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.

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.

How Informational Interviews Lead to Graduate School Admission - Diana Wilmot

In Chapter 9 of 9, Diana Wilmot shares how building practical experience and talking to people about job roles focuses her educational measurement and assessment career ambition. Upon moving to northern California, Diana Wilmot visits University of California Berkeley and asks what it will take to get admitted into the masters and doctorate program. She then goes off and teaches for several years, meeting new professionals along the way to understand what possibilities exist in assessment.

How to Understand Student Thinking and Monitor Progress - Diana Wilmot

In Chapter 8 of 9, University of California Berkeley Ph. D Diana Wilmot informs classroom instruction and measures student progress by blending education assessment innovation and systematic implementation. Using assessment as a diagnostic tool, Wilmot works with teachers to understand data comfort level and how much they can handle in a short one-hour meeting. Assessment becomes an innovative lens to understand student thinking, while data measurement is used to systematically monitor progress over time.

How to Help Teachers Better Understand Students - Diana Wilmot

In Chapter 7 of 9, educator Diana Wilmot attends University of California Berkeley for a masters and doctorate degree in educational measurement and evaluation program. As a psychometrician, she applies her cognititve science education to assessment, improving how teachers teach. Her passion is not only to create sharper students, it is also to help teachers better understand students. Wilmot's college education, studying mathematical methods and social sciences at Northwestern University, provides early immersion into interdisciplinary work linking math to policy. Her Ph. D Berkeley work incorporates education policy programming and assessment into this focus, opening doors to understanding how algebra can be better taught to students.

How Math and Policy Studies Shape Assessment Career - Diana Wilmot

In Chapter 3 of 9, education assessment and evaluation psychometrician Diana Wilmot shares factors shaping her career as well as the overall assessment industry. Coming into college at Northwestern University, Diana Wilmot builds upon high school debate skills using math in quantitative-focused policy courses. Early career teaching experience ignites Wilmot's passion to learn and apply assessment to improve systemmatic change across classroom environments.

How Education Psychometricians Improve Schools - Diana Wilmot

In Chapter 2 of 9, education measurement and evaluation psychometrician Diana Wilmot shares how she applies her education to measure and assess what students really know and whether they are ready for college. The job requires she blend qualitative and quantitative skills using her social science, math, statistics, and teaching background. She uses assessment to inform instruction and evaluation to monitor curriculum programming to monitor effectiveness.

How to Raise a Family and Build a Fulfilling Education Career - Diana Wilmot

Raising two young children pushes mother Diana Wilmot to find a career in education psychometrics where she can raise a family and work a job where she is fulfilled intellectually and able to give. Her education and evaluation psychometrician role at the Santa Clara County Office of Education allows her to make a contribution toward providing children a great education.

How Location and Payment Evolve Social Media - Mike Germano

In Chapter 13 of 13, Carrot Creative founder, community builder, and social media expert Mike Germano discusses what's next in social media, including location based mobile applications and digital economy. Digital economy creates currency rewarded on creative exchange and participation and creates a new playing field Germano sees as ripe with opportunity develop even stronger communities.

How Art and Design Shape Social Behavior - Jason Anello

In Chapter 3 of 13, in his Yahoo experimental marketing director role, Jason Anello fine-tunes details to shape experiences, project by project.  Anello relates detail in art and design to shaping collective anthropological and sociological behavior.

How Behavioral Science Applies to Marketing - Jason Anello

In Chapter 4 of 13, beyond his role as a Yahoo! experimental marketer and experience builder, Jason Anello constantly finds behavior shaping elements in his life. What most fascinates Anello about behavioral science is the opportunity to recognize those moments as they assemble and play out.

What Dining Behavior Teaches Marketers - Jason Anello

In Chapter 8 of 13, experimental marketer Jason Anello uses shared dining experiences to better understand behavioral science behind why people do what they do. Listening to what dining companions say and how and what they eat provides insight into better understanding preferences, ambitions, and behaviors beyond the dinner table.

How Technology Enhances Sports Fan Experience - Jen Duberstein

In Chapter 16 of 18, Major League Soccer legal counsel Jen Duberstein uses her sports industry digital media and legal experience to understand how technology enhances the fan connection.  At a higher level, Duberstein believes the technology helps bring a sense of hope to fans and makes a greater impact in the world.

Joe Stump on How General Manager Role Challenges New Entrepreneur

In Chapter 16 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur and SimpleGEO co-founder confronts new challenges present in starting a business. Managing and motivating staff as a general manager promises to be a big initial challenge for Stump as he builds headcount and assembles a product team.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Where is your entrepreneurial transition challenging you most?

Joe Stump:  I would say management is challenging me most. At Digg, I was not a direct manager; it was more like captain of the football team.  I’ve always been more in those type of positions and much more comfortable in those type of positions.  Now, I have to plan, do sprint planning, I have to implement that, follow up on that, there is paperwork minutae that is involved with that.  Then, figuring out how to motivate people.  There is a lot of stuff that goes into being a good manager and I don’t think I’m a great manager right now.   So I think that is what is challenging me the most.

Joe Stump on How Side Projects Teach Coder Marketing and PR

In Chapter 15 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, programmer Joe Stump develops skills not learned at work with side projects on nights and weekends. These efforts help bolster Stump's customer- and media-facing experience across public relations, marketing, and customer support. He eventually leaves Digg for a startup, www.simplegeo.com, where drawing on these skills becomes necessary to manage daily operations.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How have your side projects, whether it is iPhone application development or PleaseDressMe.com, contributed to your entrepreneurial development?

Joe Stump: The things I’ve learned from that are you need to build buzz & PR.  You need to engage users.  Customer support is a huge thing.  If people are using your product and having problems with it, you have to react and iterate.  I think that those side projects – none have them have been what I consider technically challenging at all – but they have all been challenging to me in terms of “how do I take action on customer support?”, “how do I promote this?”, “which promotions work the best?” and that kind of stuff. 

Joe Stump on How to Successfully Blend Mentoring and Friendship

In Chapter 14 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Digg colleagues Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose support Joe Stump with friendship, life lessons, encouragement, mentoring, and entrepreneurial guidance. From a post-surgery hospital pick-up through a decision to accept a leap into starting a company, the constant support provides Stump reassurance when making big life and career choices.

Transcript:

Erik:  How did your friends from Digg, Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose, inspire you to take steps and be an entrepreneur?

Joe Stump: What Jay has taught me is that you can be a good human being and be a good businessman at the same time.  Jay is one of my favorite people.  I think one of the best things about Jay, one of the best stories I can use to convey Jay’s personality is: I had back surgery a couple years ago and Jay and Kevin picked me up from the hospital.  Jay came up to my room and was like “well, you ready to go?” and I was like “yeah.”  The nurse was in there.  I introduced him: “this is my boss, Jay.” And he was “I’m not your boss today.  Just a friend picking you up.”

Kevin has influenced me and mentored me.  Basically, he made me accept the fact I was an entrepreneur and that I had to do this.  He also helps me a lot with product and stuff.  Kevin is really good with product. 

Jay did the same thing, where he was “You have to do this.  I have always known you were an entrepreneur. It’s just a matter of you accepting it.”  He has also mentored me a lot on the business side.  Raising venture capital is an extremely – it’s an interesting game to say the very least – and having someone like Jay, who at this point, he has taken a company public, he’s raised probably a couple hundred million dollars over multiple rounds of financing, he knows everybody.  Having a guy like that you can call up and say  -“I have this term sheet, can you talk about it” - it’s invaluable.  You cannot put a price on it.  There are other entrepreneurs out there that would give their pinky to have that

Joe Stump on How Solving Tech Problems Helps Make the World Smaller

In Chapter 13 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur and programmer Joe Stump defines his technologist role as solving problems to make the world smaller through making technology as accessible to people as possible. Stump aims to lower Internet user technology barriers to entry. He provides examples from eNotes, specifically getting people accessible, easy-to-use study materials to elevate classroom performance, to Digg, getting people information they want so they may share and discuss with others.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How do you take your passion for building virtual skyscrapers as a programmer and map that to a deeper life purpose?

Joe Stump:  I feel very strongly that technology has changed humanity for the better.  The world is becoming smaller, and that is a great thing, and technology is making that happen at a pace that we would have never been able to achieve without it.  My purpose as a technologist and as a programmer is to facilitate that as much as I can and to make technologies as accessible as I can.  As an engineer, I look at the world and see problems that need to be solved…and I think that is core to being a guy – they say men are fixers. 

My passion is technology and the great thing about that is technology is something that, right now, and has traditionally a high barrier to entry, and I like lowering those barriers to entry.  At Digg, it was about getting people the information that they want and allowing them to share it and discuss it as easy as possible.  At e-notes it was about getting people the materials that they needed to get As in class and making it as accessible and easy to use as possible.

Joe Stump on How Recoding Websites as a 20-Year Old Advanced Career

In Chapter 12 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Joe Stump shares two early career confidence building experiences. As a 20-year old, Stump is tasked with building out large scale websites and e-commerce architectures. This trust, aimed directly at someone others might deem too young for the responsibility, shapes Stumps perception for what is possible as well as his appreciation for being responsible and accountable with large projects. Over time, Stump builds upon these, ultimately landing a lead architect role at Digg.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What life experience did the most to bolster your self-confidence?

Joe Stump: I would say there were a couple things where people took chances on me and I succeeded.  One of them was Keith at Portable Computers when he took a chance on me to rewrite – I mean he literally handed the keys to the kingdom over to a 19-year old kid. 

So I rewrote the whole website in PHP, and that went well, which directly led to me getting the job at Care2.  Matt there took a risk again.  Here is this 19-year old - I turned 20 two days after the interview.  So here is a 19-year old kid from middle of nowhere Michigan and he took a chance, moved me out there and I worked on a huge website.  Those are probably the two big things where people took chances on me that forever changed the course of who I am and what I do.