‘Kickstarter is focusing on engaging with creative people’
NEW DELHI: Perry Chen is an artist by choice and an entrepreneur by chance. He rose to prominence in 2009 when he co-founded Kickstarter, the online funding platform for creative projects. Since then, it has successfully funded more than 149,000 projects, generating close to $4 billion from over 15 million backers. It remains one of the world’s biggest contributors to arts and technology projects and has spawned similar platforms such as CrowdSpring, DesignCrowd and, closer home, Ketto and ImpactGuru.
The 42-year-old was in Delhi for a talk to mark the opening of an art exhibition at Delhi’s Nature More gallery. He spoke in an interview about intersections of arts and technology. Edited excerpts:
What is the next phase of growth for Kickstarter?
The evolution of the format. We have to think what is the best form of Kickstarter in 2018 and 2019. We are focusing on engaging with creative people more to see the processes… What happens in the time between an artist raising money and the idea coming to life? We’re hoping to encourage people to talk more about it. Because the process is not perfect. People try and fail and try again. But to see an idea taking shape after multiple failures is all worth it.
Do you want to diversify?
Many times, organizations falter because they lose focus. We are focusing on strengthening our core. Everybody’s trying to be Google, Facebook or Apple. How will the world be then? All these companies have to do is wake up everyday and compete with each other. If one of them does something new, they all have to do something new. Where does competition end?
But how do you measure your growth in that case?
Goals are the most important thing. For us, it’s impact. We focus on helping creative products come to life. We do that because we believe that arts and creative works are critical to a healthy society.
What is the biggest disruptor today?
Artificial intelligence is one of the biggest changes. We’ve been dealing with how tech affects us for the past 10-20 years. But it started way before. It all came down to the invention of the printing press and continued to industrial revolution, internet, cellphone, and now AI is the latest.