Insight
Taylor: Raising venture capital strips founders of company ownership and control
“When you go out and you raise billions of dollars, like, one, or some people raise billions of dollars, but millions of dollars, one, like, that company isn't yours anymore. Like, you have to deal with, like, you know this, having a board of directors, that's …”
Insight
Taylor: Mega VCs like a16z need 100x to 200x returns, dismiss 4x
“For them, like, a Forex return, they're like, why are you wasting our time? Like, they need that 102 hundred X return.”
Insight
Taylor: CEO's Job Is Driving Shareholder Value Without Personal Emotion
“My job as a CEO, and people may not like this answer, but my job as a CEO is to make sure that this company goes on for the next 1015, 20, a hundred years, and to drive shareholder value. Take the emotions out of it. Right? That's gonna hurt some feelings, but…”
Insight
Taylor: Remote Workers Slack Off Unless Given Aggressive Goals
“You got to be even more aggressive about your goals. You have to be more on top of people's performance, like performance management, setting aggressive goals, making sure that people are actually locked in, like is really, really important because I've learne…”
Insight
Taylor: Early-stage founders must serve as their own CMO
“Like, I tell people all the time, founders, you may not be a marketer, but you better be a marketer for yourself, right? You should be your own CMO, right? And so, for people that are starting off and they don't have those connections, they need that first a h…”
Insight
Taylor: Mental toughness and emotional regulation are top entrepreneurial traits
“Well, I tell people all the time, one of the number one traits that you need to be an entrepreneur are two things, or two number one traits, is mental toughness and emotional regulation, right? Like, you have to be, have real mental fortitude, right? You have …”
Disclosure
Taylor: Kickstarter bans guns, weapons, and 3D-printed firearm projects
“We're not gonna allow it. We've had people trying to three D print guns on the platform. So yeah, anything that's weapons or harmful.”
Insight
Taylor: Most successful Kickstarter creators use the platform for pre-orders and marketing
“A lot of the most successful people on Kickstarter use it as a pre-order, right? They have the resources and the means to actually create the product. They want to use it. To scale marketing, we have an audience of millions of people that are using the app and…”
Assertion Supported
Taylor: Over 90% of Kickstarter project creators fulfill their rewards
“Now, ninety-something percent of people on Kickstarter fulfill, but there's still a small percentage of people that don't, and so you really have to drive that level of trust to make people feel comfortable, That you're actually going to deliver on time, and y…”
Insight
Taylor: Video is the top driver of Kickstarter campaign success
“Launching a video is like the number one thing I see for people that are successful on the platform. I lied to you not. Like, most of the time when I see a Kickstarter failed, they didn't even care to do a video.”
Disclosure
Taylor: Kickstarter to become mobile-first and video-first this year
“One of the things that we're doing at Kickstarter this year, give you a little bit of exclusive, is that we're gonna become a lot more mobile first and video first on our platform”
Insight
Taylor: Pitchers Fail Most Often by Not Hooking Audiences Within 45 Seconds
“I think pitching in general, the biggest mistake that I see is people that are just not concise, and they don't get to the point. I'm just like, you'll lose me. Like, if you don't catch my attention within the first 30, 45 seconds, like, It gets rough, and lik…”
Insight
Taylor: Pitching Kickstarter Backers Requires Proving Delivery, Not Long-Term Equity Upside
“Like, when you're pitching VCs, you're pitching for the long term. You're pitching for, like, the big picture. Like, you're really saying, like, hey, this company can be worth fifty billion dollars one day. On Kickstarter, you're trying to deliver immediate de…”
Assertion Contradicted
Taylor: Kickstarter likely sells more comic books annually than anyone worldwide
“We don't, we can't say this for sure, but we're like almost confident that we sell more comic books on Kickstarter year than anywhere else in the world.”
Assertion Supported
Taylor: Design, technology, and gaming are Kickstarter's biggest categories
“Design and technology and gaming are our biggest categories.”
Insight
Taylor: Hardware crowdfunding requires 25-30% buffer versus 10-15% for lightweight products
“So, like, maybe you only need to, like, have a 10 to 15% buffer. But if you're talking about, like, heavy hardware that you're shipping from China and, like, all these things, you might want to have a bigger buffer of, like, 25, 30%.”
Assertion Supported
Taylor: A Cyberpunk tabletop card game raised $28 million on Kickstarter
“I mean, we just had a board game raise twenty eight million dollars. It was a trading card game, but Cyberpunk just raised twenty eight million dollars, so it always astounds me, like, you know, we think about, like, we have a lot of video games on the platfor…”
Insight
Taylor: Evaluating Fine Art Requires Tracking Pedigree, Representation, and Auction Data
“And so I'm tracking everything from, like, where they went to grad school, what galleries represent them, what museum acquisitions they have, what other collectors are buying them, like, what are they trading, how are they trading privately, how are they tradi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Taylor: Kickstarter Revenue Was Down Over 20% YoY When He Took Over
“You know, we were down over 20% in revenue year over year when I took over.”
