Perry Chen on KickStarter (counts for 2)
On November 13, I attended a talk given by former CEO Perry Chen on his company Kickstarter. Chen gave us his story on how the company started and where his inspiration came from. He shared with us the history of the company after it started and the direction he hopes it will go. After this the floor was open to questions.
Chen said that his idea for Kickstarter started when he was in his early 20ās and was into making electronic music. He knew of a European group and thought it would be awesome to bring them to America for a small show. He looked into the details and what he came up with was that it would be too expensive and risky to do. After that he realized how upsetting it was that there wasnāt a way that a group of interested people could come together to make an event like that happen. From there he sat on his idea for a few years until he finally decided to put it into action. He mentioned a lot of collaboration with friends and connections until the site was finally launched in 2009.
From the launch, he said that the first few projects were made by his friends and other people connected to the site. What excited him was when Allison Weiss, someone completely unrelated to the founding, used Kickstarter to try to make a full-length album. Chen said that what Weiss conveyed through her project video had the exact spirit and intent that the creators wanted for the site. She was able to raise more than her goal amount and gave everyone at Kickstarter hope for the companyās future.
After that, people had more and more of their creative projects funded through Kickstarter. Since 2009, the company has moved into a new office building in New York and has really taken off. Chen also discussed his hopeful plans for the future of the company. He said that he hopes the company can stay as small as possible (currently around 96) and can stay private. He expressed issues he has with companies going public saying that when they do, they are not longer able to fully serve their mission, instead having to cater to the investors instead.
Overall, I think that his talk was great. He was interesting and inspiring. People like him with stories like his make me want to go into the technology field. I thought that he didn't seem money hungry and seemed to still be rooted to his beliefs that he started with. I think that start-up CEO's like him are great because they have the power to sell-out and benefit only themselves but instead they choose to stay small in order to keep to what they believe in.
