On April 28th 2009 at 4:27 pm EST, Kickstarter went live. What happened before that notable date? And what has happened since? You may be asking yourself, what is Kickstarter? Well, just in case you’ve been living in a cave for the last five years, we will bring you up to speed. Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Projects include anything from tech gadgets to music, films and loads more. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others.
The Founders
Kickstarter was founded by Charles Adler, Perry Chen and Yancey Strickler.
Charles Adler served as Kickstarter’s Head of Design through fall 2013. He now serves as an advisor. Prior to Kickstarter, Charles co-founded the online art publication Subsystence as well as Source-ID, an independent interaction design studio.
Perry Chen is the Creator and Chairman of Kickstarter. He served as Kickstarter’s CEO through 2013. Perry grew up in New York City and lived in New Orleans for eight years, where he worked on music and had the idea for Kickstarter. He also co-founded Southfirst gallery in Brooklyn, NY in 2001.
Yancey Strickler is a co-founder and current CEO of Kickstarter. Yancey served as Kickstarter’s Head of Community and Head of Communications before becoming CEO. Prior to Kickstarter, Yancey was a music journalist whose writing appeared in The Village Voice, New York magazine, Pitchfork, and other publications.
The Founding Story
Perry Chen was living in New Orleans in late 2001 and wanted to bring a pair of DJs down to play a show during the 2002 Jazz Fest. Perry found a great venue and reached out to their management, but in the end the show never happened—it was just too much money.
The fact that the potential audience had no say in this decision stuck uncomfortably in his mind. He thought: “What if people could go to a site and pledge to buy tickets for a show? And if enough money was pledged they would be charged and the show would happen. If not, it wouldn’t.”
Over the next few years Perry started working on the idea more and more. In the spring of 2005 he moved back to NYC, knowing it would be much more possible there. Once back in New York, he started to try and tackle the next steps: Who would be able to build the website? How much would it cost? And where would the money come from?
In the fall of 2005, Perry met Yancey Strickler, and they became instant friends. Yancey soon joined the brainstorming process. They acquired a white board and started thinking big. Perry managed to convince some friends to give him a little bit of money.
About a year later, Perry was introduced to Charles Adler. The day after they were introduced they started working together almost every day. After months and months of collaboration, they ended up with specifications for the site.
Unfortunately, they didn’t know how to code. Months went by and not much happened. Charles moved to San Francisco and took some part-time freelance work. Yancey was still at his day job. They had some money, but not much was happening.
In the summer of 2008 things finally started moving again. Perry was introduced to Andy Baio, who, though he was living in Portland, joined the team as an adviser. Soon after, Charles and Andy found a few developers and finally they began building the site— even as the economy started to collapse.
Finally, on April 28, 2009, Kickstarter went live to the public. The founders told as many friends as possible. Projects started trickling in and people stepped up to support projects over and over again. In January 2010, nine months after the launch, the team moved into a tenement building in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the rest is history. There are no more middlemen, no more loans, no more grants and no more middlemen dictating the terms.
For your enjoyment, we have added a brilliant video, produced by the Kickstarter team that summarises the story wonderfully:
