How Kickstarter “Kickstartered” it’s own website

Kickstarter was founded in 2009 by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler. Since its launch over 20,000 projects have been successfully funded, with people pledging more than 75 million dollars. However, Kickstarter wasn’t always this big. Much like your project, Kickstarter began small.

In 2002 Perry was working in New Orleans and trying to put together a concert. He wanted a way to query the audience to see if he had enough support to go through with it. From this initial idea Kickstarter.com was born. However, it would take another seven years before the site would launch.

“I didn’t necessarily know where to begin. I wasn’t coming from working on the web” says Perry in an interview with TechCrunch. “At the time…I couldn’t have been less interested in dedicating my life, which is clearly what it takes.” Fortunately for us, he met some like-minded individuals and began working on the site.

A couple years, later Perry moved back to New York City, his hometown. He met Yancey while working as a waiter at a restaurant called Diner in Brooklyn. Yancey was a regular and worked as a journalist. One day Perry mentioned an idea he had for a site that would allow him to raise money for creative projects. Yancey liked the idea and they began working it. However, neither of them had technical backgrounds. It wasn’t until they met Charles Adler that the idea really started to take off.

Recalling the early years, Yancey said “At the beginning… it was a few people with a piece of paper and not much else.” He spoke of how they would wake up every morning wondering “Is today the day that the three people who live in Palo Alto, who are working on the exact same idea launch their site?”

In order to get the site funded they reached out to David Cross, an actor on Arrested Development. Perry was friends with David’s cousin, and she helped arrange the meeting. David came on board as the initial investor and was joined by a few other artists later. When they were finally ready to launch, they sent invitations out to 30 of their friends and asked them to share it with five of their friends. In essence, they kick started their own site.

A Kickstart’s Guide to Kickstarter TOC:

pssst…you can read all of this offline by downloading the e-book.