The Exchanges

Q So what was the thing? I mean, it was almost three years from the time that you formed the company to the time that the website actually launched. What was the, what was the turning point? What enabled you to actually make this thing go live and become a reality?

A Well, I think that in some ways we made every mistake in the book. So kind of, we did that, we did one lap that way. Classic stuff like people with experience telling us, you know, you shouldn't do something this way. And us being like, well, we appreciate that, but like, you know, it'll be different for us. And then, of course, it's like, exactly what they said happened, and we're like, duh. And so I think we had got a little experience after a few years, but then there was just people, you know, we found amazing people. One of the people we met was Andy Baio, who really helped us kind of figure out what kind of technology we should be using, and helped us interview the developers that we Would hire, and he eventually became our first CTO. That was tremendously helpful, um, because none of us could review the code that we were, that developers were on the right track. So that was, that was really critical. Those things kind of coming together.

AI assessment note: “One of the people we met was Andy Baio... he eventually became our first CTO.”

Q And what was the story behind that? Did you just feel like, okay, you know, it's, it's gotten to a place where I don't kind of need to run it on a day-to-day basis anymore?

A Yeah, I mean, I think that once we were out there and things were working, I started to see that, especially since we don't want to sell, where does this go if things continue to Succeed, then it just continues. That's what we wanted. We wanted to just continue. But does that mean I do this till I can't do this, or I do this for 30 years, and then I write a book on leadership, and like hit the speaking circuit? It's like, you know, so I was like, and I also didn't have time to work on other ideas I had in the arts, not new companies. And so I think we reached a certain point, I just started to see a window. I started to see, hey, You know, a gust of wind isn't going to blow us down. Um, we've got a great team here, and so this might be a good moment.

AI assessment note: “I started to see, hey, You know, a gust of wind isn't going to”

Q And did you walk away from it with some, with some cash?

A Yeah, with a little bit. I mean, nothing crazy, but definitely decent for somebody in their twenties. But, you know, after a while, I mean, I was kind of like, what am I doing? You know, I'm not doing anything. I'm not helping anything. I mean, at best, what I'm doing is neutral. I mean, I'm not selling somebody on anything, so. The traders like to think that they're providing liquidity, like some great service, but, you know, it's, it's, you're doing nothing. You're shuffling some numbers from one computer to another. So, yeah, I decided to go back to New Orleans. It's much cheaper than New York. My intent was to just kind of really focus on working on music to get better as a, as a producer, as a composer, and kind of pick up jobs here and there if I needed it.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, with a little bit. I mean, nothing crazy, but definitely decent”

Q of it all. I mean, do you, your recollection makes it sound like you were just sort of like, yeah, you know, whatever. Well, this is my thing. I don't have a plan B, and I want to do this. But I mean, most people, I think, wouldn't feel that way. They would feel anxiety about the uncertainty. I mean, do you, do you think that you're just wired differently?

A I mean, I felt a tremendous amount of anxiety, but it wasn't that the anxiety was driving me to give up. And I think it normalized a little bit over time. One of the things I noticed, not just as we're trying to launch, but after we had launched, is that those years were so trying that I kind of had to learn to adjust to kind of like stay in the middle. You know, not to get too high or too low, because I think that both happened, like, somebody might invest a small amount of money, and we'd be like super psyched, you know. Or, hey, we found a developer who wants to work with us, or whatever, these little things that get super excited, and you're like, okay, it's all gonna happen, blah, blah, blah. And then something happens where that doesn't come, and you're like down. And I think that happened so many times, the ups and the downs, that I think it just kind of, I just, maybe my defense mechanisms kicked in, and I It forced me to stay a bit more in the middle. Either way, right? When something that seemed amazing happened, or when maybe something that seemed dire was about to occur.

AI assessment note: “I mean, I felt a tremendous amount of anxiety, but it wasn't that”

Q Was it, did people notice it right away? Did you guys right away realize that it was successful, or was it still kind of underground and in the shadows at the beginning?

A It was a very, slow is probably the wrong word, steady. And I say that in the sense of that, with things on the internet, I think we sometimes have this feeling of, oh my god, one day, just ten million people started using it. Um, it wasn't like that. You know, it was like the first week, there was 10 projects, and the second week, there was 20, and the third week, there was 30. You know, it wasn't this exponential thing, but it was really nice and steady, and people got it. Um, we didn't have to go through a long period where, like, nobody gets this. Um, we have to, like, change a whole bunch of things. But it wasn't also like, oh, my God, we have to hire 20 people tomorrow. I think we're very fortunate in that, you know, we were able to hire, like, one person a month, maybe, maybe even less than that, so we could kind of build a culture, because it's not one day you come in and the company's triple the size.

AI assessment note: “It was a very, slow is probably the wrong word, steady.”

Q model of Kickstarter is just Seems like a no-brainer now, right? We think about companies like Uber or Airbnb or, you know, companies that connect people with other people, and in some ways, Kickstarter does the same thing. And you guys only take five percent, which is a pretty small amount of money. I mean, you could take lots more money. Did you ever think about going down that path?

A I mean, if you're going to try to make a lot of money, you know, that's almost changing the fee is probably not where people would talk about. They would talk about raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, quadrupling the size of the company and the international footprint, doing major marketing campaigns, or selling the company and making a ton of money in one shot. But I think there's also like, there's gotta be a way that it doesn't have to become this kind of vehicle only for maximizing profit. Um, you know, there was a quote, I wish I could find the attribution, but it was basically that if a corporation was a person, it would be a sociopath. And when you create something, you know, you want it to share your values. That's kind of why, ever since the beginning, we, we wanted to make sure to hold on to control so that outside forces couldn't drive it that way. And then two years ago, we became a public benefit corporation, which is still a for-profit company, but it means that the obligations of the, of the board and the executives and And the company is to balance the shareholder interest with greater stakeholders, including the environment and, and your various communities. And that's it. That makes it, again, something more a representation of people. But really, if underneath the mandate is, at the end of the day, make the most money for shareholders,…

AI assessment note: “we wanted to make sure to hold on to control so that outside forces couldn't”

Q Was it, did people notice it right away? Did you guys right away realize that it was successful, or was it still kind of underground and in the shadows at the beginning?

A It was a very, slow is probably the wrong word, steady. And I say that in the sense of that with things on the internet, I think we sometimes have this feeling of, oh my god, one day just ten million people started using it. Um, it wasn't like that. You know, it was like the first week there was 10 projects, and the second week there was 20, and the third week there was 30. You know, it wasn't this exponential thing, but it was really nice and steady, and people got it. Um, we didn't have to go through a long period where, like, nobody gets this. Um, we have to, like, change a whole bunch of things. But it wasn't also like, oh, my God, we have to hire 20 people tomorrow. I think we're very fortunate in that, you know, we were able to hire, like, one person a month, maybe, maybe even less than that, so we could kind of build a culture, because it's not one day you come in and the company's triple the size.

AI assessment note: “It was a very, slow is probably the wrong word, steady.”

Q And what was the story behind that? Did you just feel like, okay, you know, it's, it's gotten to a place where I don't kind of need to run it on a day-to-day basis anymore?

A Yeah, I mean, I think that once we were out there and things were working, I started to see that, especially since we don't want to sell, where does this go if things continue to Succeed, then it just continues. That's what we wanted. We wanted to just continue. But does that mean I do this till I can't do this, or I do this for 30 years, and then I write a book on leadership, and like, hit the speaking circuit? It's like, you know, so I was like, and I also didn't have time to work on other ideas I had in the arts, not new companies. And so, I think we reached a certain point, I just started to see a window. I started to see, hey, You know, a gust of wind isn't gonna blow us down. Um, we've got a great team here, and so this might be a good moment.

AI assessment note: “I started to see, hey, You know, a gust of wind isn't gonna blow us down.”

Q And did you walk away from it with some, with some cash?

A Yeah, with a little bit. I mean, nothing crazy, but definitely decent for somebody in their twenties. But, you know, after a while, I mean, I was kind of like, what am I doing? You know, I'm not doing anything. I'm not helping anything. I mean, at best, what I'm doing is neutral. I mean, I'm not selling somebody on anything, so the traders like to think that they're providing liquidity, like some great service, but you know, it's, it's, you're doing nothing. You're shuffling some numbers from one computer to another. So, Yeah, I decided to go back to New Orleans. It's much cheaper than New York. My intent was to just kind of really focus on working on music to get better as a, as a producer, as a composer, and kind of pick up jobs here and there if I needed it.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, with a little bit. I mean, nothing crazy, but definitely decent”

Q of it all. I mean, do you, your recollection makes it sound like you were just sort of like, yeah, you know, whatever. Well, this is my thing. I don't have a plan B, and I want to do this. But I mean, most people, I think, wouldn't feel that way. They would feel anxiety about the uncertainty. I mean, do you, do you think that you're just wired differently?

A I mean, I felt a tremendous amount of anxiety, but it wasn't that the anxiety was driving me to give up. And I think it normalized a little bit over time. One of the things I noticed, not just as we're trying to launch, but after we had launched is that those years were so trying that I kind of had to learn to adjust to kind of like stay in the middle. You know, not to get too high or too low, because I think that both happened, like, somebody might invest a small amount of money, and we'd be like super psyched, you know. Or, hey, we found a developer who wants to work with us, or whatever, these little things that get super excited, and you're like, okay, it's all gonna happen, blah, blah, blah. And then something happens where that doesn't come, and you're like down. And I think that happened so many times, the ups and the downs, that I think it just kind of, I just, maybe my defense mechanisms kicked in, and I It forced me to stay a bit more in the middle either way, right? When something that seemed amazing happened or when maybe something that seemed dire was about to occur.

AI assessment note: “I mean, I felt a tremendous amount of anxiety, but it wasn't that”

Q know, said, hey, you know, we've got this cool new product, like, like headphones or something, and, uh, and we want to partner with Kickstarter to raise money, uh, Kickstarter will do some promotion for us, feature the, the headphones on the homepage, drive traffic to it, and then in exchange, you know, we'll give Kickstarter a bigger cut, like, like, 10%. Could, could you imagine doing something like that?

A Yeah, it just, no, I don't think so, and I've probably had a request like that. In the past, it's, listen, the site is open. You log on, you create a password, you know, you post your project. I think a lot of times big companies, they want to do a partnership, they want to sign a contract. That's, you know, we're like, listen, if you want to go do it, go log on the site. But if you want, like, some special stuff from us or whatever, I mean, that's just not what we do. It's a relatively open door, but you're not any better than some young creator who's working on their first idea. This platform is built to do what you say you want to do, so, you know, go for it.

AI assessment note: “no, I don't think so, and I've probably had a request like that.”

Q Yeah. Perry, I, before we get to the callers, I suspect that many or some today are gonna have questions about raising money, right, to fund a business. And I'm just curious, I mean, what are some of the projects that do really well on Kickstarter? Like, what is the pitch that people make that attracts more capital?

A Well, one, there's people that have existing audiences that they can start the promotion on. If your audience is much smaller, You're trying to tap into things that have existing communities. Um, if you're doing a documentary film on a subject, let's say on autism, you may not have a built-in audience as a filmmaker, or that may be limited, but you can go try to promote that in those, in communities online where people gather around that topic. So whatever that is, whatever area of what you're doing, I think that you're, you're really trying to think, to try to understand how, how big is my audience here? You're probably trying to think is like, what communities exist that I can go to and say, hey, I'm doing something that might already interest you.

AI assessment note: “You're trying to tap into things that have existing communities.”

Q How about you, Perry? When did you, I mean, three years, you scrapped a whole, you know, year of, of work. How did you know that you were on the wrong track, and when did you know that you were on the right track?

A Well, at that point, I was in, my co-founders, we were so in it, you know, I think I said this one when I was on the show, that at a certain point, it had taken so long, and you have these calamitous things happen, like, where they're like, the year is gone, and then the money you spent on that is gone, and also, it's an indictment on you, because how could you make such a mistake? Um, that I switched my goal from like, can't wait to create this thing, because I think it's gonna have Really great impact to, I just need to launch this thing so that everybody I know doesn't think I was making up that I was working on this thing. Yeah. Um, but, but to your question, I think it's just that you do have to be deluded when you're in those stages. You, you have to not think about the odds. You know, you have to have just incredible belief that it is worth it. I didn't really have a vision of what that meant, how big, or numbers, or this or that at all. Just felt this thing, it was worth it. I think a big part of it was because it was something I would want to use and something that a lot of people I knew would want to use. I didn't know what that scaled to. And, and by the time I was that far down the road, like I was so soaked in the belief of it. I just needed to get to where we would just launch it and put it live. That was the goal.

AI assessment note: “I didn't really have a vision... Just felt this thing, it was worth it.”