How I Built This with Guy Raz

93 Rejections, One Revolution: How Indiegogo Changed Crowdfunding Forever

December 15, 2025

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • The founders' personal experiences with financial instability and loss profoundly shaped their mission to democratize access to capital and challenge traditional gatekeepers. 
  • Indiegogo's initial strategy to bootstrap and delay VC funding until Q3 2008 was critically derailed by the global financial crisis, forcing them to rely on customer validation (Twitter buzz) to justify continuing. 
  • The core philosophical conflict between maintaining an open platform (attracting diverse, sometimes controversial projects) versus curating for success (which would align better with investor interests) was a defining tension for the company. 
  • The early departure of founders can handicap a company's long-term potential, as suggested by Indiegogo's trajectory compared to competitors like Kickstarter. 
  • Indiegogo missed a significant opportunity to own multiple emerging crowdfunding verticals because the founders focused too heavily on unit economics and profitability. 
  • Sustained entrepreneurial success, like Indiegogo's initial longevity, is attributed to the founders' intense 'grind' and the belief that 'preparation plus opportunity equals luck.' 

Segments

Founders’ Early Motivations
Copied to clipboard!
(00:05:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Slava Rubin’s worldview was deeply shaped by the financial peril following his father’s cancer death at age 15.
  • Summary: Slava’s father died of multiple myeloma, leaving the family financially vulnerable due to inadequate insurance, which instilled in him a drive to address financial inequity. He later started a nonprofit, Music Against Myeloma, to process this loss. Danae Ringelmann learned leadership empathy managing her father’s moving crews, and witnessed firsthand how hard work did not guarantee financial security when their family business failed.
The Spark for Indiegogo
Copied to clipboard!
(00:12:43)
  • Key Takeaway: Danae Ringelmann’s emotional reaction to seeing a worthy, established producer beg her, a junior analyst, for film funding crystallized the unfairness of the gatekeeper system.
  • Summary: Working in media finance at JPMorgan, Danae attended a ‘Hollywood Meets Wall Street’ event where she was mistaken for a major financier, leading to desperate pleas for film funding. This experience, coupled with witnessing her father’s idea stolen by investors, fueled her desire to create a fairer funding mechanism. The pivotal moment came when Slava suggested applying the internet’s democratic power, similar to YouTube, to capital access.
Initial Business Model & Launch
Copied to clipboard!
(00:27:54)
  • Key Takeaway: The founders initially planned to bootstrap for three years, aiming for a high VC valuation based on momentum and media coverage in Q3 2008, a plan immediately invalidated by the market crash.
  • Summary: The three co-founders each committed $30,000 of their own savings to launch Indiegogo, initially focusing on film projects with a ‘Do It With Others’ tagline. They launched in January 2008 with 10 projects, using a ‘hit your target or get no money back’ model, which incentivized goal achievement. Their plan to raise VC money in Q3 2008 failed when the financial crisis hit, forcing them to bootstrap further.
Navigating Crisis and Growth
Copied to clipboard!
(00:46:42)
  • Key Takeaway: Despite 93 investor rejections during the 2008 crisis, customer excitement observed via Twitter provided the necessary ‘wind in the sails’ to continue bootstrapping until profitability was achieved.
  • Summary: The founders decided to continue bootstrapping, viewing customer engagement (people making videos for their campaigns) as proof of concept over investor validation. They made the strategic decision to open the platform beyond film to all projects, which was always the long-term vision, leading to rapid growth and profitability by the time they raised their first external capital in 2011.
Scaling and Founder Transition
Copied to clipboard!
(00:54:03)
  • Key Takeaway: The influx of venture capital forced the founders to adopt formal roles and titles, leading to internal conflict as they struggled to relinquish control and trust new senior hires.
  • Summary: After raising significant funding, the founders transitioned from equal partners to defined roles (Slava as CEO, Danae as COO), which was difficult as it required letting go of tight control. Danae’s focus on values and people helped temper the transactional hiring instincts of the others, proving crucial for company culture. Slava ultimately lost a board debate about scaling strategy, leading to his transition from CEO, which he felt handicapped the company’s potential.
Founder Departure Impact
Copied to clipboard!
(01:04:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Removing a founder too early handicaps a company’s future potential, a situation the speaker regrets regarding Indiegogo.
  • Summary: The speaker believes removing a founder prematurely limits a company’s potential, citing this as a sad outcome for himself, coworkers, and Indiegogo’s overall potential. All three founders were gone from day-to-day operations before COVID-19 struck. This sets up a comparison regarding the company’s subsequent performance.
Kickstarter vs. Indiegogo
Copied to clipboard!
(01:05:14)
  • Key Takeaway: Kickstarter succeeded initially due to a better design experience and curated product, while Indiegogo failed to capture adjacent market segments.
  • Summary: Kickstarter offered a good design experience and a curated product, leading to easier upfront positive stories, though they also did not scale as rapidly as possible. Competitors like GoFundMe, Patreon, and equity crowdfunding platforms emerged, representing verticals Indiegogo should have owned. The founders admit they missed the opportunity to own these spaces because they focused too much on unit economics and profitability.
Milestones and Acquisition
Copied to clipboard!
(01:06:35)
  • Key Takeaway: By 2018, Indiegogo had raised $1.5 billion for projects, but the company was later acquired by Game Found (backed by Ravensburger) in 2025.
  • Summary: In 2018, ten years after launch, Indiegogo announced it had raised about $1.5 billion for various projects. The acquisition in 2025 by Game Found, a board game crowdfunding platform backed by Ravensburger, was described as remarkable given Indiegogo’s cultural significance. The speaker argues the company succeeded for as long as it did despite VC skepticism because customers actively chose to use the platform.
Grind Versus Luck
Copied to clipboard!
(01:08:18)
  • Key Takeaway: Sustained effort and preparation were essential for Indiegogo’s initial success, as the founders worked three and a half to four years before paying themselves.
  • Summary: The speaker attributes success primarily to the ‘grind’ put in during the early, financially draining years, calling continued effort at that point ‘irrational.’ Luck is defined as preparation plus opportunity, requiring founders to identify and aggressively pursue cracks in the market. The rarity of all three founders remaining together for so long was noted by a former PR head, attributing it to their deep care for the mission.
Legacy and Cultural Shift
Copied to clipboard!
(01:09:33)
  • Key Takeaway: The most significant pride for the founders is creating a platform for opportunity, fundamentally shifting culture away from gatekeepers deciding what succeeds.
  • Summary: The speaker shared an anecdote about a 22-year-old VC meeting who learned to code via Code.org, a project funded on Indiegogo, demonstrating the platform’s generational legacy. The founders are proud of creating a space where ideas could flourish, countering dismissive terms like ‘cute’ used by skeptics. They believe they were a key part of unraveling the arrogance of a few people deciding what should happen in the world.
Post-Indiegogo Update
Copied to clipboard!
(01:11:28)
  • Key Takeaway: Slava Rubin is now a VC and podcast host, while Danae Ringelmann runs a mountain lodge retreat for burnt-out tech executives in Norway.
  • Summary: Since leaving Indiegogo, Slava has started a venture fund and launched his own podcast. Danae is operating a popular retreat for tech executives needing to recharge. The segment concludes with standard show sign-offs and production credits.
Small Business Spotlight: Best Bees
Copied to clipboard!
(01:12:37)
  • Key Takeaway: A PhD in bees, Noah Wilson Rich, monetized his niche expertise during the 2008 crisis by creating a novel service model for urban biodiversity.
  • Summary: Noah Wilson Rich, facing job scarcity after his PhD in bees, recognized a market need for urban beekeeping services. He launched Best Bees via a Facebook post, offering hives in exchange for research funding, keeping the honey for clients. Despite overspending in the first year, he grew the company to 120 employees and launched a spin-off, Biodiversity Lab, to expand habitat creation services.