←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: 0.241s | source
Show context
lancesells ◴[07 Feb 19 17:36 UTC] No.19106759[source]▶
I've always liked Gumroad as a product and service but this line kind of bothers me:

> There is, of course, the $178,000,000 we have sent to creators

This money wasn't sent to creators. They sold products worth $178M + Gumroad fees through the service. The creators made the products, marketed the products, acquired the customers, etc. When I use Paypal to sell something they aren't "sending me money".

replies(4): >>19106820 #>>19106830 #>>19106906 #>>19108484 #
1. jVinc ◴[07 Feb 19 20:52 UTC] No.19108484[source]▶
Might be a language thing, but if someone sends me money through paypal, I definitely would say paypal receives the funds from that person and then sends them to me.

Thus paypal can tally up how much money they have sent to their customers. I can't see how you could misunderstand that or think there is malice in the formulation. I can't possibly anyone would sit there thinking that gumroad ment he donated money to people or invested it.