I have a confession: I'm a Kickstarter addict. I've backed more than 210 campaig
By Vcpete · October 1, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I have a confession: I'm a Kickstarter addict. I've backed more than 210 campaigns. But lately, I've felt a little disillusioned.
I love Kickstarter because, as a VC, I spend a lot of my time saying "no" to people's dreams. It's my least favorite part of the job.
But Kickstarter gives me the opportunity to say "yes," which I love.
I've watched it systematically lower the barriers to creation and help thousands of people bring ideas to life that otherwise might never have existed.
That's why I've been so disappointed by what I've seen lately.
Emily Best's post below describes Kickstarter offering creators on Seed&Spark, a much smaller competitor (and, full disclosure, a company I'm an investor in), thousands of dollars to move their campaigns to Kickstarter.
Competition is healthy. But there's a difference between growing an ecosystem and using your scale and resources to pull creators away from smaller platforms within that ecosystem. Especially when you are a Public Benefit Corporation that specifically states that it "will care for the health of its ecosystem and integrity of its systems."
And unfortunately, that's not the only thing that has caused me concern.
Recently, I almost backed a campaign that raised approximately $1.2 million that I came to believe was misleading backers in a serious way. I flagged my concerns to Kickstarter before the campaign ended, when there was still an opportunity to investigate before backers were charged.
To my knowledge, no meaningful action was taken before the campaign closed, and now hundreds of backers ultimately lost over $1 million.
Yes, crowdfunding involves risk. And yes, creators, not Kickstarter, are ultimately responsible for delivering what they promise.
But platforms also run on trust.
So when a platform has credible warning signs before money changes hands, I believe it has a responsibility to take those warnings seriously and not merely point to the legal distinction between the marketplace and the creator after the fact.
This matters because every backer who gets burned doesn't just lose trust in one creator. They lose trust in crowdfunding itself. And that makes it harder for the next legitimate creator to raise money.
Being a public benefit charter only means something if it affects the decisions you make when doing so is inconvenient or costs you money.
I still love what Kickstarter has built. And I hope the company takes criticism like this seriously and recommits to the principles that made so many of us trust it in the first place.