How to Turn a Cancer Tragedy into Something Good - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 1 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What is Your Entrepreneur Story?"  Rubin recounts how after his father died of myeloma cancer, he tries to raise money to fight cancer.  The process proves painful and frustrating and, over time, Rubin meets what would be his two IndieGoGo co-founders, Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell.   Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Erik Michielsen: What’s your entrepreneur story?

Slava Rubin: Yeah, so when I was 15, my dad died of cancer and then for 10 years I really couldn’t deal with it and then as a New Year’s resolution I decided to finally do something about it and I started my own charity called Music Against Myeloma. This was in the middle of the last decade when the internet really sucked for raising money. So, I tried using Myspace. I remember Facebook was smaller than Myspace and Twitter was nascent, YouTube was not owned by Google and Obama wasn’t a word. So, it was pretty challenging to raise money using the internet.

I had this discussion with two other peers Eric Shell and Danae Ringelman and the three of us all shared our mutual frustration of hard it was to use the internet to raise money. So, in January 2008, we decided to launch a platform that would democratize fundraising called Indiegogo and, you know, we persevered through the market crash of 2008 and 2009 and beyond reason continued to work at Indiegogo and really the last couple of years have been consistent growth and we’re excited now to be funding millions of dollars globally every month. So, that’s how I got here which is turning cancer into something good.

How to Find Meaningful Work With a Global Impact - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 3 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Makes Your Work Meaningful?"  Rubin references how the crowdfunding projects his company has enabled give him meaning in their varied initiatives to solve problems and build solutions.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What makes your work meaningful?

Slava Rubin: We could be focusing on strictly becoming a billion dollar company optimizing profits and along the way really upsetting customers and trying to take advantage of employees but for us it’s knowing that there’s an impact. Knowing that we’re doing good in the world and bringing good things to life. So, that’s what’s exciting for me.

It’s really about stories like a crowd funded baby that would have never existed unless Indiegogo was there. Knowing that there’s kids in third world countries who are reading because two incredible women on a campaign called Illuminate were able to create an inflatable solar light, knowing that some kids aren’t gonna be bullied because an amazing movie was created called The Bully Project and was funded on Indiegogo then picked up by the Weinstein Company for distribution, knowing that a church has new stained glass windows because their community came together to know that they want to improve the architecture there or just knowing that a liver transplant happened through for somebody in Congo because he was known as the Oskar Schindler of Congo but couldn’t afford a liver transplant so on CNN, people came together and funded his liver transplant.

Life Lessons From the Entrepreneur Experience - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 4 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Has Your Entrepreneurial Experience Helped You Grow as a Person?"  Rubin shares the transferability from work to personal life of handling challenging experiences.  He notes what he has learned about receiving feedback and improving his listening and communication skills.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How has your entrepreneurial experience helped you grow as a person?

Slava Rubin: I think that I’ve definitely learned a lot of the ups and downs in entrepreneurial life and that’s really helped in my day to day life. I think it’s also helped in terms of managing challenges -- challenging experiences and there’s no question the challenge and the experience of helping to lead a team, hiring people and helping to try to create a culture is really important as I walk through my day to day experience.

Erik Michielsen: And what’s a good example?

Slava Rubin: A good example is sometimes I would think that my way of speaking is always the right way and I would just talk to somebody on the subway or talk to somebody, have some dinner conversation the way I think is right and before you knew it they thought, you know, maybe negative of me. When I heard two weeks later that they thought, wow, he wasn’t really a good listener or a good communicator and I think I'm learning a lot of that through working with my teammates.

How Startup Raises First Venture Capital Round - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 5 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Did Your Team Go About Raising Venture Capital?"  Rubin notes the importance of mission alignment and how this plays into goals, milestones, and responsibilities.  He details the transition from being a bootstrap financed startup to taking on convertible debt to deciding on venture financing to build out the team and user experience. 

Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How does your team go about raising venture capital?

Slava Rubin: I think it’s really important that the core team be aligned on knowing what we’re trying to accomplish. What size of a company are we looking to build? How many employees do we wanna have? What kind of revenue are we looking to accomplish? Where do we wanna sit in the competitive landscape and what are we trying to accomplish as a vision? All those things need to be agreed to. Where you’re singing the same song and after that it’s making sure that you know who’s playing what role. You typically don’t wanna have too many people in the process of actually try to raise the money because that can be confusing in terms of coordination and managing the process. So, with us specifically I'm leading up the fundraising process with significant help from the core team.

Erik Michielsen: Was this your first time raising venture capital?

Slava Rubin: Yes. So, we launched in January 2008 and the three founders Eric Shell, Danae Ringelman and myself we boot strapped through 2008. We planned on raising money in the fall of 2008 but then the crash of 2008-2009 happened, which really slowed things down for us. We then raised a small convertible note and followed that with a venture capital round of 1.5 million in March of 2011.

Erik Michielsen: And you used that to build out the team and now are looking at next steps to scale further?

Slava Rubin: Exactly. So, we went from a team of 5 to now a team of 19 and we’re continuing to grow and always looking on how to improve the customer experience.

What It Means to Be a Leader at a Fast Growing Startup - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 6 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?"  Rubin notes leadership is about taking action that otherwise might not happen.  He notes it is less about being more aggressive than others and more about doing things others do not see that need to be done.  Rubin references his venture capital fundraising efforts while trusting his team to manage operations and grow the company.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What does it mean to be a leader in what you do?

Slava Rubin: To me leader is really about taking action where otherwise it would not happen. So, just being to be aggressive and doing something where 10 other people were about to do it maybe is not always a leader but seeing what others do not see or more importantly doing what others do not see needs to be done is really about leadership.

So, we have 19 people on our team now and I would say at different moments each one steps up as being a leader and an example for me might be that a while back we weren’t sure if we were able to raise money and, you know, we were having debates about whether or not we should be even focused on raising money because maybe what we need to do is just work on our own team and get to profitability and at some point, you know, I just said, you know, I’ll go make it happen and you guys need to help support me to run the company and we just worked together to raise the money we needed a year ago when I saw you at South-By 2011.
The fun thing is since then we’ve had some serious growth, which is, you know, I guess I have to come here every year to make sure that growth keeps happening.

Erik Michielsen: How did you use your venture capital round to finance your growth?

Slava Rubin: Yeah, so I mean from a company-building perspective we really are focused on improving the product making sure that we’re reaching out to the customers correctly and making sure that the customer experience is as good as possible. So, very specifically we went from a five-person team to a 19 person team, really made significant improvements on the actual product, the website, the customer happiness experience and just keep on looking for people to help them with making good things happen.

How to Refine Your Company Vision - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 7 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Are You Becoming Better at Articulating Your Vision?"  Rubin shares how gathering and using data, examples, and feedback have helped him refine his company's vision.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are you becoming better at articulating your vision?

Slava Rubin: A while back, I would say two years ago, we would try to know what our vision is but we didn’t have enough examples and enough data to prove out exactly what we’re thinking. I mean, now we’re able to more strongly use the data and the case studies to express our visions. So, we’re really looking to democratize fundraising. Indiegogo has the most diverse set of campaigns of any platform in the world. It’s really interesting since launching in January 2008, we now have over 300 competitors.

We’re very excited to know that this is such an exciting space and lots of others are following but for us it’s really about democratizing fundraising and ensuring that anybody has an equal opportunity at raising the capital they need. We provide them the tools to optimize the experience and the exposure to get more stranger-dollars than they ever could. So, it’s really about more examples and more feedback to refine your vision.

How to Manage and Motivate Teams at an Internet Startup - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 8 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage and Motivate Teams?"  Rubin shares the new challenge of managing large teams.  He finds listening and action to be the two elements that help him be the best manager possible.  He discusses what he does to facilitate effective communication and alignment to vision.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to better manage and motivate teams?

Slava Rubin: I think that managing a team is something new since I haven’t managed large teams before but it’s definitely about listening and action. So, I would say that it’s very easy to get caught up in doing too many things and I'm learning along with my team on maintaining focus. Also, it’s very easy to just get caught up in e-mail and back and forth and not really have a quick discussion to make a decision. So, I think the decision making process and ensuring that everybody understands it is very important. Also, it’s important to have people aligned with the vision. It’s so easy in a dynamic company like Indiegogo where we’re hiring new people every month or sometimes there is a new decisions made on priorities for people to either make poor assumptions or actually not hear how we’re making shifts, so it’s really important to over communicate.

How Startup CEO Faces Company Building Challenges - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 9 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What New Challenges Are You Facing as Your Company Grows?"  He details the importance of selective recruiting in the hiring process and maintaining focus as new opportunities emerge that may not align with the vision.  He details how the company has learned to differentiate as over 300 competitors have entered the market.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What new challenges are you facing as your company grows?

Slava Rubin: Company building is the number one challenge, which all about hiring the right people. It’s not okay to look and say ‘we’ll take anybody, we just need bodies’. See, that’s the beginning of the end for a great company especially one that’s our size. See, we can’t afford having just extra weight filling the spot. Everybody is a leader and everybody has to step up for different spots. So, number one is company building, number two is maintaining focus around the vision. At Indiegogo the challenge right now is not about what is the opportunity, I would say there are many opportunities to be had, the challenge is rather, what do we say no to and make sure that they we’re focusing as a team on the right things.

Erik Michielsen: You mentioned that over 300 companies have moved in to this crowd funding space, so how do you look at that as a competitive set versus look inside and just focus on your core and building that out?

Slava Rubin: Yeah, I mean, since we launched in January 2008, we now have over 300 competitors. Some competitors like to differentiate by country, so only in Australia or only in Germany or only in the US. Some like to differentiate by vertical, so only health campaigns or only cause or only theater. Some like to differentiate by business models, so free crowd funding, advertising based crowd funding or otherwise and for us the real win for the customer both the campaign owner and the funder is to create one platform where you can cross all these different verticals and have as open of a platform as possible. See, funders don’t think in vertical and they definitely don’t think in business model. They think in disposable income and they think about, ‘oh, I want to share my money or give or buy or contribute to this specific thing’ and when they see this campaign, it’s very easy to share another campaign with them and for us it’s really about having democratizing fundraising as our goal, creating a platform, which is open to anybody in the world to raise money for anything and in the process creating the best funder experience possible.

How Perks Incentives Improve Crowdfunding Success - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 11 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Have Perks Incentives Been Game Changing for Fundriaising Campaigns?" Rubin notes how crowdfunding is not new, sharing how Joseph Pulitzer raised community donations to fund the Statue of Liberty project.  Rubin notes several reasons why individuals give money to finance projects or campaigns.  He notes how perks incentives entice people by giving they something in return for their contribution.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How have perks incentives been game changing for fundraising campaigns?

Slava Rubin: Crowdfunding is not new, so if you go back to the late 1800’s the Statue of Liberty was actually crowd funded. Back then, Joseph Pulitzer was able to use the New World -- the precedent to the New York Times to be able to raise, I believe nearly $120,000 on average contribution of 83 cents. At that time they didn’t use any perks. So, you didn’t get your name on the base of the Statue of Liberty. You didn’t get a tax deduction. It wasn’t a 501C3 and you definitely didn’t get any profit meaning you didn’t get $5 back for your $1 contribution.

There’s really four reasons why anybody funds anything in life. Number one is because you care about the person, the cause or the campaign. Number two, is you want the perks like you’re bringing up. Number three is you wanted to be part of the community, your personal ego and number four is for profit. So, on Indiegogo and really any platform in America, it’s illegal to do number four through public solicitation. So, the first three are what’s really important. The perk concept, very similar to the PBS or NPR sponsorship model is key because people get something in return. People like something exclusive, special, limited edition or discount. So, it’s amazing to know that in funding somebody’s campaign or vision or idea you get something tangible, virtual or very unique experience in return.

Why Legalize Startup Crowdfunding For-Profit Investing - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 12 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Role Does Government Relations Play in What You Do?"  Rubin notes how the entrepreneurial campaign element of his crowdfunding company IndieGoGo has allowed him to collaborate with President Obama's Startup America Initiative and help startup business initiatives receive financing.  He notes the potential in for-profit investing using crowdfunding.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What role does government-relations play in what you do?

Slava Rubin: Well, we’re actually really excited that we’re partner with President Obama’s Startup America to help stimulate entrepreneurship in America. So, there’s three major groups of funding categories on Indiegogo. Number one is creative, number two is cause and number three is entrepreneurial. So, within entrepreneurial it’s really important to figure out how we can work together. I mean, there’s great case studies of entrepreneurial campaigns for example Walk In Love, which went from a single designer who was selling t-shirts in a kiosk was able to fund his campaign on Indiegogo and now has 15 employees in a Lancaster, Pennsylvania Mall or two engineers in California that were turned down by 43 VCs were able to fund their electronics product on Indiegogo and then got a $650,000 investor or a gluten-free bread company that was able to start from her own kitchen and now be named by CNBC as one of the Top 15 Start-ups in America. These are all examples of how people can use Indiegogo today. In the future, there’s the potential for the government shifting the law around funding online and being able to allow for-profit investments, which would be very interesting.

Erik Michielsen: And where does it stand today and, you know, what are the hopes for tomorrow?

Slava Rubin: So, this is very timely question actually just this week there was a new crowd funding law that just passed the House of Representatives. So, that’s actually two bills that have passed in the house to allow crowd funding to become legal, specifically what that would mean is that you don’t have to be accredited investor, which means you don’t have to have over a million dollars of net worth and the actual entity raising the money would not have to register with the SEC, which can be a very cost prohibitive process. The White House is very much behind this proposal, which they’ve already said but the Senate has not weighed in yet. So, really it’s a matter of seeing what the Senate will see and if any of the financial institutions that are lobbying against this will slow this down really allowing crowd funding to become a for-profit opportunity will really bring in significant more liquidity into the funding of entrepreneurial businesses and allow for many more jobs to be created.

How Entrepreneur Courtney Spence Seeks Advice and Mentors

In Chapter 14 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "At This Moment in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Spence notes how she is seeking advice and coaching in new ways, including her board of directors.  After Spence finds herself lonely and isolated as an entrepreneur, she places a higher priority on building peer entrepreneur and female mentor relationships.  Courtney Spence returns to Capture Your Flag for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: At this moment in your life, where are you seeking advice and coaching?

Courtney Spence:  I am seeking advice and coaching in ways that I haven’t before, for sure. I think if you’re gonna go do something big, or grow, or scale, you have to have mentors and people that can advise you. I, of course, have my parents. I have the members of our board of directors which are – we purposely have kept our board really small and they are people that I ultimately trust, and are guiding me just as much as they’re guiding the organization. I recognize that as we grow, that board of directors will need to grow and change as well, but right now it’s a really solid core group of individuals that can advise me from very different perspectives.

I would also say though that I think I am in a position where I would like to have a couple of more mentors in place, particularly female mentors, I think that I’ve never actively sought out mentorship before, and I have recognized that I desperately need that, especially from a female perspective. I think that just as I’m recognizing the need to surround myself with other entrepreneurs, I think there is a real need for – Well, let me just say this, I didn’t realize how lonely I was until about a few months ago, when I started to spend more time with other entrepreneurs through not any sort of purpose or it just – it just sort of happened. And when I was able to talk to people that had been through similar situations that I was going through and then understood that, you know, the need to be certain in times of uncertainty like that, you know, all of these things that I had been struggling with, I recognized, “Wow, I’ve been trying to do this all by myself”. And with not necessarily the adequate support.

And again, if wanna go run the most effective, wonderful organization movement that I can, I’ve gotta be supporting myself in some ways, so I am realizing that there is great value and need in having advice and mentorship.

Courtney Spence on How to Define Social Entrepreneurship

In Chapter 17 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Do You Define Social Entrepreneurship?"  Spence learns from her father, who learned from his mother, it is about leaving the world a better place than he or she found it.  She believes it has little to do with legal structure - for-profit or not-for-profit - and more to do with cause, intention, and purpose to affect change.  Courtney Spence returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How do you define social entrepreneurship?

Courtney Spence: So a social entrepreneur wants to leave a place better than he or she found it. That is a lesson that my father taught me, that was taught to him by his mother. But if I think if you distill it down, what is a social entrepreneur, it is someone that cares about the world or their community or their family or an individual and wants to help make that situation better through his or her actions and leadership and idea. And, you know, that can be for profit, it can be non-profit, I quite frankly wish that we could stop using those words to describe what it is that we do, because quite frankly they’re legal structures, you can have non-profits that are terrible and that hurt the world and you can have for profits that are great and help the world. But what, you know, the best are the ones that do well and do good, and that are social enterprises and that are cause driven, that are socially driven and I think the world could use more of them.

Audrey French on Why to Have Coaches in Your Life

In Chapter 11 of 15 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Audrey Parker French answers "At This Moment in Your Life Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  French notes how she first looks to close relationships - her husband and best friends - for advice.  She then looks outside her inner circle to experts, for example her fitness coach and career coach.  She shares how important it has been to be willing to be coached and allow others to help her hold herself to higher standards. 

Audrey Parker French returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview after a one-year sabbatical from work and getting married.  She co-founded CLEAResult, an energy management consulting firm.  In 2010, CLEAResult ranked #144 in the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies.  In late 2010, CLEAResult was sold to General Catalyst Partners.  She graduated from Wake Forest University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: At this moment in your life, where are you seeking advice and coaching?

Audrey Parker French: Seeking advice and coaching has actually been a predominant theme in my life over the last 5 to 6 years. Right now I would say I’m seeking the most coaching from the people closest to me that I look up to. My husband, my best friends, and then beyond that, if it’s something other than, you know, something in that frame, I’ll go to someone who has a specific area of expertise and ask for some sort of coaching or advice. You know having a fitness coach, you know, if I wanted to change some of my fitness goals, and you know I don’t wanna ask someone who doesn’t really know about fitness about being my coach for something like that.

So you know, I think that having coaches and being willing to be coached and hold yourself to a high standard and have someone else hold you to that same high standard, it has done incredible things in my life, in my career and in my personal life to have coaches in both of those areas of my life, my professional coach has really helped me improve my professionalism and develop in areas that I – I could’ve, yes, of course I would’ve developed but it would’ve taken me a lot longer, and I’ve had personal coaches in my life, for emotional and spiritual guidance and coaching that have really, in those areas, helped me to grow a lot faster. So – and actually I’ve been coaching some women in my life and it’s nice to feel like I’m able to, you know, to return that favor to other women who can look to me for inspiration and guidance and coaching.

How to Use Your Network to Make Better Decisions

In Chapter 12 of 15 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Audrey Parker French answers "How Do You Use Your Network to Get Help Making Career and Life Decisions?"  She shares how her network provides her additional information she does not have personally.  She notes the importance of discerning matching requests to expertise in her outreach.  She notes how this allows her network to shift and evolve over time.  Audrey Parker French returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview after a one-year sabbatical from work and getting married.  She co-founded CLEAResult, an energy management consulting firm.  In 2010, CLEAResult ranked #144 in the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies.  In late 2010, CLEAResult was sold to General Catalyst Partners.  She graduated from Wake Forest University. 

“There is, I believe, a certain kind of a magic that can happen with a network. People introducing you to the right people who have the right opportunity that you didn’t even quite realize you were looking for...”

— Audrey Parker French

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you use your network to get help making career and life decisions?

Audrey Parker: Well, I use my network as a sounding board. I think about something. I do my best to work it out or to piece something together. And then what a network does is it provides additional information that I can’t get to in my own head. So if and when I need advice or I’m looking for advice about a decision in my life, I think, “Okay, who in my network can help me with this decision? Who’s gonna be a good person to call?” And in the past, I learned the hard way that I need to be careful with who I ask for feedback in a net—I mean we all need to be careful, you know, if we ask someone who has an expertise in dentistry for help with you know, what shoes to buy, that’s probably a mismatch. But if you go to someone who has an expertise in home design and you really want someone to help you design your lifestyle and your home, that’s gonna be a better fit.

So really the way that my network helps me is that depending on the advice or the guidance that I need, I pick out the people who are going to help me get there and what’s interesting is it helps my network shift as I ask those questions. So I’ve met – over the last year, I’ve met a lot of new people because I went to my network to certain people that I knew and I said, “Hey, I’m looking at this.” Or, “I’m curious about that.” And the people that I automatically have gotten connected to through those circles take me further down the road where I’m wanting to head anyway.

So there is, I believe, a certain kind of a magic that can happen with a network. People introducing you to the right people who have the right opportunity that you didn’t even quite realize you were looking for and that actually is the way that I met my husband. I have to thank my network on that one. A friend of mine invited me out and I met someone who knew my husband and the next time I went out with, you know, the same kind of people, he was there, and we met, so, you know, I didn’t realize that I was even looking for, I mean I knew on some level but I hadn’t gone to that friend for that reason, but networks can definitely bring you what you’re looking for in ways that you – we just can’t see.

Audrey French on Getting Clear That Family Comes Before Career

In Chapter 15 of 15 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Audrey Parker French answers "How Are Your Personal Experiences Shaping Your Professional Aspirations?  French shares how she has stepped out of a life mode living for a company's success and into one where she is focused on herself and her personal life, in particular family. 

“The rest of my life I’m gonna be living in a healthy personal balance and my professional life will be something that’s helping to support and help my personal life thrive and not the other way around, it won’t be that my personal life has to support my professional life. ”

— Audrey Parker French

Audrey Parker French returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview after a one-year sabbatical from work and getting married.  She co-founded CLEAResult, an energy management consulting firm.  In 2010, CLEAResult ranked #144 in the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies.  In late 2010, CLEAResult was sold to General Catalyst Partners.  She graduated from Wake Forest University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your personal experiences shaping your professional aspirations?

Audrey Parker French: My personal aspirations previously were within or separate from my professional aspirations, and that’s not so anymore. My personal frame of the health of my marriage, the health of the relationships in my life, the health of my family, those are things that before I – I would’ve liked to have said that I couldn’t or that I didn’t have time for them but the fact was that I didn’t make time because I was so committed to the career and to the company, and now having this time to really realize that my personal – my personal life and my personal values are actually more important to me and professional values need to sit within it, and really need to – I need to make sure – I want to make sure that they remain, perhaps an important or even very important part, but it’s only a part and I would just always – I hope to always stay very clear on that and that’s part of what this time of reflection and stillness is helping me do.

There was someone who asked me recently if I was bored and wanting to go back to work yet, and I said, “Well, actually no.” I kind of feel like I had an unhealthy balance before and I chose that and it was – when you can put a lot of energy into a growing company and have it really payoff before your eyes, there was a reason why I lived my life out of balance, and it’s something that I’m stepping out of, the rest of my life I’m gonna be living in a healthy personal balance and my professional life will be something that’s helping to support and help my personal life thrive and not the other way around, it won’t be that my personal life has to support my professional life. 

How Mentor Network Guides Long Term Life Choices - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 10 of 18 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "At This Point in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Curtis notes how he goes to a variety of people for advice, including a network of advisors and mentors from his Whole Foods, Austin breakfast crowd.  He notes the importance of learning from older community leaders successes and failures.  Matt Curtis is the director of government relations at HomeAway Inc. Previously he was communications director for Austin mayors Lee Leffingwell and Will Wynn.  In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards.  He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

How to Better Manage Time and Commitments - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 11 of 18 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage Your Time and Commitments?"  Curtis shares why using a notebook has been so helpful writing out his "To Do" items and how he works through these each day.  He shares why he favors using his notebook and not his cell phone or computer.  Matt Curtis is the director of government relations at HomeAway Inc. Previously he was communications director for Austin mayors Lee Leffingwell and Will Wynn.  In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards.  He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

Why to Ask About Company Culture in a Job Interview - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 13 of 18 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "What Company Qualities Did You Seek When Looking for a New Job?"  Curtis shares the question he now always asks in a job interview.  He shares team sports experiences and how playing basketball taught him the importance of positivity and teamwork and why he carries those lessons closely in his professional life.  Matt Curtis is the director of government relations at HomeAway Inc. Previously he was communications director for Austin mayors Lee Leffingwell and Will Wynn.  In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards.  He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.