IndieGoGo Launches - Social Community for Artists and Fans to Connect and Create Films

Earlier this week a new NY-based startup launched called IndieGoGo. The site is an online social marketplace to connect the needed people and tools to make films. You can search ideas that are already in the system and get involved or upload your own movie ideas. I spoke with founder Slava Rubin to learn more about the service. He said most of the ideas come from writers and producers but anyone is encouraged to participate in the movie making process. It’s all about engaging the audience was a theme I heard throughout the conversation. Here’s their official launch release.

They have three working taglines:

1. Where independent happens
2. Don’t just choose the movie to watch, choose the movie to make
3. DIWO - do it with others

Artists post, promote and produce their movies through IndieGoGo and fans discover, support, and get perks from the artists. There are a variety of community features and widgets to bring artists and fans closer together to create movies that the fans want.

The core differentiator of IndieGoGo Slava said is in the fund raising portion of the site. He said this the most difficult part in the logistics but believes this is what will make them succesful. My concern is whether it will draw in a lot of scams, the artists could easily take the money and run. Slava says that they have policies in place to protect from any scams and the process works like this: the filmmaker posts the request for funds, the community sends in the funds via Paypal to IndieGogo, once the funds reach the requested amount, then IndieGogo receives the plan from the filmmaker, and disburses the funds.

The community members who submit funds do not receive any equity stake in the film but will receive VIP perks. If the funding does not reach the amount requested, then all of the money received is refunded back to the community members. This seems like a bit of a logistical nightmare but I guess it can be done.

They currently have over 50 projects submitted and a couple hundred community signups in their first few days since launch. The business model is two-fold. There are targeted ads on the site (I see Google AdSense) and the second piece is based around taking a processing fee when the artist/writer/etc. receives the funding from the community. IndieGoGo takes a 9% fee which includes the Paypal fees for collecting the funding.

The IndieGoGo team is currently six people with three founders and is self-funded. They use ruby on rails for development.