Company: Kickstarter, Brooklyn, NY
Company Description: Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others. Since Kickstarter’s launch on April 28, 2009, over $1 billion has been pledged by more than 6.2 million people, funding more than 61,000
Nomination Category: Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Management Team of the Year - Business Services Industries

Nomination Title: KIckstarter

Tell the story about what this nominated management team achieved since January 1 2013 (up to 525 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

The crowd-funding leader Kickstarter’s founding management Team includes Perry Chen, Chairman, Yancy Strickler, CEO and Charles Adler, company advisor. Since its founding, Kickstarter has grown consistently and organically over the past five years. The company hit $1.1 billion in pledges this spring has just begun to break out subcategories for every arena. In 2013, three million donors gave $480 million to 19,000 successfully funded projects. Over 61,000 projects have been funded to date.

Unlike traditional companies, the Kickstarter management team is less concerned with short term growth than with maintaining and building the integrity, trust and expertise of the platform for the long term. Kickstarter earns no money unless a project’s funding goals are met. The company works with candidates to help them create a successful campaign that isn’t charitable or open-ended. Kickstarter is weary of fraud for personal and charitable fund raising and is reluctant to make money on money raised for personal medical bills. The company earns 5% of successfully funded projects. With a campaign page virtually unchanged since its original design by founder Perry Chen, most of the other crowd-funding sites have copied their lead.

Kickstarter has emerged as an alternate source of funding for over 13 diverse categories that cover almost everything.

In 2014, Neil Young’s Pono Music player, raising $6.2 million, became the third most successful campaign on Kickstarter after The Pebble Smart watch at $10.3 million and the Oua games console at $8.6 million. These successful campaigns have shown Kickstarter as a viable alternative to traditional VC finding, with funds being raised in less than a day in some campaigns.

In April, Kickstarter-born Oculus VR was snatched up by Facebook for $2 billion. And smartwatch-maker Pebble sold more than 400,000 of its crowd funded smartwatches last year. In addition to the attention gained from the $2bilion acquisition of a Kickstarter funded company, Kickstarter has been recognized by TechCrunch as the winner of the 2013 Crunchie for Best Overall Startup.

Veronica Mars, Blue Ruin, and other independent films have been funded by Kickstarter, allowing stories to be told that might never have been funded otherwise. Blue Ruin was featured at Cannes.

In 2014 Kickstarter launched Sub-Categories for Food related projects. The idea sprung from the increasing popularity of donor search terms like Food Trucks, drinks, and even bacon. Restaurants, in particular, had been a popular search term, says Kickstarter Rep Julie Wood. More than 300 restaurants have been funded across the US.

In 2013, the company and its 79 employees moved to its new headquarters in a former pencil factory in Brooklyn.

By 2025, the global crowd-funding market could reach between $90 billion and $96 billion -- roughly 1.8 times the size of the global venture capital industry today, according to a 2013 study commissioned by the World Bank. As a leader in the industry, Kickstarter has a bright future.

The Kickstarter team has no plans to sell the company or try for an IPO. Instead they hope to continue as a dynamic web based brand that helps people achieve their goals and create new opportunities.

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Provide brief (up to 200 words total) biographies of the key members of the management team:

Co-Founders

Perry Chen, Creator and Chairman of Kickstarter.

Perry served as Kickstarter's CEO through 2013. Perry grew up in NYC and lived in New Orleans for eight years, where he worked on music and had the idea for Kickstarter. He also co-founded Brooklyn’s Southfirst gallery in 2001

Yancey Strickle, CEO of Kickstarter.

Yancey served as Kickstarter's Head of Community and Head of Communications before becoming CEO. Prior to Kickstarter, Yancey was a music journalist whose writing appeared in The Village Voice, New York magazine, Pitchfork, and others .

Charles Adler served as Kickstarter's Head of Design through fall 2013 and is now an advisor. Prior to Kickstarter, Charles co-founded the online art publication Subsystence as well as Source-ID, an independent interaction design studio.