Kickstarter was created in the mind of Perry Chen, who brought Charles Adler into it, and then they grabbed Yancey Strickler along the way. It took years from Chen’s first notion to put all the pieces together to launch in 2009. They’re going to pass a billion dollars collected on behalf of projects soon, just shy of five years in operation.
The firm announced today that the management troika is reassembling. Adler is moving to Chicago from New York, where he and his family wanted to return, and will remain an adviser. Chen will become chairman, and focus on strategic stuff instead of the day-to-day work. Strickler will move into the CEO role.
It’s hard for any two people to agree on anything in life, even where to have lunch; three people? — impossible! And in a powder keg of such rapid growth, even more unlikely. From all I can tell from the outside, Kickstarter’s founders have managed to move forward with a single mind about policies, growth, and staying on focus. This seems like a logical move for the two earliest founders to step back a lot and a little after so many years in the pressure cooker.
I interviewed Yancey for this podcast a few weeks ago, and he explained the crowdfunding site’s past and its future.