Question to Sahil or anyone with more context. Where is success coming from? I'd love to learn.
What we see here is a beautifully executed very clever idea - which we all (as hackers we are) project into "this should be succesful" and then we see KPCB throwing $7M at it - so it all makes sense and we are happy as hackerdom is victorious.
However, what I'd really like to learn is where success if coming from in this case. ie., who is using this today? Who specifically this is being helpful to?
Is it TONS of small transactions, or have you found a high-priced vertical willing to pay your 30% cut?
I mean, how is growth looking like today? $7M is a lot of money!
Just asking because I am really interested in the details - since we all know that a "great idea" is not enough - there must have been a lot of dirty and beautiful tricks to get traction - and that's the part that is interesting!!
I think there is not an answer to this question...yet. I built Gumshow.com a few months ago half-way expecting to update and re-brand the site for whatever niche really takes off on Gumroad. However, I don't think that this has happened yet. While our team here is going to give Gumshow a face lift and $7mil makes me feel good that Gumroad is sure to stay in the game, I'm just not sure where the explosive growth is going to come from. I think, as one commenter here said, paying some higher profile artists (musicians, etc.) to use the site could be a very effective marketing move. It's also possible that a niche market product (that uses the Gumroad API, like Gumshow) could get things really rolling.
> While our team here is going to give Gumshow a face lift and $7mil makes me feel good that Gumroad is sure to stay in the game, I'm just not sure where the explosive growth is going to come from
I respect you alot, but shouldn't that be something you just don't simply say, especially after raising that kind of money? Further, are you saying "nobody at Gumroad knows", or rather "hey, I don't know I am just an engineer/owner, but we are raising this money, some guys with other-than-tech skills will come aboard and they will know where we going".
Sorry if I didn't make it clear that Gumshow is in no way part of Gumroad. I also do not work for Gumroad.
I have just been trying to figure out a way to build products on top of Gumroad's great and super easy to use api: https://gumroad.com/api/authentication.
I am most definitely cheerleading for Gumroad since I think more people building markets, etc over their payments system will enable more users making money for themselves.
Update: Not everyone has a Twitter account with many followers, so marketplaces combined with other ways of getting old and new products to Gumroad could go viral.
What we see here is a beautifully executed very clever idea - which we all (as hackers we are) project into "this should be succesful" and then we see KPCB throwing $7M at it - so it all makes sense and we are happy as hackerdom is victorious.
However, what I'd really like to learn is where success if coming from in this case. ie., who is using this today? Who specifically this is being helpful to?
Is it TONS of small transactions, or have you found a high-priced vertical willing to pay your 30% cut?
I mean, how is growth looking like today? $7M is a lot of money!
Just asking because I am really interested in the details - since we all know that a "great idea" is not enough - there must have been a lot of dirty and beautiful tricks to get traction - and that's the part that is interesting!!