What's the Difference Between the Creator and the Consumer?

Sahil Lavingia is CEO of Gumroad and author of The Minimalist Entrepreneur. Many of our recent guests are recently-forged pioneers in the creator economy space, but Sahil has been building the passion economy since before it was cool. In 2011, Sahil founded Gumroad to help creators sell content directly to consumers. He was 19 at the time.

But this episode isn't strictly about the passion economy, though we do chat about ideas like gatekeepers and shifting creator incentives. Much of today's discussion is Sahil reflecting on his ambitions to build a billion dollar company.

Though Gumroad today is widely used by creators of all different sizes, its success story is not without growing pains. A decade ago Sahil raised venture-backed money to try to scale Gumroad at light speed. He details the lessons he learned trying to keep up with the aggressive timeline of venture capital firms. For better or for worse, he found that Gumroad only grew as quickly as the market determined they would grow. Now, Sahil fancies himself a "minimalist entrepreneur." He elaborates on what that means in today's episode and in his new book.

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