Let’s meet a few of them.
Most Influential
Neil Gaiman
Sacramento, California, USA · First project backed: The Rainbow Boy
Coraline author Neil Gaiman is no stranger to Kickstarter. He first backed a project in 2010, after finding out about the site through Twitter, and has even run a project with his wife, Amanda Palmer. Since then he's been supporting and spreading love for hundreds of projects.
"There's a sort of weird and lovely magic of, I'm part of this, I helped create this, this thing exists because of me, isn't this fun!"
Most Helpful
Hope Leman
Corvallis, Oregon, USA · First project backed: Goldieblox
Hope Leman lives in Oregon and helps a lot of creators, first by backing GoldieBlox. She backs a lot of projects, noting that "it makes you feel like you are somehow contributing to technological innovation." Hope has also offered creators tons of advice and support — everything from a pat on the back to, “Hey! You should really send an update!” Hope’s backed over 220 projects, and is one of 1,627 people who’ve completed the pie, having backed a project in every single category.
"I just like to encourage young people who are doing something worthwhile. Not necessarily young — just people!"
Most Arctic
Espen Arntzen
Longyearbyen, Norway · First project backed: Double Fine Adventure Game
People in over 224 countries and territories have backed a project on Kickstarter. Some, like Espen Arntzen, are in very remote locations. Espen lives in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, a two-hour flight from the North Pole. Despite living in a small Arctic town, Espen feels a connection with people all over the world. "[I] back projects that aren't so much about making a product, but rather helping out a community... I try to support projects that I think are interesting and that wouldn't normally get made with more traditional funding methods."
"The best thing about backing is definitely getting to follow along as the project goes forward. You get an inside view of the process, and feel like you are part of the team, having helped make the final product happen… Getting an email from the developers of some of your favorite games is not something that normally happens."
Most Kickstarter
Tieg Zaharia
Queens, New York · First project backed: Edgewater - A dark and sexy comic book
Tieg is an engineer at Kickstarter, but he might be better known as one of a few people who have backed over 1,000 projects. He backed his first project in December 2009. Six months later he tweeted this, which is how we ended up meeting him. When Tieg isn’t busy writing Ruby and backing projects, he’s curating what we affectionately call the Tieg Film Fest, a weekly screening series in the office where Tieg shows films he’s backed.
“It's a cool way to remind everyone what we're doing and the results of these projects.”
