Slava Rubin on How to Have a Better Career Advice Conversation

In Chapter 8 of 15 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Have You Learned to Give Better Advice When People Ask You For Help?" Rubin shares how as he has gotten older, he is less prescriptive in giving advice and more investigative. By helping those he coaches and mentors work through key issues and questions, Rubin creates ownership and accountability they can then use to follow through. 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 have you learned to give better advice when people ask you for help?

Slava Rubin: I think when I was younger, my advice would usually be about giving a specific answer and telling them what they should do because they weren’t clear on what they should do and they just needed somebody to tell them.

Which I think that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned from some of my mentors that good advice is not telling somebody what to do but is asking all the right questions and providing the experiences, so you can help guide their expectations as to where the decision might take them. So these days I really wanna pull out the facts where they get to understand the situation, help them understand themselves, and help them, guide them to their own answer as opposed to telling them the right answer or the wrong answer.

Erik Michielsen: Can you tell me a bit more about how one of the mentorship experiences taught you that? An example?

Slava Rubin: Yeah, I mean even with Indiegogo in the early days, sometimes I would ask for one of my mentors, sometimes even looking for the answer for him to tell me but he was like, you know, “This is not my company to run. It’s your company to run. So I’m just gonna help guide you with some of my experiences and thoughts, and then you gotta make the decision and feel accountable to it.”

Erik Michielsen: How are your mentoring relationships changing as you gain experience and have new responsibilities?

Slava Rubin: I mean it’s great. As CEO of Indiegogo, I’m definitely getting more people I get to mentor people that wanna be entrepreneurs, I try to mentor them, whether it’s officially or just a one-off conversation or email, but the mentors that I have are super valuable because I’m constantly getting myself into a situation that I’ve never been in before and I wanna have some people’s feedback as to what they think about it. It’s never about “Are you older than me, or younger than me, or smarter than me?” Rather, “Do you have experience that I can learn from?” So that’s really what I look for.

Slava Rubin on Creating Scalable Systems to Grow Your Business

In Chapter 10 of 15 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Procedures and Processes Are You Putting in Place to Manage Company Growth?" Rubin notes why scale matters when you grow a company. He shares scalable systems his team is creating, from publicity, sales and web analytics to project management effectiveness measures to key performance indicators (KPIs) of company success. Collectively, these processes create a structure that helps Rubin and his team manage company growth. 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 procedures and processes are you putting in place to manage company growth?

Slava Rubin: As you grow a company, and as you try to get bigger, and we now service millions of customers, we’re now distributing millions of dollars, things need to be scalable. You need to not have it as one-off distractions or one-off exceptions. And these need to be scalable systems where the next person can just plug in and do that, and it’s really incredible the challenge of how hard that is to do ‘cause somebody always has that exception, “What about this? What about that?” Sometimes you just need to cut that off for the sake of the process and making it clean, but it’s imperative to create scalable systems.

Procedures and processes have been put in across the board, whether it’s how we analyze the PR, the sales, the analytics, the SEO, the SEM, whatever it is that we’re using as our campaign measures, whether it’s the product team around our [PH] sprints and our product road map, and our velocity of how well things are being implemented, whether it’s our insight team where they’re really helping to develop a lot of the analyses and numbers, whether it’s our KPIs or key performance indicators that we track the [unintelligible] of the entire company, that we review every week, whether it’s our people performance processes like our performance reviews or recruiting on-boarding process, I mean it’s really endless. Obviously, there is a financial rigor, and I’m talking about the quarterly numbers, and the board numbers, and monthly measures, so there’s just a lot of numbers. Those are processes which is just like, “Here are the escalation policies. This is how we treat the customers. Here are the SLAs, service levels agreements, as to how we follow up. Everything always has to be 24 hours that we respond to, how we treat partners, how we deal with refund, no matter what it is, there are things that need to get institutionalized. 

Erik Michielsen: In the last year you’ve grown from 15 to 60 employees, what were some of the steps involved? What were some of the priorities that you set with those processes, as to hit first, second, and third?

Slava Rubin: Customers are always first. For example, I have a 24-hour response time. How do we create product experiences that we can measure, that people like—? Making sure that we invest in our own people would be very important. Making sure that we have a high level of tracking in how well the company is doing with that. We have financial targets and also KPIs. And I don’t wanna make it sound like it was all perfect all the time. The only reason it got better is because we’ve made the mistakes and we saw how bad it was. So because we’ve made the mistakes, we then learned, and we’re like, “Whoa, we gotta improve that,” and we figured out how to improve it.

Slava Rubin on Recruiting Smarter to Hire and Retain Top Talent

In Chapter 12 of 15 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Problems Are You Trying to Solve to Grow Your Business?" Rubin notes how product market fit is no longer a problem - the market has been established and the product has been validated. As his company has grown from 15 to 60 employees, Rubin faces new challenges with talent acquisition and employee retention. From honing strategic hiring practices to improving the Indiegogo talent development cycle, Rubin and his team work to put the processes in place to hire, motivate and retain top talent. 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 problems are you trying to solve to grow your business?

Slava Rubin: I think that earlier, when we’ve met, probably one of the first times that we met, one of the first things to solve was product market fit, so creating the product, identifying the market, and figuring out how those two things connected. And because we’ve had a lot of usage of Indiegogo, we’re now distributing millions of dollars every week, I think it’s fair to say that that has been solved. That doesn’t mean we can’t improve, it’s just it’s something that has been replicatable, and scalable, and something that’s there. I think that probably the biggest challenge these days, especially as we’re trying to grow a large company that makes an impact on the world where we allow anybody to fund what matters to them, that’s totally global, is really about people. So the biggest challenge is on acquisition and retention of people. Like I’ve mentioned we went from 15 to 60 people in the last year. Some of those hires were perfect. Some of those hires may have not been perfect. It’s really around what are the programs you could put in place to retain these people. How do you learn from them? How do you give them the right performance reviews? How do you give them the right metrics, the right mentorship? In acquiring, how do you set up the right brand? How do you filter? How do you make decisions? How do you do the interview process? If you hire the right people, you don’t have to manage as much or worry as much because they will figure it out, so it’s really around finding the right people.

Erik Michielsen: Now you’ve worked in management consulting before starting an internet startup, Indiegogo. How is that talent development cycle different in where you’re now, you know, and how is that talent development cycle different in your work now than what you did before?

Slava Rubin: I’ve actually learned a lot from when I was a consultant, especially on recruiting strategies, how you identify that people are smart, how to identify if they are the team players, so I think I learned a lot from being a consultant. In terms of the retention programs and performance reviews, I also learned a lot there that I look to apply in my company, which is what kind of questions to work towards in terms of performance reviews, how often to do it, or what it would mean. It was more structured back in the days ‘cause those companies were more established, our company is very young and nimble, and we’re trying to literally just put those processes in place, so we only strive to have the same sort of people programs, but I definitely learned a lot.

Erik Michielsen: Is there a generational element that comes into play when you think about managing talent in what you do?

Slava Rubin: From my viewpoint, there is no difference based on age. I mean people just wanna work at a great company. They wanna have an impact. They wanna feel like they’re empowered to have decisions. They wanna know what their role is. So that hasn’t been different. So I haven’t really noticed any specific generational difference.

Slava Rubin on How Core Values Help Create Company Culture

In Chapter 13 of 15 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Steps Are You Taking to Maintain a Strong Company Culture in a Growing Business?" Rubin shares why culture is important from the moment you start a company and how establishing core company values helped him and his co-founders craft a culture at Indiegogo. Referencing his 2013 SXSW talk "10 Myths of Entrepreneurship", Rubin notes how many entrepreneurs overlook culture when starting a business and why this is not a good idea. 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 steps are you taking to maintain a strong company culture in a growing business?

Slava Rubin: Culture is really important. As a matter of fact, I just gave a talk at South by Southwest where I gave the 10 myths of entrepreneurship, and one of them was that it’s okay to start thinking about culture later in the process, don’t think about culture to start. And I think we got very lucky or we were very smart that the two co-founders and I, Danae, Eric, and myself, thought about culture from the very beginning. Maybe not on day one, but when we were doing recruiting and making decisions we started arguing with our opinions. I’m like, “No, no, no. That’s not how we’re deciding. We’re deciding like this.” And we really need to ground where was the decision coming from. So what we did was we stepped back and we thought, “What are the values—?” Well, we’re sitting on top of which will help make these decisions, whether it’s recruiting, how we treat our customer, who we partner with, and how we move forward with initiatives. And we’ve come with a “face”, which is fearlessness, authenticity, collaboration, and empowerment. So building on top of these four values, we’re able to permeate all these other things. And it’s not something where you can just say once in training, on day one, and then they will just embody “face”. We have our quarterly all hands meeting where we pull together everybody and do a 2-day investment, every quarter, into our own company, and, you know, aligning ourselves around the vision, collaborating, and celebrating our own successes. We also make sure to have weekly meetings to talk about things and other ways to just permeate it throughout the company on a regular consistent basis, so I think culture is huge.

Clara Soh on How to Work Smarter and Perform Under Pressure

In Chapter 15 of 20 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, health economist Clara Soh answers "What Does It Mean to Perform Under Pressure in the Work That You Do?" An avid rock climber, Soh approaches challenges mindfully and deliberately. In her health care policy work, she learns to manage pressure by looking for context when making decisions in high stakes situations. Clara Soh is a health economist and Senior Director of Policy and Research at a pharmaceutical trade organization in Washington, DC. Previously, Soh held senior roles at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research (KPCHR) and Health Policy Research Northwest (HPRN). Soh earned her Masters of Public Administration (MPA) in Policy Analysis and Healthcare Public Finance from the NYU Wagner School and a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.

James McCormick on How Family Can Support Your Career and Life Decisions

In Chapter 1 of 21 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, legal search and consulting firm executive James McCormick answers "Where Has Your Family Been Most Supportive in Your Career Development?" McCormick notes that his parents have provided consistent support and it has always been about helping him find something that engages and challenges him and helping him make sure he has thought through the decision before making it. James McCormick is a Partner at Empire Search Partners in New York City. Previously, he practiced law as an employee benefits and executive compensation attorney for Proskauer Rose and Jones Day. He earned a JD at Tulane Law School and a BA in History at the University of Michigan. 

James McCormick on Making Better Decisions By Slowing Yourself Down

In Chapter 4 of 21 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, legal search and consulting firm executive James McCormick answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?" A self-confessed Type A personality, McCormick finds it hard to stop moving nonstop. Over time, he learns to regularly set aside quiet time. This helps him slow down and be more measured in the decisions he makes and actions he takes. James McCormick is a Partner at Empire Search Partners in New York City. Previously, he practiced law as an employee benefits and executive compensation attorney for Proskauer Rose and Jones Day. He earned a JD at Tulane Law School and a BA in History at the University of Michigan. 

James McCormick on Managing Job Pressures in a Recruiting Career

In Chapter 9 of 21 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, legal search and consulting firm executive James McCormick answers "What Does It Mean to Perform Under Pressure in the Work That You Do?" McCormick notes the high stakes that come with helping his professional clients make job changes. He learns to manage the pressure in his work by being calm and consistent and aware of his emotions. As his work also involves competing against other firms to fill jobs for hiring clients, performing comes down to reliability to make the right match. James McCormick is a Partner at Empire Search Partners in New York City. Previously, he practiced law as an employee benefits and executive compensation attorney for Proskauer Rose and Jones Day. He earned a JD at Tulane Law School and a BA in History at the University of Michigan. 

James McCormick on How Human Capital Strategy Drives Growth

In Chapter 10 of 21 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, legal search and consulting firm executive James McCormick answers "What Problems Are You Trying to Solve to Grow Your Business?" Running a client services business, McCormick notes human capital strategy is a top priority for his organization. The better the talent, the more opportunity there is to build the business locally and expand into new geographic markets. James McCormick is a Partner at Empire Search Partners in New York City. Previously, he practiced law as an employee benefits and executive compensation attorney for Proskauer Rose and Jones Day. He earned a JD at Tulane Law School and a BA in History at the University of Michigan.

Leslie Kerner on Moving Your Family From the City to the Suburbs

In Chapter 5 of 21 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, education software company executive Leslie Kerner answers "What Factors Did You Consider in Your Decision to Relocate From the City to the Suburbs?" After starting a family in New York City, Kerner and her husband look to emulate their own childhoods and raise children in a house with a yard where they can play. They look at suburban options that provide that atmosphere along with manageable commute times and a diverse community and ultimately decide to move to New Jersey.

Leslie Kerner is Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Professional Services group at Amplify, a software and services company innovating K-12 education. She is responsible for building and managing training, professional development and consulting services for schools. Previously, Kerner worked as a management consultant at Deloitte & Touche. Kerner earned an MBA from the Duke University and a BA from Northwestern University.

Leslie Kerner on How Getting an MBA Can Advance Your Career

In Chapter 11 of 21 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, education software company executive Leslie Kerner answers "What Informed Your Decision to Return to School and Earn an MBA?" Working in the Deloitte analyst program after college allows Kerner to return to graduate school, earn an MBA, and then rejoin the company. Kerner uses the MBA experience to build her network and core skills that she eventually uses working in K-12 education.

Leslie Kerner is Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Professional Services group at Amplify, a software and services company innovating K-12 education. She is responsible for building and managing training, professional development and consulting services for schools. Previously, Kerner worked as a management consultant at Deloitte & Touche. Kerner earned an MBA from the Duke University and a BA from Northwestern University.

Leslie Kerner on Why to Pursue a Business Career in Public Education

In Chapter 13 of 21 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, education software company executive Leslie Kerner answers "What Led You to Pursue a Business Career Working to Improve Public Education?" Kerner shares how she combined her passion for education with the accountability and motivational elements that come with working in business.

Leslie Kerner is Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Professional Services group at Amplify, a software and services company innovating K-12 education. She is responsible for building and managing training, professional development and consulting services for schools. Previously, Kerner worked as a management consultant at Deloitte & Touche. Kerner earned an MBA from the Duke University and a BA from Northwestern University.

Leslie Kerner on How to Get Career Feedback From Your Network

In Chapter 17 of 21 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, education software company executive Leslie Kerner answers "How Do You Use Your Network to Get Help Making Career and Life Decisions?" Kerner joins a Aspen Institute fellowship programs for education entrepreneurs and reformers. There she meets many new friends who collectively help each other solve career challenges through a formalized consultancy process. This helps gather constructive feedback in a formalized way.

Leslie Kerner is Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Professional Services group at Amplify, a software and services company innovating K-12 education. She is responsible for building and managing training, professional development and consulting services for schools. Previously, Kerner worked as a management consultant at Deloitte & Touche. Kerner earned an MBA from the Duke University and a BA from Northwestern University.

Jon Kolko on How a Supportive Family Can Open Doors in Your Education and Career

In Chapter 1 of his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, educator and designer Jon Kolko answers "Where Has Your Family Been Most Supportive in Your Career Development?" Kolko shares how his wife has helped him achieve work goals by making sacrifices so he could grow into new phases of his career. Moreover, Kolko shares how his parents always supported his education and rarely challenged his choices. As an educator, Kolko sees how students make higher education and career choices and challenges the status quo and the need for a college degree. Jon Kolko is VP of Design at MyEdu and the Founder and Director of Austin Center for Design (AC4D). He has authored three books on design and previously has worked in design roles at Austin, Texas venture accelerator Thinktiv and global innovation firm frog design. He was a professor of Interaction and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Jon Kolko on How to Lower Higher Ed Tuition and Enhance Curriculum

In Chapter 16 of 16 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, educator and designer Jon Kolko answers "What Was Your Approach to Determining Whether or Not You Wanted to Pursue Accreditation for Your School and What Did You Decide?" Kolko and his team choose not to pursue accreditation. Without it, he is able to more quickly adapt curriculum to meet changing student needs, hire non-PhD graduates to teach, and keep operational costs and hence student tuition low. Jon Kolko is VP of Design at MyEdu and the Founder and Director of Austin Center for Design (AC4D). He has authored three books on design and previously has worked in design roles at Austin, Texas venture accelerator Thinktiv and global innovation firm frog design. He was a professor of Interaction and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Matt Curtis on What Losing 200 Pounds Teaches About Weight Loss

In Chapter 11 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, HomeAway government relations director Matt Curtis answers "What Advice Would You Give to Others Who Are Also Trying to Lose Weight and Fight Obesity?" Curtis, who has lost more than 200 pounds believes more than anything the best way to fight weight loss is to prevent yourself from gaining weight. He finds eating cleaner, greener foods and tracking calories and nutrition information essential to controlling caloric intake, eating a balanced diet, and losing weight. While exercise is important, Curtis finds understanding nutrition and being honest about what you put into your body two ways to hold yourself accountable and lose weight. Curtis is the director of government relations at HomeAway Inc. Previously he was communications director for Austin mayors Lee Leffingwell and Will Wynn. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

Matt Curtis on 3 Ways to Give More Effective Mentor Advice

In Chapter 12 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, HomeAway government relations director Matt Curtis answers "How Are You Learning to Be a Better Mentor to Young Professionals?" As someone well-versed in seeking out mentors and asking for advice, Curtis learns three principles to giving more effective mentor guidance. First, it pays to be positive. Second, transparency is essential. Third, Curtis pushes hard to get as much insight from a mentee as possible before making recommendations. Matt Curtis is the director of government relations at HomeAway Inc. Previously he was communications director for Austin mayors Lee Leffingwell and Will Wynn. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

Courtney Spence on How Making Hard Decisions Can Strengthen Your Resolve

In Chapter 5 of 20 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, social entrepreneur Courtney Spence answers "How Are Your Aspirations Changing As Your Experience Grows?" In the year since her last Capture Your Flag interview, Spence shares the challenge of making her work and her organization more lasting and sustainable and the resolve it has taken from her as a leader. Social entrepreneur and storyteller Courtney Spence founded 501c3 nonprofit Students of the World (SOW) to shine a light on progress and celebrate the world's problem solvers. She is building a movement of next-generation storytellers and creative activists through the SOW program The Creative Activist Network. Spence is a graduate of Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are your aspirations changing as your experience grows?

Courtney Spence:  So, this year, and lot has happened this last year. I feel like I keep referencing it as this year, but these are annual interviews, so that would make sense. But this year has been about, I think, wanting to create sustainability within my organization, and I think—and that is not for legacy reasons but for the reason that I really believe in what I’ve been building for the last 13 years. We’re starting to see true traction and enthusiasm and the possibility of making Students of the World, and our new endeavors have a much more of a lasting kind of global impact than we’ve ever been able to see or imagine before.

And having seen that and understanding where we’re going, it makes me very focused and concerned about the longevity of the organization, the health of the organization, the sustainability, you know, being able to provide benefits to employees, and being able to, you know, really, really put people in the right places and assemble a team that can weather the difficult times and the good times.

Like, for example, we had to go through a series of a few layoffs in August, and that was the hardest time I’ve ever experienced from a professional standpoint. And it was not something that was pretty, it was certainly the most stressful, sad time that I’ve experienced with Students of the World, but it was necessary to continue the work that we were doing. It was for the health of the organization and the mission. And, you know, having to kind of grow up and make some of those harder decisions in a role of leadership is difficult but it also strengthens, I think. It strengthened my resolve in what I’m doing and my role as a leader and, you know, as the executive in the company.