Indiegogo CEO, Slava Rubin Debunks Five Common Startup Myths

Myth #4: It is all about the idea.

Actually, entrepreneurship is less about your idea and more about listening to your customers and evaluating the data. Your idea may be great, but if you are not able to recognize and adapt to new trends and meet the demands of your customers, you may not be in business for very long.

When we initially launched Indiegogo, we decided to handpick our favorite campaigns to be featured on the homepage. Although this seemed to be the best practice at first, we learned that our customers wanted an equal opportunity for their campaign to be discovered and featured.

This led us to develop the “gogofactor” — a proprietary algorithm that evaluates key campaign characteristics and determines which ones make it to our homepage. Our users love that Indiegogo provides this merit-based promotion, and it also has enabled us to grow the business more rapidly.

We learned not to get too stuck with our idea or method and assume that it was the right one. Instead, we listened, monitored, and adapted as needed.

Myth #5: If you build it, they will come.

The concept of business growth is similar to what happens with a crowdfunding campaign. You will need to reach out to your networks and get them enthusiastic about your goal. Once you reach approximately 30 percent of your goal, it provides the social proof for “strangers” to get excited and start contributing. Also nearly 40 percent of our active campaigns receive money from multiple countries!

In the early days of Indiegogo, we reached out to our personal and professional networks to encourage them to try out the platform. After a while, word started to spread through friends of friends and customer referrals. I remember how exciting it was when we saw the first international campaign launch. Today, Indiegogo distributes millions of dollars each month to people in nearly every country in the world.

Once your product or service is out there, you must continually work to get the word out.  Keep marketing your product, and always make sure your customers, friends and communities are updated on your progress.

Connect with Slava on Twitter.

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Photo: Indiegogo

Slava Rubin is co-founder and CEO of Indiegogo, the world’s open funding platform. Since its founding in 2008, the site has distributed millions of dollars to over 50,000 campaigns in nearly every country of the world. Anyone in the world with passion can fulfill their dreams and fund creative, entrepreneurial, or cause campaigns.