In Chapter 11 of 15 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Has Working With Lawyers Taught You About Business?" Starting a company opens Rubin's eyes to how fundamental lawyers are to starting and growing a business. He sees lawyers as another example of subject matter experts that help executive management teams make decisions on running the business. From dealing with intellectual property to fraud to fighting lawsuits, Rubin gets an accelerated education on ways lawyers protect and serve business owner interests. 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.
Transcription
Erik Michielsen: What has working with lawyers taught you about business?
Slava Rubin: I had no idea how much lawyers are actually just part of the business process. I always thought lawyers need to be like the worst case scenario, that something has gone really bad. But what’s interesting is that maybe it’s the type of platform we have, so we have really equal opportunity, and we get ourselves into really interesting situations to the platform where people create their campaigns on our platform. Lawyers are just another subject matter expert that helps to navigate a decision, and knowing more facts and knowing more information helps to navigate the decision, so it’s really interesting.
Erik Michielsen: How do you interface with lawyers in your work? Slava Rubin: We have to talk to lawyers in all kinds of different areas, whether it’s setting up international entities, whether it’s dealing with fraud cases, where you have to deal with,customer issues, whether it’s IP or other digital media concerns. We actually dealt with a lawsuit where we were sued once and we were able to win, and, yeah, it was really interesting.