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Everette Taylor is the first black CEO of Kickstarter, a platform for funding creative projects such as music, movies, art, theater, games, comics, and photography. He was originally appointed to the role in 2022, following the official resignation of the previous CEO, Aziz Hasan.
Taylor formerly served as the chief marketing officer for Artsy, an online fine art marketplace. He also worked for ET Enterprises and was the CEO of the social media company PopSocial.
During his time at PopSocial, he was named a Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018 and an All-Star Alumni the following year for the company’s “substantial growth,” according to Kickstarter. In addition, Business Insider dubbed him a “millennial entrepreneur who built a marketing and technology company.”
Taylor’s outstanding resume includes roles as CMO at Skurt and Head of Marketing at Qualaroo, both of which he helped lead to successful acquisitions. As Interim Head of Marketing for a Microsoft China business, he reportedly oversaw the growth of new mobile apps.
He was also the CMO of the e-commerce startup StickerMule. He was the company’s youngest-ever executive and oversaw significant development.
Taylor attributes his professional success to being a dreamer who never gave up on his goals. One of his boyhood dreams was to be a basketball player, according to him. Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, he also wanted to be a rapper.
“A lot of people where I’m from stay in this small neighborhood,” he told LinkedIn’s The Path. “I was always a dreamer. And so a lot of the things that I wanted to do were things that I felt [were] going to get me out of Richmond, Virginia, even if they weren’t realistic,” he said.
Taylor began peddling drugs, but when his mother found out, she hired him as a junior marketing assistant, advertising bookstores and gift shops for Civil War sites and Black history museums throughout Virginia.
Taylor, who was 14 at the time, said the work kept him out of trouble and provided him with valuable marketing experience. According to Taylor, he went homeless in high school, which marked a turning point in his life and provided him with his greatest skill.
“It was one of the worst moments anyone can go through in their lives. But I think it really molded me into the person I am today,” Taylor said. “I think my strength as a leader is empathy, and there’s no better lesson of empathy than not having anything.”
Because of his homelessness, he sought refuge in the library, where he had access to a computer for the first time. He finally became aware of folks like Mark Zuckerberg’s life-changing stories. This inspired him to seek a career in technology.
Taylor’s first foray into entrepreneurship was the establishment of a company that promoted events and sold photographs over social media. But he sold the company, dropped out of Virginia Tech, and relocated to Silicon Valley, where he obtained multiple gigs, including his current one as CMO at Artsy.
He is now the first person of color to lead Kickstarter since its inception.
