Hi, I’m John Dimatos, and I’m thrilled to be joining Seed&Spark as Head of Community Growth. I want to introduce myself, and talk about what brought me here. 

I joined Kickstarter in 2013, just as crowdfunding was emerging as a force of change. I ran Kickstarter’s design and technology categories for four years, during a global growth phase of crowdfunding entrepreneurship. During that period, 11,741 design and technology projects launched and successfully raised $894 million. My team and I were stewards of the financial engine that gave the cultural projects on the platform the space to grow.

Creativity is an ongoing endeavor: it doesn't start and stop with one project. It’s not all or nothing. It’s a little bit more, every day, forever. What creators need is lasting infrastructure that connects all the dots, with as little administrative overhead as possible, maximizing the amount of time and freedom creators have to bring their projects to life. Less time and energy on logistics, and more on building your career.

I joined Seed&Spark because this team has earned every single project that has launched, and it shows. Seed&Spark has built a dedicated community that has grown mindfully, emphasizing values and thoughtfulness over volume of projects. Everyone I’ve met at Seed&Spark is working to make people's lives richer, and creators lives financially stable. They spend time with every creator, bring in relevant mentors, provide resources from partners. Seed&Spark lifts its creators. The proof is an 80% success rate of projects, the lowest fees in crowdfunding and dedicated feedback for every campaign. This is a team that’s been punching above its weight for a long time — and it’s time to grow.

The reality of today’s creative economy is that if we want to firmly defend creators' livelihoods, we must build independent infrastructure for creators that covers them end to end. This infrastructure should put them unequivocally in the center of the ecosystem that benefits from their stories and creativity. Uncovering the pain points felt by creators and developing programs to address them is what I do. I did it at Kickstarter, and it’s what I am excited to do at Seed&Spark — with you.

You’ve asked over the years to expand the scope of what we do beyond crowdfunding for  filmmaking — we listened, and we’re ready. We’re taking this focused process and success and expanding it to include a larger family of storytellers.

Our team will have more to share with you on that soon, but we’re starting by asking questions. I want to talk with you, to learn from your collective experience. I’m inviting you to my (virtual) office to talk one-on-one. I want to hear your ideas, concerns and thoughts as we continue to build pathways and pillars of creative sustainability. Sound good? Sign up for a time here.

I’m excited to work with all of you. Let’s do this, together.