Everette Taylor, former chief marketing officer at Artsy, has taken over as CEO of Kickstarter, the Brooklyn-based crowdfunding firm tells londonbusinessblog.com. His appointment covers a search of about six months for a new chief after Aziz Hasan announced his departure.
He will inherit a company that has had a rough few years, struggling with layoffs, increased competition and backlash over its plans to move to blockchain technology. As he steps into his new role, Taylor wants to use his background as a marketer to bring Kickstarter back into the public eye – working, as he puts it, to “make Kickstarter sexy again.”
Kickstarter had “its best year ever” in 2021 and remains profitable, Taylor says, as it makes money through a percentage of the total money collected on the site. This year saw the company’s biggest campaign yet when fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson nearly $42 million secured in funding to self-publish four novels he wrote during the pandemic. “This is an established value,” he says. “It’s a really great place to be, especially in this macroeconomic environment.”
Taylor, 33, helped Artsy grow in a fine arts industry that was initially reluctant to embrace online sales, and today the site features about a million works of art from nearly 8,000 galleries and other art sellers, along with most of the high-end auction houses. He also founded the digital marketing agencies EZ Events and MilliSense. Major brands he has worked with include Microsoft, AT&T and Miller Lite.
Taylor hopes to attract more Gen Z users to the site, an age group that hasn’t matured beyond Kickstarter like millennials and Gen Xers. Taylor sees many opportunities in that younger makers cohort. “It’s just time to get back out there and let the world know that we’re still here, and it’s an exciting time for us,” he says.
Kickstarter suffered a setback late last year after announcing it would migrate its platform to blockchain technology. The company later said it would delay those plans and allay users’ concerns.
Taylor says there was a lot of “misunderstanding” surrounding the company’s blockchain plans. “My focus as CEO is still the core business and ability to serve our community,” he says, adding that the majority of the company’s resources remain dedicated to its core businesses.
Still, that doesn’t mean the company has given up on its blockchain dreams. “It would be a disservice to Kickstarter not to explore other opportunities out there,” Taylor says, “but our focus is on the core community.”