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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowBillionaire and Indiana native Todd Wagner has launched his latest enterprise with help from a group of Indianapolis entrepreneurs.
The company, Chideo, will move out of beta testing and formally launch in early 2014.
The business legally incorporated in March 2012 in Indianapolis, where he created the website with partners at Developer Town, a design and business development firm south of Broad Ripple.
Wagner, a Gary native and Indiana University graduate, runs the company out of Dallas, where he lives today.
“Any time you can get a superstar entrepreneur like that back into the ecosystem, it’s definitely a good thing for Indianapolis,” said John Wechsler, one of the partners at Developer Town and a longtime acquaintance of Wagner.
Chideo, an amalgamation of “charity” and “video,” has recruited close to 50 celebrities to raise money for their favorite not-for-profits. Wagner hopes to have another 25 to 50 big names lined up before the formal launch next year.
Users suggest videos, either via the website or a phone app, that the celebrities should make. Then users vote for their favorite ideas.
The top pick for Olympic track star Michael Johnson is “Set up a race with another former Olympic great!” while the No. 1 idea for actor Rainn Wilson, best known as Dwight Schrute from “The Office,” is “Sing us a bedtime song.”
“It’s meant to feel like something more intimate, more personal, more backstage than what you can get on a talk show,” Wagner told IBJ.
The celebrities monitor the suggestions and make the videos at their leisure. Chideo users—Wagner refers to them as “Chideoites”—then pay to view the videos.
Users pay $1.99 to watch. Elaborate productions, such as concerts or full comedy acts, could cost more, Wagner said.
Chideo then turns over 80 percent of receipts to the celebrities’ chosen charities. The company keeps the other 20 percent.
The project is Wagner’s first for-profit endeavor into services for philanthropy. He has funded the company out of his pocket. It has cost “millions of dollars,” but he would not say the exact amount.
Wagner, 53, most recently ranked in Forbes Magazine as the 377th wealthiest person in the U.S. and 1,175th richest in the world with a $1.25 billion net worth.
He and fellow billionaire Mark Cuban sold their website, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999. Today, Wagner and Cuban both own media company 2929 Entertainment, along with a slew of other entertainment businesses. He has his own not-for-profit, the Todd Wagner Foundation.
Wagner described a philanthropy industry that he sees as focusing almost entirely on raising money from the super wealthy or the government.
“I’m that guy that made a bunch of money years ago. I’m that guy that everybody asks to write a check to charity,” Wagner said. “The reality is these events raise 40 or 40 cents on the dollar.”
He started Chideo as a high-volume, low-margin approach to fundraising.
He chose to launch a for-profit because of a “stigma” he believes not-for-profits have when it comes to how they spend money. Donors tend to not like seeing charities spend on marketing and other administrative costs.
“Do I think this is going to be some huge, profitable company? No,” he said. “Do I hope I can make it sustainable? Yes, that’s the goal.”
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