Outsourcing: Ross Kimbarovsky, Co-Founder of CrowdSPRING (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: It’s not that simple. Video is a much more complex thing because producing a video is a lot more expensive and cumbersome than producing even a skeleton logo design.

Ross Kimbarovsky: Precisely. There are a lot of factors involved. There’s the cost. There’s pricing. There is capability. There is our comfort level with presenting the customer with enough choice.

SM: Yes. You can’t guarantee a customer is going to get 130 submissions for a video project as easily as he would for a logo design project.

RK: Exactly. So, we’ve been careful. We have spent a lot of time studying other markets. We’re definitely not stopping at the three markets we’re currently in. Video remains an interesting market for us. But ultimately, we have a long-term view for our business. We don’t want  to short-change our business by grabbing what appear to be low-hanging apples and realizing that we’ve spread our focus too thin. One example of that, by the way, is we have some competitors whose project minimums are lower than ours. We will not lower our minimums to those levels in part because the result is inferior work. And it creates a community that’s not as experienced. Ultimately, when you have a long-term view, [that] isn’t good for either our buyer customers or our creative community. So, we feel comfortable where we are in the marketplace. That’s how we look at all of our decisions.

Long-term, does an opportunity create value for our customers and for our community? If it doesn’t, we don’t pursue it.

SM: Are you a self-funded company?

RK: We raised a seed round in 2007, a $3 million seed round from individual investors here in Chicago. We have not sought additional funding since.

SM: Your individual shareholders and investors are not bothering you about faster growth and all of that?

RK: We’ve been very fortunate that they’ve given us a lot of flexibility, and they’re very comfortable with the way we’re running the company.

SM: Very good. That’s an excellent story. Thank you, Ross.

RK: Wonderful. Thanks.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Outsourcing: Ross Kimbarovsky, Co-Founder of CrowdSPRING
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