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.