Transcript

Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor

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When I was 14 years old, I was selling weed and my mom found out and she forced me to get a job. The first interview I had was with this company called Eastern National. And they were asking me like these basic marketing questions. And it was just second nature to me. And it was like a fish in water, man. And marketing is the thing that saved my life. Marketing helped me get this job at

Kickstarter which is rare, you know, most people are CEOs at thirty three. I'm shaking things up. Are people gonna feel uncomfortable? Absolutely good. We need to Up the Annie. I wanna build a juggernaut. But

I survived the streets of Southside Richmond. No CEO job scares me, man. I'm not gonna let imposter syndrome, I'm not gonna let self-doubt, I'm not gonna let haters. deter me from what I'm meant to do and for me to help all the people that we can here at Kickstarter. That's Everett Taylor, CEO of Kickstarter, the iconic crowdfunding platform for creative and business projects.

As of February twenty twenty three Pledges to projects on the site have exceeded seven billion dollars. I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company, founder of the Flux Group, and host of Masters of Scale Rapid Response. I wanted to talk to Everett because at just the age of 33, Everett's been tasked with breathing new life into an established platform. That's lost some of its shine.

In just four months. He swiftly shifted Kickstarter's roadmap. Recently launching two new product lines to change the way online creators are nurtured. For many entrepreneurs, marketing can be underappreciated and underleveraged in the belief or hope that their product will speak for itself. But Everett is as marketing centric as they come.

His approach to aggressive engagement is one he hopes will elevate Kickstarter from a crowdfunding platform to a powerful cultural hub and taste maker. A resource that can give opportunity to those who historically face systemic disadvantages. In the hunt for success. I'm Bob Safe and I'm here with Everett Taylor, the CEO of Kickstarter.

Ever thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. So you joined Kickstarter as the CEO four months ago. What was it like going to a company that already had such a dedicated legion? Of users and fans. Did you feel pressure to keep things?

The same? Or were you given the green light to Spark some change. I came into Kickstarter. And the exciting thing is a lot of people already know what Kickstarter is. And so that gives you a huge advantage over companies that aren't a household name. When I came in and still to this day the thing that I'm working on is that the brand didn't feel popping, you know, it wasn't popping right now. So

For me, it's about Holding on to what really makes Kickstarter special. What makes Kickstarter special is our community. Our passion community of creators and backers, creators being the people who create the projects, whether it's film, fashion, tech. games, music, whatever. And then our backers, the people that are backing these projects and seeing them come to life. We are a PBC, a public benefit corporation, so we don't prioritize profits over impact. And so for me, I want to make sure that we keep that ethos here that we're really an impact driven company and that we're here to really make the world a better place.

But at the same time I'm here to build a business, man. I'm here to grow this thing and not growth just for the sake of growth, because a lot of people they're growing because they wanna get an exit or they wanna make more money or they wanna IPO or whatever that may be. Kickstarter has been profitable for years. We don't aim to exit the company. We want to stay private, which gives me a little bit More flexibility in how I run this business.

And with that being said, the reason for growth is Impact. If we grow this company, we can help. Bring more incredible, weird, wacky, amazing things to life. And so to me, that's why I want to grow this because I want to make a bigger impact in the world and really grow the market that is creative crowdfunding.

So I was kicking around the Kickstarter site. And that phrase bring a creative project to life. Made me think. Your new role as a CEO, do you think about that? As a creative project?

Absolutely. I think Kickstarter is the biggest Kickstarter in the world in the sense that Kickstarter has been this thing that has innovated in the crowdfunding space. And I'm constantly inspired by our community and the things that they want to do. We're consistently kind of crowdfunding, but crowdfunding. through the feedback of our audience, not necessarily from a

Financial standpoint, but People are extremely passionate about Kickstarter. I don't know if I've worked at a company where people have been more passion. A lot comes with that'cause there's gonna be a lot of people that give you sh But there's gonna be a lot of people that give you praise. A big part of Kickstarter, what people don't realize is community and that ability to communicate. directly with your audience and the people that support you. And so Kickstarter to me is that.

The site emphasizes three metrics, right? Projects fueled, the number of projects, the money committed, which is now over seven billion dollars. Which is a nice chunk of money, and the number of pledges. Are those numbers your priorities? Is that the way you're gonna gauge? Your progress toward growth. I can kinda give you a little bit of what my vision is for Kickstarter. From a retention standpoint.

That's gonna be huge for us, right? A lot of people when they think about Kickstarter, they think about their friend or their cousin or somebody starting some project that they went and support, but a lot of people are not. coming to Kickstarter. on a regular basis to engage the niche things that they're really passionate about, right? We have a subset of our audience that is using Kickstarter every day or every week and are super passionate about that. But still, this is the importance of building community engagement over ephemeral destination, is what I like to say.

For a long time, Kickstarter has been this ephemeral destination where you go You do your thing, you support somebody, and you might not go back to Kickstarter until you have another friend that is doing a Kickstarter. I really want to change those retention numbers. You're coming there because You love to know what is the newest, hottest music coming out. You want to know what are the coolest new films coming out. You want to know what new tech gadgets or fashion brands, whatever your interest may be, you are coming to Kickstarter because you want to know what's hot and what's next. And so that's really important to me.

Another thing that's super important to me is inclusivity. The truth of the matter is that the most successful and the most prevalent Creators on Kickstarter are white men. And that is a problem to me. I think Kickstarter is a tool and a resource that should be taken advantage of by everyone. We do have all types of diversity on a platform, but I want to increase that inclusivity. On the creator side.

And the backer side. And both of those are important because you have to increase inclusivity on the backer side because people have to see. people and things that they're familiar with. I'm really working hard on creating a more inclusive platform. We're gonna do that through our product. We're gonna do that through our marketing, as well as Ford funds, which is a new program where we're backing and helping underrepresented creators on a platform by working with different organizations and nonprofits to actually dump money into their projects. Really, it's all about building

more equitable industries across different niches, whether it's tech, you know how hard it is to get venture capital. film, you know how hard it is to get your film finance music. more and more musicians are independent and need funding for their project. I want to be able to build A more equitable world where people aren't dependent.

on the current construct of Some of these industries to do what they love. And the last thing that I will say is we're launching new business lines. So in the history of Kickstarter. We've only had one business line. We take a percentage. off of all of the money that's raised on the platform. In the first four months of my tenure, I'm launching two new business lines. We're moving really, really fast.

When Kickstarter launched in two thousand nine Crowdfunding platform was like a revelation. There was lots of excitement. And now more than a decade on, as you sort of acknowledge like the shine isn't quite as bright. And I guess as you're talking through this business plan

How much is about addressing the product? And how much is about addressing the branding? It's just reviving that. Pizzazz and that attention. I think it's a chicken and a egg problem. Listen, marketing is my thing, man. Marketing is my God given talent. So

I can bring people to the water, but I can't make them drink it if we don't have the right product. it's really, really important for me to focus on both sides and make sure that from a product standpoint, the experience that people are gonna have is gonna be Outstanding. I want people to come to Kickstarter and be like, Whoa I didn't realize Kickstarter was XYZ, or I could find so many cool things. The marketing is gonna be much more targeted to the every

Day creative person in a creator economy. I think that's where it's going to be the most effective for them to see that. A lot of the things that they use every day. They may be walking in some all bird shoes. They might be on their Peloton bike. They might be watching Issa Rae on HBO and not realizing that she started. On Kickstarter, you know, I wanna be able to bring that past and all the incredible things that people are using and doing every day. And not realizing that Kickstarter was the thing that kickstarted those things and brought them into life. There's so much from a lifecycle marketing, retention, discovery standpoint, search standpoint, there's so many improvements that I wanna make to the platform. But I also know the marketing and branding side is gonna be extremely important too.

I'm a black CEO. I'm 33 years old. So for people to see me at Kickstarter, there's a new wave of people of color, people who are underrepresented that are seeing Kickstarter in a new way, but I want to make sure that they're coming to a platform and a product experience where they can be successful and they are going to enjoy it. It's a challenge, right?'Cause You want to create attention, but if you create attention too soon They're not gonna get the experience that you really want. But you don't wanna waste the opportunity to create attention and bring people in. Like how did you decide what things you needed to do immediately? Like what was important to do quickly?

Versus what were the things that I gotta wait? What was important to do very quickly was bring some fire and energy back to Kickstarter. Get us back in the media, get people excited about using the platform again. I joined right before Q4. of twenty twenty two, and we ended up having our strongest quarter of the year in Q4 of twenty twenty two.

And I think there was just like a buzz coming back to Kickstarter and really like You know, spreading the gospel, but I also saw during that time that some people still didn't have the experience that they wanted to because there's still so many improvements. So my focus has really been on these two new business lines. The first business line being digital marketing. Coming on Kickstarter, you could be a kid from Iowa who doesn't really know. anybody or has the biggest audience, but if you have an incredible product You can use digital marketing services, a la like an Etsy or whatever to reach new people and really be able to be successful on a platform. Kickstarter has never had that.

in the past. So we're going to really be empowering creators of different sizes to be able to reach new audiences. through digital marketing services. The second piece is pledge management. Throughout the history of Kickstarter, say You raise a bunch of money.

And you got all these people that want whatever product that you created. And you have to manage all that. You gotta manage the shipping, the taxes. All of that stuff. Kickstarter didn't help anybody with that. And now we are. We're launching pledge management now that will help creators on the business side of things, which also will create a better experience for the backers because a lot of these creators, they're inexperienced entrepreneurs. And so these pledge management services is gonna help people be able to manage the

business side of crowdfunding. So I'm really excited for both of these things, and I've been holding off On That marketing magic. It's coming. It's coming.

Trust me, it's coming. But I don't want to invest in any large scale brand marketing campaigns and things like that until we get all of this in place. As you describe these new business signs, it sounds Basic, almost obvious. Like how could they not have this before? Is that the way you felt when you were like coming in and looking at it?

Yeah, I mean that's the great thing about having a new CEO. Is that you got a new set of eyes. What I will do is give credit to our COO Sean Lowe, who Was already thinking about these things.

But I came in here and lit fire to that gasoline, man, and kicked people in the butt and said, Let's go, let's make this happen. You know, as you know from speaking to a lot of CEOs, a lot of times these ideas are just sitting there. They're sitting there and people don't pursue them. And one of the things about Kickstarter is It's been the market leader. But what happens with that is that you can become stagnant and you can become comfortable. And I don't think Kickstarter has really pushed itself. And so some of the things that are quite obvious, sometimes you just need the right leader to come in and just really make it happen.

Now we're growing into a real business. You know, it's not just this crowdfunding platform. We're gonna have more tentacles. I'm coming for everything. I wanna build a juggernaut. When you build substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position.

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Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's gonna be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Chayubi.

And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Before the break, we heard Kickstarter CEO Everett Taylor explain his strategy for remaking and elevating the business.

Now he shares insights about how mission can complement the drive for profit. The fluidity between product and marketing is And why a prominent black CEO like himself can help blow the doors open for other people of color. The creator economy has evolved so much since Kickstarter began.

Are you looking at like YouTube and TikTok. And Patreon and like how you sort of Move yourself into those areas. What is the competitive space? I think we have a very

unique proposition. When you look at Patreon Patreon is great, for example, if you Or a podcaster. Right. And you want Money coming in.

On a regular basis, but Patreon isn't gonna help you get off the ground. YouTube is really for like content creators and a certain type of creator. The beauty of Kickstarter is that it's Everybody. We don't limit our creators into what they can bring into the world. Like we have campaigns where people just need a thousand dollars, fifteen hundred dollars. We have campaigns where people raise millions of dollars, right? You don't have to fit

Into any particular category and we actually give you the resources to really get it off the ground. And then you can use Patreon later, you can use YouTube for your content and things like that, but we are the genesis. And no one is gonna beat us in that space, especially while I'm CEO. As you're describing this sort of target user Community like it's really broad.

For some businesses it's a little bit off putting to have it be that broad that it could really be anyone. I watch my own mom. Work nights. Cleaning bathrooms, toilets. Making minimum wage.

something that she wasn't passionate about because she felt like she couldn't pursue her dream. She didn't have the resources. She didn't have a Kickstarter. She didn't have a CEO like myself that wanted to speak to other black people and underrepresented people to show them that There's another option here. And I remember talking to my mom and listening to her dreams and the things that she wanted to pursue and that she never felt like she had the opportunity to pursue. And so for me, it's not just about the big creators. I could tell you who the ideal Kickstarter creator. The ideal Kickstarter creator is someone who has built their own audience. They're gonna hustle, they're great communicators, they have maybe already some resources to help them. That's like the ideal Kickstarter creator because those are the people that are gonna be most successful. But those are the people that are set up to be successful in life, anyways. What I'm very passionate about is those people that Art setup for success. And

to give them a platform that They feel like they truly can be successful. That's why the backer retention stuff is important, building community is important, digital marketing services and pledge management is important. Man, that gets me so Bob, I want to leave this podcast right now and go into the office and work right now. Like it gets me so pumped. If it were just about dollars. You might

Spend your time trying to Find those whales. Find the ones who can most effectively bring in the largest volume for the least work. Right? Yes, yes. But mission wise, you wanna open the door to a different community.

And enable people to have And experience an opportunity that otherwise They wouldn't have. Absolutely. And I think we could do both. Trust me, I still want to grow this thing, you know? I think we can get the wells and we can get these bigger creators. And one of the things about my mission for the company right now is to make people realize that this is a repeatable process.

Someone raised forty two million dollars for books last year. And best believe, when he comes out with his next books, he's gonna come back to Kickstarter. This is a repeatable process. So I want the bigger creators to know that, hey, This isn't just a one time thing. Now we're having multi billion dollar corporations too, but The true North Star for me.

Is the smaller creators. I'm coming in here, I'm shaking things up. Are people gonna feel uncomfortable? Absolutely good. Feel uncomfortable. You should. We need to Up the Annie.

I'm here and I'm I'm giving my blood, sweat, and tears to this because I believe in this. This is my life's work helping people. Giving people resources I'm not gonna let impostor syndrome, I'm not gonna let self-doubt, I'm not gonna let haters. Deter me from what I'm meant to do and for me to help.

All the people that we can here at Kickstarter. You describe your superpower as being Marketing. As a CEO At thirty three.

Not everybody thinks about Marketing as the way to do that. When and how did you realize that Marketing was your superpower. I realized it at fourteen years old when I was doing things I wasn't supposed to. Most of the men in my family went to jail.

were on drugs or died over the drug game. When I was fourteen years old, I was selling weed. And You know, my mom found out And she forced me to get a job.

And at fourteen in Virginia, you can work with a workers permit. The first interview I had Was with this company called Eastern National, which is a nonprofit, and they had a junior marketing associate role. And they were asking me like these basic marketing questions. And it was just second nature to me. I didn't realize that marketing was something that was so easy and instinctual for me. And that was my first job.

And it was like A fish and water, man. I can't explain it. And marketing is the thing that saved my life. Marketing, I think, in my opinion, helped me get this job at Kickstarter, which is rare. You know, most people one aren't

CEOs at thirty three. of bigger companies. Number two, it's very rare for people to go from CMO to CEO. But I think Kickstarter in particular had three things that I really needed. One a lot of marketing help. We needed to get this brand going.

to product I have a lot of product experience, right? And marketing is product to me and product is marketing. And three is someone that was gonna change. the business culturally, which is also a form of marketing. So It made me uniquely qualified.

For this role. You had started up some businesses before. So you had run things before you were CMO at Artsy. Kickstarter is much

Bigger. Is that Daunting? Bob. I survived the streets of South Side Richmond.

No CEO job scares me, man. This isn't life or death. I've seen real struggle. I've been homeless. I've seen the streets. I've been on the streets. I've seen poverty, I've seen violence, I've seen all of these things. Being CEO of a big tech company, man.

Homie, I made it. This is the good life. All the challenges that I'm facing here. pale in comparison to real life things. So for me I don't feel

This fear or this daunting thing. Have I done this job? No, but I became a CMO when I was twenty five years old. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I figured it out. And so for me

My career has constantly been me. learning and pushing and proving people wrong. There aren't a lot of black CEOs. There aren't a lot of young black CEOs. So you

will be and are being viewed as a role model. In a certain way for a lot of other people. That could be its own pressure. For someone in your spot. Do you think about the message that you're giving?

Just by the things you're doing, just by being you. There's not a lot of me that's out there. And I understand that There's a certain responsibility. And weight on my shoulders.

To be successful. I feel like I'm built for this. And I'm excited to be able to help open up the doors for others. I've seen it, man, like People They'll see one person have success.

With a black CMO or CTO or whatever different industry it is. And if that person is successful, people want to repeat that. I want that to happen. I want to have so much success that it blows the door wide open for people of color, underrepresented people to be in these roles. When I talk to other Black leaders, it's like It's hard enough doing the job.

And then you have this other job that you have to be doing at the same time. People don't understand that. People don't understand that. There is a added pressure and added responsibility when you're a black person in these roles.

One because People tend to doubt you more just being a black man or black woman. You're taught growing up that you gotta be X amount of times better than your white peers because you're always in this position that you have to prove yourself. Right. I've been in positions where I've come into companies And I literally had people that were

Trying to sabotage me coming into these companies as a young black Executive. And so that's been a challenge for me, but I don't consider myself a role model. I'm just a hustler, baby. What?

I'm gonna leave with kindness and I'm going to work hard. Everett, this has been great and I hope maybe you'll come back on as the journey continues. But I'm telling you. I got something special planned. This is really just the beginning.

For a Kickstarter. We're about to kick some ass, man. Thanks, man. Thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it. Thank you brother. Take care.

Massage of scale rapid response is a wait what original. It's hosted by me, Bob Safey, Masters of Scales editor at large. Our executive producers are June Cohen, Darren Triff, and Jordan McLeod. Our chief content officer is Lori Hoffman. Our producers are Adam Skuse, Catherine Clark Gray, Alex Morris, Tucker Legersy, and Chris Gautier. Our music director is Ryan Holliday.

Original music and sound design by Eduardo Rivera. Audio editing by Keith J Nelson, Steven Davies, and Andrew Knoll. Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastanelli. Спеціанк, ада, колин гар. Tim Cronin.

Chelsea Capitana Samia Puta Анапозина Сара та Leah Sara Metis Chineme Ozuquina.

Alfonso Bravo. Arya Finger and Saida Sapieva. Visit masters of scale.com slash rapid response to find the transcript for this episode. And please subscribe to our email newsletter. Become a member of Masters of Scale to get access to a year's worth of courses and content on the Masters of Scale courses app. Find out more at masters of scale dot com slash membership.