Here's The Management Secret Behind Why This Startup CEO Has No Desk Or Computer

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Slava Rubin

Flickr / TechCrunch

Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin

Slava Rubin, the CEO of Indiegogo, the crowdfunding website that just closed its latest round of funding, has neither a desk nor a computer.

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And he doesn't want them.

Rubin says that as CEO he doesn't want to be spending his time sitting down at a laptop; he wants to be talking with customers and his team.

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"I call it my 9-to-9 ritual," Rubin told Business Insider. "All I do is interact with people from 9 in the morning until 9 at night. Sometimes that's on the phone, but I prefer it not to be. All the things that require a 'real computer' - like modeling, Excel, presentations, and all kinds of bigger stuff - I do early in the morning or late at night because at that time I can't hang out with my coworkers, talk to customers, or do recruiting interviews."

By staying connected with people either face-to-face or on the phone instead of through a screen, Rubin gets a frank, well-rounded understanding of everything that's going on inside the company, and what needs focusing on or changing.

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Whether he's on the phone or physically chatting with someone, he also likes to hold meetings while walking.

"I think sitting is the smoking of our generation," he adds. "You can really get a lot of walking done on a half-hour call."

Although Rubin's schedule doesn't allow for a ton of sleep - he generally gets up at 8 and stays up until 1 or 2 to get done all the things he does need a computer for - his self-imposed schedule makes him productive.

"We get ideas for how to tweak the site from talking to people who fundraise on it all the time," he says.

Indiegogo just raised funding from a group of well-known techies including Virgin's Sir Richard Branson, Google X's Megan Smith, PayPal cofounder Max Levchin, and Maynard Webb, eBay's former COO.

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