AMA
Official ask-me-anything conversations with notable guests
Sahil Lavingia

I'm Sahil, founder of Gumroad and author of The Minimalist Entrepreneur. AMA.

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Started as a weekend project in 2011, Gumroad has grown–with its fair share of ups and downs–to helping 94,000+ creators earn over $500,000,000. In February 2019, I published a Medium essay, “Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company,” that struck a chord with thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs who’d much rather build a sustainable business like Gumroad than chase a binary billion-dollar-or-bust outcome. I wrote The Minimalist Entrepreneur to help anyone start, build and scale their own sustainable business. AMA!
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Sunny Modi
Hey Sahil, Does Gumroad has plans to launch a Web3 product for creators? I would love to see what the Gumroad Web3 could do.
Sahil Lavingia
@sunny_modi Not yet. But we're paying attention.
Yusuke Nishijima
What did you throw away recently?
Sahil Lavingia
@yusuke2424 I throw away all of my figure drawings.
Mehul Agarwal
How to build long term thinking?
Sahil Lavingia
@mehul_agarwal Get profitable.
Oliver Kraftman
Hey Sahil, do you think the billion-dollar-or-bust pressure comes from the businesses that people choose to work on that makes them need huge scale to succeed? Or rather a belief in the founders that that's what all successful startups looks like?
Sahil Lavingia
@oliver_kraftman It's because the failure rate is high, and so the winners have to pay for the losers (if you're an investor).
Oliver Kraftman
@shl thanks! So pressure from investors transfers to founders? Your article suggested you put the pressure on yourself at the start of Gumroad
Imran Khan
Hi Sahil, what's the next thing you are looking forward to innovating on? Also, what's something you think can be innovated but don't have the time to?
Sahil Lavingia
@strongsoda The future of work. Doors.
Raj Bohra
Hey Sahil, how has working on your own personal brand on Twitter helped with Gumroad and other ventures?
Sahil Lavingia
@rajbohra No idea, not something I measure. (Is it measurable?)
Sharath Kuruganty
Hey Sahil! Thanks for doing the AMA with the Product Hunt community! You recently took a new identity as an author. What's the most difficult thing you encountered when writing The Minimalist Entrepreneur?
Sahil Lavingia
@5harath Believing that the world needed another business book; believing I was the right person to write one; believing that I could write a super-dense book, without fluff.
Clint Watson
Are you still oil painting?
Sahil Lavingia
@clintavo Not so much! I've focused on just figure drawing with charcoal (instagram.com/shlpaints) as that's a little easier to spin up when I have time. (Cheaper and less clean up too.)
Nate
Hi Sahil - do you think the rolling funds can outperform Sequoia? Asking seriously, because it would take somebody of your status and network within the industry to do so.
Sahil Lavingia
Nilton
Hi Sahil, Big up on the new book! I'm super excited to get to read it when it drops. I'm a fan of how you built a sustainable community behind Gumroad both how you crowdsourced funds & your flexible talent model. 1. I am wondering if you have any insights to share on how it is to manage so many shareholders? Aligning expectations with a few board members is hard enough. 2. With such a flexible model how does the Gumroad team manage the lag that sometimes happens when people onboard on new tasks?
Sahil Lavingia
@leza_app 1. Super easy to manage. Honestly less hassle to manage 7,000 individual investors than 10 institutional ones. 2. We're profitable; in no rush.
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