YouSaid · the spoken record

Everette Taylor

lines on the record: 23
first: 2023-02-16
most recent: 2023-02-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Bob, I'm telling you, I got something special planned. This is really just the beginning for Kickstarter. We're about to kick some ass, man.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People don't understand that. People don't understand that. There is an added pressure and added responsibility when you're a black person in these roles. One, because people tend to doubt you more. Just being a black man or black woman. You're taught growing up that you got to be X amount of times better than your white peers because you're always in this position that you have to prove yourself, right? I've been in positions where I've come into companies and I literally had people that were trying to sabotage me coming into these companies as a young black executive. And so that's been a challenge for me, but I don't consider myself a role model. I'm just a hustler, baby, but I'm going to lead with kindness and I'm going to work hard”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's not a lot of me that's out there. And I understand that there's a certain responsibility and weight on my shoulders to be successful. I feel like I'm built for this and I'm excited to be able to help open up the doors for others. I've seen it, man. They'll see one person have success with a black CMO or CTO or whatever different industry it is. And if that person is successful, people want to repeat that. I want that to happen. I want to have so much success that it blows the door wide open for people of color, underrepresented people to be in these roles.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I survived the streets of Southside Richmond. No CEO job scares me, man. This isn't life or death. I've seen real struggle. I've been homeless. I've seen the streets. I've been on the streets. I've seen poverty. I've seen violence. I've seen all of these things. Being CEO of a big tech company, man, homie, I made it. This is the good life. All the challenges that I'm facing here hail in comparison to real life things. So for me, I don't feel this fear or this daunting thing. Have I done this job? No, but I became a CMO when I was 25 years old. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I figured it out. And so for me, my career has constantly been me learning and pushing, improving people wrong.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was like a fish in water, man. I can't explain it. And marketing is the thing that saved my life. Marketing, I think, in my opinion, helped me get this job at Kickstarter, which is rare. You know, most people, one, aren't CEOs at 33 of bigger companies. Number two is very rare for people to go from CMO to CEO. But I think Kickstarter in particular had three things that are really needed. One, a lot of marketing help. We needed to get this brand going. Two, product. I have a lot of product experience, right? And marketing is product to me and product is marketing. And three is someone that was going to change the business culturally, which is also a form of marketing. So it made me uniquely qualified for this role.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I realized that at 14 years old when I was doing things I wasn't supposed to. Most of the men in my family went to jail, were on drugs or died over the drug game. When I was 14 years old, I was selling weed. And, you know, my mom found out and she forced me to get a job. And at 14 in Virginia, you can work with a worker's permit. The first interview I had was with this company called East.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Giving people resources, I'm not gonna let imposter syndrome. I'm not gonna let self doubt. I'm not gonna let haters deter me from what I'm meant to do and for me to help all the people that we can here at Kickstarter.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. And I think we could do both Trust me, I still want to grow this thing, you know? I think we can get the wells and we can get these bigger creators. And one of the things about my mission for the company right now is to make people realize that this is a repeatable process. Someone raised $42 million for books last year. And best believe when he comes out with his next books, he's going to come back to Kickstarter. This is a repeatable process. So I want the bigger creators to know that, hey, this isn't just a one-time thing. Now we're having multi-billion dollar corporations too, but the true North Star for me is the smaller creators. I'm coming in here, I'm shaking things up. Are people going to feel uncomfortable? Absolutely good. Feel uncomfortable. You should. We need to up the annie. I'm here and I'm giving my blood, sweat, and tears to this because I believe in this. This is my life's work, helping people.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Passionate about is those people that aren't set up for success. And to give them a platform that they feel like they truly can be successful, that's why the backer retention stuff is important, building community is important. Digital marketing services and pledge management is important. Man, that gets me so Bob, I want to leave this podcast right now and go into the office and work right now. Like it gets me so pumped.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I watch my own mom. Work nights, cleaning bathrooms, toilets, making minimum wage, something that she wasn't passionate about because she felt like she couldn't pursue her dream. She didn't have the resources, she didn't have a Kickstarter. She didn't have a CEO like myself that wanted to speak to other black people and underrepresented people to show them that there's another option here. And I remember talking to my mom and listening to her dreams and the things that she wanted to pursue and that she never felt like she had the opportunity to pursue. And so for me, it's not just about the big creators. I could tell you who the ideal Kickstarter creator. The ideal Kickstarter creator is someone who has built their own audience. They're going to hustle. They're great communicators. They have maybe already some resources to help them. That's like the ideal Kickstarter creator because those are the people that are going to be most successful. But those are the people that are set up to be successful in life anyways. What I'm very...”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we have a very unique proposition. When you look at Patreon, Patreon is great, for example, if you are a podcaster, right? And you want money coming in on a regular basis, but Patreon isn't going to help you get off the ground. YouTube is really for like content creators in a certain type of creator. The beauty of Kickstarter is that it's everybody. We don't limit our creators into what they can bring into the world. Like we have campaigns where people just need $1,000, $1,500. We have campaigns where people raise millions of dollars, right? You don't have to fit into any particular category. And we actually give you the resources to really get it off the ground. And then you can use Patreon later. You can use YouTube for your content and things like that. But we are the Genesis. And no one is going to beat us in that space, especially while I'm CEO.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know from speaking to a lot of CEOs, a lot of times these ideas are just sitting there. They're sitting there and people don't pursue them. And one of the things about Kickstarter is it's been the market leader. But what happens with that is that you can become stagnant and you can become comfortable. And I don't think Kickstarter has really pushed itself. And so some of the things that are quite obvious. Sometimes you just need the right leader to come in and just really make it happen. Now we're growing into a real business. You know, it's not just this crowdfunding platform. We're going to have more tentacles. I'm coming for everything. I want to build a juggernaut.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, that's the great thing about having a new CEO that you got a new set of eyes. What I will do is give credit to our COO, Sean Lowe, who was already thinking about these things. I came in here.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“on that marketing magic it's coming it's coming trust me it's coming but i don't want to invest in any large scale brand marketing campaigns and things like that until we get all of this in place”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Successful on a platform. Kickstarter has never had that in the past. So we're going to really be empowering creators of different sizes to be able to reach new audiences through digital marketing services. The second piece is pledge management. Throughout the history of Kickstarter, say you raised a bunch of money and you got all these people that want whatever product that you created and you have to manage all that you got to manage the shipping, the taxes, all of that stuff. Kickstarter didn't help anybody with that. And now we are. We're launching pledge management now that will help creators on the business side of things, which also will create a better experience for the backers because a lot of these creators, they're inexperienced entrepreneurs. And so these pledge management services is going to help people be able to manage the business side of crowdfunding. So I'm really excited for both of these things. And I've been holding off.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was important to do very quickly was bring some fire and energy back to Kickstarter, get us back in the media, get people excited about using the platform again. I joined right before Q4 of 2022 and we ended up having our strongest quarter of the year in Q4 of 2022. And I think there was just like a buzz coming back to Kickstarter and really like, you know, spreading the gospel. But I also saw during that time that some people still didn't have the experience that they wanted to because there's still so many improvements. So my focus has really been on these two new business lines. The first business line being digital marketing. Coming on Kickstarter, you could be a kid from Iowa who doesn't really know anybody or has the biggest audience. But if you have an incredible product, you can use digital marketing services a la like an Etsy or whatever to reach new people and really be able to be”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On Kickstarter, you know, I want to be able to bring that past and all the incredible things that people are using and doing every day and not realizing that Kickstarter was the thing that Kickstarter those things and brought them into life. There's so much from a life cycle marketing, retention, discovery standpoint, search standpoint. There's so many improvements that I want to make to the platform. But I also know the marketing and branding side is going to be extremely important too. I'm a black CEO. I'm 33 years old. So for people to see me at Kickstarter, there's a new wave of people of color, people who are underrepresented that are seeing Kickstarter in a new way. But I want to make sure that they're coming to a platform and a product experience where they can be successful and they are going to enjoy it.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a chicken and an egg problem. Listen, marketing is my thing, man. Marketing is my God-given talent. So I can bring people to the water, but I can't make them drink it if we don't have the right product. It's really, really important for me to focus on both sides and make sure that from a product standpoint, the experience that people are going to have is going to be outstanding. I want people to come to Kickstarter and be like, whoa, I didn't realize Kickstarter was XYZ or I could find so many cool things. The marketing is going to be much more targeted to the everyday creative person in the creator economy. I think that's where it's going to be the most effective for them to see that a lot of the things that they use every day, they may be walking in some all bird shoes. They might be on their peloton bike. They might be watching Isa Ray on HBO and not realizing that she started.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can kind of give you a little bit of what my vision is for a Kickstarter from a retention standpoint. That's going to be huge for us, right? A lot of people, when they think about Kickstarter, they think about their friend or their cousin or somebody starting some project that they went and support. But a lot of people are not coming to Kickstarter on a regular basis to engage the niche things that they're really passionate about, right?”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I think Kickstarter is the biggest Kickstarter in the world in the sense that Kickstarter has been this thing that has innovated in the crowdfunding space. And I'm constantly inspired by our community and the things that they want to do. We're consistently kind of crowdfunding, but crowdfunding through the feedback of our audience, not necessarily from a financial standpoint, but people are extremely passionate about Kickstarter. I don't know if I've worked at a company where people have been more passionate. And a lot comes with that because there's going to be a lot of people that give you, but there's going to be a lot of people that give you praise. A big part of Kickstarter, what people don't realize is community and that ability to communicate directly with your audience and the people that support you. And so Kickstarter to me is that.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To really make the world a better place. But at the same time, I'm here to build a business, man. I'm here to grow this thing and not growth just for the sake of growth because a lot of people, they're growing because they want to get an exit or they want to make more money or they want to IPO or whatever that may be. Kickstarter's been profitable for years. We don't aim to exit the company. We want to stay private, which gives me a little bit more flexibility in how I run this business. And with that being said, the reason for growth is impact. If we grow this company, we can help bring more incredible, weird, wacky, amazing things to life. And so to me, that's why I want to grow this, because I want to make a bigger impact in the world and really grow the market that is creative crowdfunding.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Came in the Kickstarter, and the exciting thing is a lot of people already know what Kickstarter is. And so that gives you a huge advantage over companies that aren't a household name. When I came in and still to this day, the thing that I'm working on is that the brand didn't feel popping. It wasn't popping right now. So for me, it's about holding on to what really makes Kickstarter special. What makes Kickstarter special is our community, our passionate community of creators and backers, creators being the people who create the projects, whether it's film, fashion, tech, games, music, whatever. And then our backers, the people that are back in these projects and seeing them come to life, we are a PBC, a public benefit corporation. So we don't prioritize profits over impact. And so for me, I want to make sure that we keep that ethos here, that we're really an impact-driven company, and that we're”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was 14 years old, I was selling weed, and my mom found out and she forced me to get a job. The first interview I had was with this company called Easter National, and they were asking me like these basic marketing questions. And it was just second nature to me. And it was like a fish in water, man. Marketing is the thing that saved my life. Marketing helped me get this job at Kickstarter, which is rare. You know, most people aren't CEOs at 33. Shaking things up, are people gonna feel uncomfortable? Absolutely good. We need to up the annie. I want to build a juggernaut. I survived the streets of Southside Richmond. No CEO job scares me, man. I'm not gonna let imposter syndrome. I'm not gonna let self-doubt. I'm not gonna let haters deter me from what I'm meant to do and for me to help all the people that we can here at Kickstarter.”
2023-02-16 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT