Growing up in Richmond, Va., Everett Taylor it was surrounded by gang violence, prostitution and drug dealing and little exposure to traditional indicators of success. Wealth, for him, was an abstract idea, something he understood primarily as a way out. But he tried to see himself reflected archetypes of success of his generation.
“I was a young black kid from the inner city and I didn’t feel like I had anything in common with one Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg,” Taylor told the Observer in an interview in April.
But the urgency to change his circumstances took root early. He started working at the age of 14 after his nanny mother found drugs in his bedroom and forced him to find a job. During high school, he experienced homelessness, an experience that would profoundly shape his worldview and entrepreneurial drive.
“It really showed me what it was like to have nothing, but it also added so much empathy to my life to be around others who had nothing,” he said. “That’s why I’m so passionate about creating opportunity. A lot of people who are homeless or living in poverty just don’t have that chance.”
Eventually, he found inspiration in Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, whose dual identity as artist and entrepreneur resonated most closely.
“I remember seeing it on the cover of Black Enterpriseand I saw someone who was a creative businessman and also savvy,” Taylor said. “To see him create music that I love and turn himself into a billionaire was super inspiring.”
Taylor’s own path would follow that hybrid model. He dropped out of college during his sophomore year to launch his first company, EZ Event, a ticketing platform that grew out of a holiday promotion business he co-founded with two college friends. After selling the company a few years later, he briefly returned to school—only to leave again, this time for Silicon Valley.
By his mid-20s, Taylor had established a reputation as an executive who knew how to rapidly grow a new business. At 25, he became chief marketing officer at Sticker Mule, followed by a stint as chief marketing officer at Qualaroo. He went on to co-found several startups, including PopSocial, which he sold at age 28, marking his most successful exit.
In 2019, he launched ArtX, a platform designed to support emerging artists, and moved to New York. That same year, he joined Artsy online art marketplace as head of marketing, his first role in an established company.
“I’ve had these small wins with startups, but Artsy was the first really established company that gave me the opportunity to be part of the C-suite at just 29 years old,” he said. “This was a huge game changer because it gave me the credibility to build at scale and a truly global international business.”
At Artsy, Taylor helped grow her revenue by 150 percent in one year. In April 2022, he was named one of Forbes’ 50 Most Entrepreneurial CMOs. A successor Financial Times profile further raised his visibility – and attracted the attention of Kickstarter.
When Taylor approached to lead crowdfunding platform in 2022, the business was struggling. Revenue had fallen by roughly 20 percent a year, and Kickstarter was steadily losing ground to the competition Indiegogo.
Taylor’s strategy centered on refocusing Kickstarter around its core strength: community-driven discovery. Unlike traditional fundraising platforms, Kickstarter does not rely on equity funding. Instead, it allows creators to raise money directly from backers. The platform makes money from a 5 percent commission on funds raised and payment processing fees.
Taylor relied on what he describes as “matching specific projects with specific backers” prioritizing quality, curation and creator storytelling over scale at all costs. The overlap between creators and supporters (many users participate as both) became a major advantage in reconstructing network effects. It also doubled down on Kickstarter’s identity as a creative ecosystem rather than a transactional marketplace, investing in tools and programs that help creators build audiences, not just raise funds.
Since Taylor took over, Kickstarter has regained dominance in its category, capturing about 98 percent of Indiegogo’s market share, according to Taylor. In 2025, the company reported 50 percent year-over-year revenue growth.
For Taylor, the mission is also deeply personal. Having built his own companies without venture capital, he remains keenly aware of the structural barriers facing underrepresented founders.
“I never tried to (raise venture capital). I knew how it was out there for me as a Black founder,” he said. “So I focused on building companies that I could get to profitability very quickly. I didn’t go after bigger ideas because I didn’t feel like I was going to get funded.”
“I started my first company almost 20 years ago. It doesn’t seem like things are much better than they were then either,” he added. Black founders received only approx 0.4 percent of US venture capital in 2024, falling sharply from its peak of 1.3 percent in 2021.
Taylor sees Kickstarter as an alternative funding route less constrained by traditional gatekeepers. “We want to make sure you know that founders have the opportunity to be successful on our platform, regardless of their background,” he said.
This commitment also extends internally. Today, all six members of Kickstarter’s executive team are people of color and half are women.
