned about how an online brand can build offline customer relationships?

Slava Rubin:  Managing a brand, period, is just really important and challenging. Trying to transcend from offline to online or online to offline is very challenging, but I would say that the more that you can create a message that resonates with your customers, not something that you’re trying to make them believe but they believe in the experience of using your product, and you can concisely use that message across the board, it’s just really important, because it becomes then, instead of just using a tool, it becomes an experience that everybody is part of.  At IndieGoGo, we say that anybody in the world can create a campaign to raise more money for more people faster.  So that’s our brand.  I can repeat it.  

But really it’s just a matter of more money for more people, and that’s why they come to IndieGoGo.  That’s why from any country in the world, they come, they create campaigns, and that’s what they’re looking to feel and experience, and we try to have that permeate whether it be online or offline. 

How Passion Projects Come Alive at South by Southwest - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 12 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, IndieGoGo co-founder and entrepreneur Slava Rubin answers "How Does the South By Southwest Conference Exemplify Power of Passion Project Crowdfunding?" Rubin gets energy from South by Southwest (SXSW) and the passion and energy at the interaction of film, interactive, and music. Rubin's company IndieGoGo provides crowdfunding project financing to SXSW attendees, including one filmmaker whose "My Sucky Teen Romance" raised its funds on IndieGoGo and was selected for the film festival. Rubin is co-founder and CEO of IndieGoGo.com, a crowdfunding startup whose platform helps individuals and groups finance their passions. Before IndieGoGo, Rubin worked in management consulting for Diamond Consulting, now a PWC company. Rubin founded and manages non-profit Music Against Myeloma to raise funds and awareness to fight cancer. He earned a BBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How does the South by Southwest Conference exemplify the power of passion project crowd funding?

Slava Rubin:  Oh yeah, I mean South-by is such an incredible conference.  It brings together the best in film, the best in interactive, and the best in music, all these incredible ideas of people that are passionate from around the world, all coming together into one place which is in Austin, Texas, during March, which is incredible.  And IndieGoGo is very similar.  It doesn’t happen in Austin, it happens online, and it doesn’t only happen within the three disciplines of interactive, music, and film, it actually happens within anything possible, anything creative, anything entrepreneurial, or anything cause, but at its core it’s the same where people have passion that they’re following, that they wanna make some magic happen.  South-by gives them the tool to expose it to the world here for ten days, and IndieGoGo gives them the opportunity to raise more money for more people faster, get the exposure, and just raise all that cash to make their dreams happen.  So it’s really incredible.  

South-by is really one of the greatest conferences out there.  And the fact, like I said, that we have all these filmmakers using it, and musicians using it, the interactive folks using it, and even the actual fans of South-by coming on road trips and funding their road trips through IndieGoGo is really remarkable.  I mean I’ve had an incredible experience here, and it’s really absolutely amazing to have successful customers from IndieGoGo here at South-by.

Erik Michielsen:  Can you give a couple of examples of some of the amazing things that are happening here using IndieGoGo?

Slava Rubin:  Yeah, I mean the perfect example would be this 18-year-old girl who created a movie called ‘My Sucky Teen Romance’, and she created multiple campaigns on IndieGoGo. First, it was just a campaign around an idea.  She then raised thousands of dollars.  She starts making the movie.  She needs more production money.  She raises thousands more dollars or almost – she raises her entire budget for that movie through IndieGoGo and gets in to South-by, absolutely incredible.

How to Establish Trust When Making a First Impression - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 16 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, IndieGoGo co-founder Slava Rubin answers "How Do You Build Trusting Relationships?" Rubin discusses why the first several seconds are critical when meeting someone and how he presents himself to create a lasting good impression.  Direct eye contact and an honest approach help Rubin lay a strong foundation whereupon he may build trust with someone over time.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How do you build trusting relationships?

Slava Rubin:   Well, the interesting thing is that they say that trust is established within the first seven seconds of interacting with somebody and then it takes at least thirty days to be able to change what that person perceived with the first seven seconds.  Which is like an amazing thing.  I try to do a lot of eye contact.  A lot of directness. A lot of honesty.  After that, it`s really hard to control what that person is going to think, but a lot of lead by example and try not to fake things or lie about stuff.

How Entrepreneur Uses Skills to Grow Myeloma Charity - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 15 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, Music for Myeloma cancer charity founder Slava Rubin answers "How Has Your Experience With Indiegogo Strengthened Your Philanthropic Efforts Building Your Charity Music Against Myeloma?" Rubin shares how lessons learned as an entrepreneur starting IndieGoGo have helped overcome challenge building his non-profit.  Specifically, his entrepreneurial experience allows him to deal with teammates, partners, and crisis management.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has your experience with Indiegogo strengthened your philanthropic efforts, building your charity Music Against Myeloma?

Slava Rubin:  When I first started Music Again Myeloma, which goes back probably four or five years, I had no idea what I was doing.  I definitely not an entrepreneur, I was working in the Fortune 500 world as a strategy consultant.  It definitely was a big initiative to start Music Against Myeloma, it took a lot of risk, but I really didn't have an idea about how to turn nothing into something and having the experience with Music Against Myeloma helped me start Indiegogo but now all my experience with Indiegogo really gives me an understanding of how to deal with major issues, how to deal with teammates and partners and really what`s an important crisis versus what`s a small crisis. We actually had a huge crisis last year.  We use to go to The Cutting Room, which was a really cool venue in the Flatiron district in Manhattan and literally one month before the show they were like, ``Oh, by the way we`re closing down.``  So we had to totally find a new venue.  So that’s a big crisis.  It ended up working out okay and we had a really great event last year, but that`s a fairly big crisis.  If I didn't have some of the experience from Indiegogo from previous years, I might have folded up shop and said it wasn't going to happen.  But we worked through it, and I say we because I had a good team working with me, and it worked out okay.

How Management Consulting Career Evolves Over Time - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 14 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur and IndieGoGo co-founder Slava Rubin answers "What Were the Milestones in the Seven Years You Worked at Diamond Consulting and What Led You to Pursue Other Opportunities?" Rubin reflects on the milestones achieved through his seven years working with Diamond Management and Technology Consultants. Rubin segments his progress into incremental steps, from doing analyst work to leading work to leading a team and then selling the work. Rubin discusses approaches to managing stress and overcoming challenge as well as building transferable skills useful in entrepreneurial pursuits.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What were the milestones in the seven years you worked at Diamond Consulting and what lead you to pursue other opportunities?

Slava Rubin:  So, there`s really those various steps of consulting, if you want to generalize. There`s being able to do the work, being able to lead the work, lead the team, sell the work.  It took me a couple of years to graduate from each one of those steps and it really was an amazing transition.  As if I was at a new company or I had a new job.  To be able to crank out models or presentations use to be really, really stressful, and they were hard.

Erik Michielsen:  How did you manage that stress?

Slava Rubin:  Again, it goes back to my childhood, understanding what`s a big deal and what`s a small deal.  If you can make it through those other things what`s the big deal with a client yelling a little bit, your partner yelling at you a little bit? You have to be able to manage them.  If you show them this is your plan, this is how you`re going to execute it, they have to believe in you and you have to execute. But, as soon as I knew how to do those, I wanted to do the new step, and the new step was able to lead that work by myself or a section.  After I did that it was about leading a team and interacting with a client. There is nothing more valuable than getting the growth of leading a team, interaction with the client, having to manage that situation, knowing what is big fire, what is a small fire.  This is when we`re getting into real entrepreneurial work, being able to manage those situations, so there definitely a lot of learning that happens.

How Management Consulting Job Prepares Entrepreneur - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 13 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, Indiegogo co-founder and UPenn Wharton grad Slava Rubin answers "What Made You Choose Management and Technology Consulting as Your First Job Out of College?" Rubin shares how, upon graduating The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, he took a management consulting job with Diamond Management and Technology Consultants.  Rubin highlights the influences shaping his decision to pursue consulting, how the work then contributed to his overall education, and finally why it was an essential development step before becoming an entrepreneur and co-founding IndieGoGo.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What made you choose management and technology consulting as your first job out of college?

Slava Rubin: I really see there being an extensive amount of education that one needs just to ready for their roles in life, whatever that role is.   My role is that I really wanted to be an entrepreneur but I thought that my layers of education would be, one I would go college for my academic education.  I studied abroad for my kind of global and international education and I still didn`t feel like I had a corporate education.  So, I felt like consulting was the best opportunity for a corporate education to understand how Fortune 500 companies operate, their inner workings, how you can maneuver within them and how decisions are made.  And realistically in a consulting job you get to dip and dive between different companies, so you really get a varied exposure, which is exactly why I became a consultant.  So, really it`s extension of my education to be an entrepreneur.

Why Penn Wharton School Student Chooses Belgium for Abroad Study - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 12 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, University of Pennsylvania graduate Slava Rubin answers "Why Did You Choose to Study Abroad in Belgium During College and How Have You Applied That Liberal Arts Education to the Choices You Have Made Since?" Rubin shares how he chose a Belgium school, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, over a Hong Kong school for his study abroad program. He takes several liberal arts courses, including Conjugal Sexual Morality with Priests, European Art History, Flemish, and The Evolution of the European Union.  This, along with a Penn Film Study class, rounds out Rubin's Wharton undergraduate education before graduating and starting work as a management consultant. 

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Why did you choose to study abroad in Belgium during college and how have you applied that liberal arts education to the choices you've made since?

Slava Rubin:  My choices for where I wanted to study were, there was this really cool school in Hong Kong, which was very exciting to go to, there was a school in Belgium that I thought was cool, and then maybe I was looking at a school in South America, but really it was between this Hong Kong school and the Belgium school.  Realistically, I just hadn’t had a lot of travel experience yet and kind of wanted to knock out Europe first and maybe I wasn't as risky with my moves or maybe I would have gone to Hong Kong. 

I think also the Belgium was suppose to be a little bit easier and I wanted to have an easy of an experience as possible, but I took some really fun class.  Conjugal Sexual Morality that I took with priests, European Art History, Flemish, all kinds of crazy stuff, the evolution of the EU (European Union).  The closest thing that I took anything about a liberal arts class at Wharton, which was really just accounting and marketing and financing, was writing about film, which wasn't even a real writing class, it just watching movies and taking notes.  So, it was definitely interesting to see that side of an education and I knew as I was consulting and as I was doing these corporate jobs that I still wanted to tap that other side of my brain.

How Penn Wharton School College Experience Reshapes Career Goals - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 11 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, University of Pennsylvania graduate Slava Rubin answers "What Were Your Career Ambitions Entering the University of Pennsylvania and How Did They Change By the Time You Graduated?" Rubin highlights how his career goals changed while attending the undergraduate Wharton School business  program.  While studying abroad in Belgium, Rubin rethinks his values and finds he is less interested in Wall Street banking work.  Leaving behind his high school ambition to be the next "Wall Street" Gordon Gekko Michael Douglas character, Rubin instead secures a management consulting job and begins his career.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What were your career ambitions entering The University of Pennsylvania and how did that change by the time you graduated?

Slava Rubin:  When I was applying to colleges I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted to do in life.  I wanted to be pretty rich, pretty powerful.  I wanted to be a banker and I kind of wanted to be in that Wall Street role, you know ``Wall Street`` the movie with Michael Douglas.  And as I went to Penn I was surround, I think, by a lot of those characters.  I actually went to Wharton Undergrad, which is a lot of cutthroat individuals and I actually figured out that I wasn't as cutthroat and desiring the money and the power as the people around me, which was kind of surprising. That, along with my Belgium experience just taught me maybe I don’t want to be doing exactly what all these other people want to be doing.  Which, don`t get me wrong I didn't turn into a quote in quote a liberal arts fluffy job person, I became a strategy consultant, which is not so far away from being a banker.  It was pretty important to figure out what my values were and I think college, I learned a lot about that.

How Supporting Mom After Dad's Passing Teaches Perspective - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 10 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Slava Rubin answers "What Non-Business Experience Has Done the Most to Bolster Your Self-Confidence?" shares how he was thirteen years old when he lost his father and what he learned about himself helping his mom through the grieving process.  The experience provides Rubin perspective he later uses to apply his parents' encouragement to plan big goals and work to achieve them.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What non business experience has done the most to bolster your self confidence?

Slava Rubin:  What I would say, this is a really tricky question.  What I would say, the truth of the matter is… Well, my dad died when I was 13 and it`s as simple as my brother was four and a half years older than me, so my brother was just going to college so he wasn`t at home, so it was just my mom and me.  You know my mom did great, she`s a wonderful person but no one deals very well with having their husband die or the father of their children and you know my mom had some tough times but really I was there with her and we dealt with some tough times together.  I think we figured out that you know all these other things like hitting the ball into the right part of the court or getting an A on a test or cleaning up the leaves correctly or asking a girl out were really no big potatoes compared with hanging with my mom and growing with the issue of having my dad pass away. 

So I think that`s the main factor, not that I wish that for anyone to have their parent pass away because that really sucks, but before that I was saying that my parents just really instilled a lot of confidence in me, they told me I could do whatever I want, my parents were smart, they put disciple in me and they said if I work hard, you should be able to accomplish it.

How to Cultivate Childhood Passions for Food, Travel, and Film - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 9 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, Belarus-born American entrepreneur Slava Rubin answers "What Childhood Experiences Contributed Most to Shaping Your Passions for Food, Travel, and Film?" Rubin shares the experiences cultivating his passions for food, travel, and film.  A latch key child with two working parents, Rubin watches "Yang Can Cook" and "Julia Child", learns to cook, and soon finds satisfaction feeding others and making them happy.  Born abroad, Rubin prioritizes a college abroad experience to Belgium to broaden his cultural experience.  Rubin's film interest shapes through Blockbuster visits and his tendency not to choose movies by quantity but by those showing film festival olive branch award logos.  These collective experiences - enabling happiness, opening cultural doors, and creating fine art - influence Rubin to apply these interests and build the IndieGoGo mission.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  So, what childhood experiences contributed most to shaping your passions for food, travel and film?

Slava Rubin: I was a latchkey kid, I would say, where I was coming home and having to open the door by myself because my parents were both professionals and they were making money.  My mom was a doctor and my dad was engineer.  And I think I just got bored eating leftovers and cold food out of the fridge and so I just started deciding I just needed more tasty food.  So I started experimenting with the microwave, watching Yang Can Cook and Julia Child, and whoever on PBS and starting making some food.  I think I really enjoyed it and then saw that making food, but then feeding others with the food that I made really made them happy, which was kind of a happiness for me, which in the long run which was just very cool.  So I think that perpetuated till today because I even love making food today. 

I think the travel thing...I was born in Belarus, so you can say I was addicted to travel as soon as I was born because we moved to New York City right away, as my family moved to America. But when I was in college I studied abroad in Belgium, and I guess it's also cliche, I just fell in love with traveling because I lived in Belgium on purpose.  It was kind of in the heart in Europe and I traveled all around every week and I didn't do much work for classes and it was cool.  From there it's just been nonstop.  I've torn through an entire passport and had to get additional pages and that good stuff.  

In terms of film, I don't really know the answer to that except for when I was at Blockbuster as kid I wasn't always drawn to the wall that had the most titles.  Just because you had 74 copies of something didn't mean that was exactly what I wanted to see.  Sometimes I wanted to see were those olive branches, which back when I was a kid I actually didn’t know what those olive branches meant yet, but today those kind of mean it's a festival equals the olive branches, so I would kind of look for those branches to be like, ``Oh, which one got the most branches.``  It's kind of funny because they still do the same thing today and try to put a lot of branches on your DVD title.  I was like, ``Wow, these are really cool movies.``  I mean, now you look back I know I know I watch ``Reservoir Dogs`` well before ``Pulp Fiction`` came out and back when Quentin Tarantino was not so special, but it`s kind of cool when you kind of find those gems.  Plus, they're a little more interesting.  You get a little more than just he vanilla and chocolate, you get all those crazy flavors.

How to Lead Teams Using Optimism and Positive Attitude - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 8 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Slava Rubin answers "What Keeps You So Positive and Optimistic in Your Entrepreneurial Pursuits?" Rubin shares how childhood struggles and formative experiences have taught him to keep a balance and positive attitude.  Rubin shares how positive energy and attitude - from the lowest level to highest level of the team - lower stress levels and raise team performance.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What keeps you so positive and optimistic in your entrepreneurial pursuits?

Slava Rubin:  I think in any of my entrepreneurial pursuits or really any other part of my life, I think that I've been through a few struggles when I was younger, but I see no reason to add additional negativity or additional stress to a situation.  I don't see the positive value in that and I think that often people react to the way people are around them and I try to maintain a balance and a positive attitude so they can feel comforted maybe or okay with the situations around them.  

I mean I sometimes see crisis right in front of me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go off the deep end.  It`s not going to help anybody.  A lot of the situations I'm in I try to, sometime on purpose sometimes I`m forced into it, I act as the leader or act as the motivator and I think a positive attitude really helps.  Even if you're not the leader, even if you`re the lowest level person on the team, a positive attitude can really help the stress level of the group and trying to really deliver on that really important thing.

How to Support and Encourage Entrepreneurs - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 7 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur and IndieGoGo co-founder Slava Rubin answers "What Has Been Most Surprising About the Peer Support You Have Received Since Making the Transition to Become an Entrepreneur?" Rubin highlights the different ways both entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs have supported him in his transition from corporate management consultant to Internet startup IndieGoGo co-founder. Rubin finds non-entrepreneurs, including those working corporate jobs, can provide encouragement while not necessarily sharing the same desire to start a company and assume the risk associated with starting a business.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What has been most surprising about the peer support you`ve received since making the transition to become an entrepreneur?

Slava Rubin:  There is definitely a respect between entrepreneurs and there is definitely something about people who are not entrepreneurs who respect entrepreneurial spirit.  That doesn`t mean that they too want to be entrepreneurs, but they respect it.  It takes a lot of guts and it takes a lot of risk to go away from the norm.  People know the white picket fence, the corporate job, the insurance salesman, all that good stuff and having all of the perfect amenities.   But to be able risk some of those things and to try to create something on your own or with a team, of course, is challenging and I would say respect is a pretty consistent word.

How to Use Do It With Others Approach to Build Strong Teams - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 6 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, IndieGoGo co-founder Slava Rubin answers "How Has Indiegogo's Mantra, Do-It-With-Others, Affected Your Pursuits Outside of Work?" Rubin shares how he applies a "Do-It-With-Others" or DIWO approach to projects and ambitions inside and outside work.  Rubin, along with co-founders Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell, developed the DIWO approach to build a platform to provide filmmakers and mediamakers tools for fundraising, promotion, and discovery.  Rubin shares that through college and early career, his tendency was more Do-It-Yourself (DIY) but over time he opened to finding complementary skills to build stronger teams.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has Indiegogo’` mantra, Do It With Others, affected your pursuits outside of work?

Slava Rubin:  Yeah, I think that part of my inspiration involved with Indiegogo is the idea that there are all these tools out there and all these people, while they feel like islands, they really shouldn'gt.  There is a lot of, now, ability to do it with others, whether it`s through influences like bloggers, partnerships with different companies, it always use to be that if you couldn't succeed by yourself, you were done.  There was this whole wave of DIY, do it yourself, which really goes back, I guess to the rock band era, maybe 20 years ago.  Now, it's really about leveraging all the things around you, the people, the tools, the information.

Erik Michielsen: As you're looking at what you`re learning in the work environment to facilitate stronger filmmaker success, what are you taking away from those lessons learned and applying them to your own life?

Slava Rubin:  Yeah, really I've always been pretty competitive in wanting to do things I could succeed myself, but the older I get, the more mature I get, the more I know it's about finding the right people to work with, knowing what you don't know, trying to get the right teammates and trying to lead all together. Which is all about  ``doing it with others``, I mean the leadership at Indiegogo is three people it`s Eric Schell, Danae Ringelmann and myself, and there is no question that we do it with others.

How Berkeley Lester Center Helps Incubate Startup - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 5 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, IndieGoGo co-founder Slava Rubin answers "What Has the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of California at Berkeley Done to Help Launch Indiegogo?" Rubin shars how the University of California Berkeley Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation provided early-stage support launching his company with Haas School of Business student co-founders Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What has the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of California Berkley done to help launch Indiegogo?

Slava Rubin:  It`s really amazing.  Most people don`t know but some of these schools how they help with entrepreneurialism and I must say I was shocked to see how much Berkley did to help entrepreneurs.  The Lester Center is just a testament to that because they have their own incubator where they help bring up and support these different startups with office space or different resources, which we were lucky enough to be able to get.  As well as, besides the Lester Center, the whole community, there were different classes we where we were able to leverage the professors or the student body to be able to do different market research or testing or bouncing off different ideas.  The amazing thing is that Indiegogo was one of many different ideas that came out of Berkley in that year for graduating in 2009 and some of them are quite successful in the last few of years as well.

What Matters Most When Pitching a Movie, Charity or Venture - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 4 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, Slava Rubin answers "Based on Your Experiences as an Entrepreneur, as Someone Involved in Film and Someone Involved in Philanthropy, What are the Most Important Elements When Making a Good Pitch for Financing?" Rubin shares fundraising pitch lessons learned from his work financing films, starting a charitable foundation, and securing startup investors.  Rubin's recipe begins by being honest and passionate and continues with being clear and concise, taking no more than 3-5 minutes to communicate the idea.  Regardless of whether it is a movie, a business venture, or a philanthropy, Rubin advises need to present a team with an ability to execute and plan to apply financing to specific milestones and accomplishments.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcription:

Erik Michielsen:  So based on your experience in the film world, the entrepreneurial field, and the philanthropic world, raising money, what is your advice to others on the most important elements to include when making a pitch?

Slava Rubin:  I think the most important thing is to really be honest about what your pitch is and you can`t really fake a good pitch.  You have to be passionate about what you`re trying to offer and you have to also make it real.  Just because you can say real quickly three sentences doesn't make it a good pitch. The idea has to be clear and you have to be able to say it within five minutes, hopefully within three minutes, but definitely within five.  As soon as you start stumbling explaining away what your idea is, it`s because you don`t understand the idea yourself.  So it`s really important to make the idea feel real, be passionate about the idea, because someone who wants to invest in an idea, whether it`s philanthropy, a movie or a venture, they`re investing for the long term.  You can`t fake passion, you can fake a pitch, but people can read through people faking passion, so you have to be realistic.  Plus, the ability to execute has to be there, on your team, in your partners, in your [pause] whoever it is you`re lining up with, it has to be known that the money will go toward accomplishing something as opposed to pie in the sky visions.

How Media Future Rests on Direct to Consumer Distribution - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 3 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, media platform IndieGoGo co-founder Slava Rubin answers "How Are Film Distribution Changes, Including Internet Streaming, Impacting What Defines Profitability in Filmmaking?" Rubin shares how film distribution model innovations, including online streaming, are building more direct audience connections and finding economic efficiency cutting out middlemen. Rubin references this relevance across iTunes, Hulu, Netflix and the assorted models from free, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, and subscription connecting content to audience.

Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How are film distribution changes, including internet streaming, impacting what defines profitability in filmmaking?

Slava Rubin:  I think the way the film, video, TV, media world on the internet would evolve is still yet to be known.  I think that Netflix is doing some amazing things, iTunes is doing some amazing things, Hulu, we`re getting TV everywhere. But I think it’` going to expand and evolve similarly to the way TV today is, there are different flavors.  There is free TV, there’s commercial TV, there’s PPV TV, there are pay channels.  I think all of those opportunities will find themselves also on the internet.  When the internet and TV converge that will happen more and more, but I think profitability is tricky.  I think one of the key factors [pause] that slowly all those middle men are getting torn away. 

So, it`s all able creating your own brand, creating your own following and perpetuating by profiting as much as possible by not giving away all your margin to all those middle men and all those aggregators. You asked me specifically about streaming but I think this can be true for any of the various forms of distribution, where really it`s evolving and it`s more of a direct connection with your audience.