←back to thread

Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company

(medium.com)
2101 points jamesjyu | 1 comments | 07 Feb 19 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
sahillavingia ◴[07 Feb 19 16:33 UTC] No.19106256[source]▶
Hey, #1 on Hacker News! I don't think that's happened since...I launched Gumroad back in 2011:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614

Thanks HN for being a part of my journey!

replies(27): >>19106391 #>>19106416 #>>19106502 #>>19106546 #>>19106639 #>>19106641 #>>19106666 #>>19106684 #>>19106832 #>>19106859 #>>19106887 #>>19106893 #>>19106992 #>>19107285 #>>19107422 #>>19107686 #>>19107716 #>>19107865 #>>19107900 #>>19108045 #>>19108330 #>>19109377 #>>19111223 #>>19111367 #>>19111482 #>>19111763 #>>19134628 #
davish ◴[07 Feb 19 17:44 UTC] No.19106832[source]▶
Thanks for sharing your story, Sahil. Something I was wondering: do you think that Gumroad could have gotten to where it was without raising money to begin with? You mentioned sales not really changing with or whithout a sales team, but do you think you could have developed Gumroad in the beginning with a smaller group of developers, or even just by yourself?
replies(1): >>19107003 #
sahillavingia ◴[07 Feb 19 18:05 UTC] No.19107003[source]▶
I don't think Gumroad could be the high-quality, full-featured product it is today without raising VC funding. Less, maybe, but bootstrapped, no.

(Though, I was living in SF.)

replies(1): >>19107538 #
1. halfmatthalfcat ◴[07 Feb 19 19:08 UTC] No.19107538[source]▶
What was the biggest cost sink? Engineering, marketing, sales?