Despite creating one of the most well-known crowdfunding platform in the world, Kickstarter’s co-founder Yancey Strickler doesn’t wish for the portal to be ordinary.
During his recent interview with Jessi Hempel, senior editor at Wired, as part of 92nd Street Y’s weeklong 7 Days of Genius Festival, Strickler stated that he and his team are always looking for ways to make sure that Kickstarter is constantly developing and becoming different:
“We don’t want to ride the same horse into the sunset.”
Despite its popularity and fame in the crowdfunding world, Yancey admitted that the funding method isn’t even mentioned in Kickstarter’s statement:
“Our mission statement is to help bring creative projects to life. Our mission statement does not contain the word crowdfunding. We pioneered [crowdfunding] and made it incredibly popular, but it was never the intent.”
In regards to Kickstarter’s future plans, Strickler added:
“We have some ideas that we are very excited about. There are going to be way more misses than hits for sure, but having the stomach and having the drive and the willingness to challenge what is already a successful enterprise and make it into something fundamentally new and even more meaningful — that’s everything.”
Last fall, Kickstarter announced that it has officially become a public benefit corporation (PBC). A public benefit corporation is described as a corporation that performs a specific function for the benefit of the public. The crowdfunding platform explained:
“Kickstarter is excited to join a growing list of forward-thinking organizations — like Patagonia and This American Life — that have taken the big step to become a Benefit Corporation. While only about .01% of all American businesses have done this, we believe that can and will change in the coming years. More and more voices are rejecting business as usual, and the pursuit of profit above all.”
