Two years after acquiring Drip, Kickstarter hands control of the platform to Andy Baio and XOXO co-founder Andy McMillan and provides new seed funding for it
*****but it is still a challenging model for artists and other creators whose output is less episodic*****"(emphasis added) http://twitter.com/... Andy Baio / @waxpancake : WE'RE DOING A NEW THING http://twitter.com/... Andy Baio / @waxpancake : HERE'S KICKSTARTER TALKING ABOUT OUR NEW THING http://www.kickstarter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Kickstarter's first acquisition is becoming its first divestiture. The company bought Drip in March 2016 — its first-ever company purchase — as a music streaming and fan community for independent labels, then relaunched it in November 2017 as a general creator-subscription service in limited beta. That beta launch landed during turmoil: sources said seven of eight top Kickstarter executives had left since July.
Two years on, Kickstarter is handing Drip to Andy Baio and XOXO co-founder Andy McMillan with new seed funding rather than continuing to run it itself — an implicit admission that subscriptions work for episodic creators but are, as the coverage notes, still a challenging model for artists whose output isn't episodic.
First-order effects
- Drip becomes an independent, founder-led company under Andy Baio and Andy McMillan, backed by fresh seed capital from Kickstarter instead of operating as an internal product line.
- Kickstarter exits day-to-day control of the subscription service it built through the 2016 acquisition, freeing itself to focus on its core pledge-based crowdfunding business.
Second-order effects
- Creators weighing recurring support now face a fork: Kickstarter's own platform stays project-based, so subscription-dependent creators must look to Drip's relaunched independent service or other patronage models rather than a single home for both.
- Baio and McMillan inherit a product with Kickstarter's brand history attached but none of its operational overhead — their challenge is proving the subscription model can serve non-episodic artists where the corporate owner wouldn't keep investing.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, corporate acquirers of niche creator-economy tools will increasingly spin them back out to operator-founders with seed money when the product doesn't fit the parent's core transaction model — acquisition as incubation, not integration.
- The creator-funding market may stratify by content cadence: episodic creators on subscription rails, project-based creators on pledge platforms, with services like Drip competing to own the former segment independently.
The trend: Creator-economy acquisitions that don't fit the parent's core model are being spun back out to founder-operators with seed funding, splitting the market between subscription and pledge-based patronage.