''Gumroad'' is an

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

platform that allows creators to sell products directly to their

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...

. The platform was founded by Sahil Lavingia in 2011 and is based in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Gumroad enables creators to sell digital products, such as

e-books An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

s, and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

, as well as physical goods. The platform provides creators with tools to create custom

landing page In online marketing, a landing page, sometimes known as a "lead capture page", "single property page", "static page", "squeeze page" or a "destination page", is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized se ...

s, track sales, and process payments. Gumroad's primary focus is on serving independent creators, such as

writers A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, plays ...

musicians A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

, and

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

s, who want to sell their products without going through

intermediaries An intermediary (or go-between) is a third party that offers intermediation services between two parties, which involves conveying messages between principals in a dispute, preventing direct contact and potential escalation of the issue. In law ...

History

Sahil Lavingia built the first iteration of Gumroad over a single weekend in 2011. Sahil is a self-taught

developer Developer may refer to: Computers *Software developer, a person or organization who develop programs/applications *Video game developer, a person or business involved in video game development, the process of designing and creating games *Web deve ...

who has said in an interview that he learned coding by searching through each problem he hit on

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. Lavingia, who was previously the first designer hired at

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...

and the designer of

Turntable.fm Turntable.fm is a social media website that allows users to collaboratively stream music. The website was co-founded by Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein in January 2011 after deciding their previous product, Stickybits, was not a viable business ...

, was 19 years old at the time.Holmes, David
"Who’s Next: Pinterest Designer Sahil Lavingia and His New E-Commerce Site Gumroad"
, ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

'', April 25, 2012.Tsotsis, Alexia
"Gumroad Gets $1.1 Million From Chris Sacca, Max Levchin and Others to Turn Any Link Into a Payment System"
, ''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

'', February 8, 2012. The idea for Gumroad came to Lavingia when he wanted to sell a photorealistic icon he had created and realized that the amount of effort it took to sell an item directly to

consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...

s was considerable. He decided to build a service that would make the process as easy as sharing

web content Web content is the wikt:text, text, visual system, visual or audio signal, audio Content (media), content that is made available online and user encountered as part of the online usage and user experience, experience on websites. It may include t ...

. In February 2012, while still the sole member of Gumroad, Lavingia announced a $1.1 million seed round from a notable group of

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some specie ...

s including Accel,

Chris Sacca Christopher Sacca (born May 12, 1975) is an American venture investor, company advisor, entrepreneur, and lawyer. He is the proprietor of Lowercase Capital, a venture capital fund in the United States that has invested in seed and early-stage te ...

Max Levchin Maksymilian Rafailovych "Max" Levchin ( uk, Максиміліан Рафаїлович Левчин; born July 11, 1975) is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and businessman. In 1998, he co-founded the company that eventually became PayP ...

SV Angel Ronald Crawford Conway (born March 9, 1951) is an American venture capitalist and philanthropist. He has been described as one of Silicon Valley's "super angels". Early career Conway graduated from San Jose State University with a bachelor's de ...

Josh Kopelman Joshua Kopelman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist. Kopelman is best known as a founder of First Round Capital, a pioneering seed-stage venture fund that led the seed round in Uber. Josh has consistently been ran ...

Seth Goldstein Seth Goldstein (born 1970) is an American entrepreneur and angel investor. He has founded or co-founded six companies, including Crossfader, Turntable.fm, SiteSpecific, SocialMedia, and Majestic Research. Early life and education Goldstein was b ...

Naval Ravikant Naval Ravikant is an Indian-American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in over 200 companies including Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Wish.com, Poshmark, Postmates, Thu ...

and

Danny Rimer Danny Rimer OBE (born 1970) is a partner at Index Ventures, a global venture capital firm founded in Geneva in 1992. Rimer opened the firm's London office in 2002 and its San Francisco office in 2012. He has become a leading voice on venture capi ...

. Three months later, it was announced that

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...

(KPCB) had led a $7 million Series A round for Gumroad. The investment was the first made by former

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

engineering head Michael Abbott as a KPCB partner. On September 8, 2014, Twitter announced its first commerce product, the ''Buy Now'' button, in partnership with Gumroad, the ''Buy Now'' and Gumroad partnership was discontinued on January 7, 2017. On September 30, 2014, Gumroad released its first mobile product, a utility iPhone app that acts as a mobile library for content purchased via Gumroad.

Creators on Gumroad

Many major and independent musicians have sold products via Gumroad, including

Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem (; often stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is critically acclai ...

Bon Jovi Bon Jovi is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 1983 in Sayreville, New Jersey. It consists of singer Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, guitarist Phil X, and bassist Hugh McDonald (American musician), Hugh McD ...

Garth Brooks Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American country music singer and songwriter. His integration of pop and rock elements into the country genre has earned him popularity, particularly in the United States with success on the co ...

David Banner Lavell William Crump (born April 11, 1974), better known by his stage name David Banner, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Banner's family moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where he was raised. Ban ...

Ryan Leslie Anthony Ryan Leslie (born September 25, 1978) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and entrepreneur from Washington, D.C. He has produced singles for a number of prominent artists in a variety of genres, ranging from R&B, hip hop ...

and others.

Magnolia Pictures Magnolia Pictures is an American film distributor. It is a subsidiary of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment. Magnolia was formed in 2001 by Bill Banowsky and Eamonn Bowles, and specializes in both foreign and independent films. Mag ...

distributes a curated selection of films via Gumroad.

Landmark Theatres Landmark Theatres is a movie theatre chain in the United States. It was formerly dedicated to exhibiting and marketing independent film, independent and foreign film, foreign films. Since its founding in 1974, Landmark has grown to 35 Indepe ...

also curates a selection of films distributed via Gumroad, including ''

Jiro Dreams of Sushi ''Jiro Dreams of Sushi'' is a 2011 Japanese-language American documentary film directed by David Gelb. The film follows , an 85-year-old sushi master and owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, previously a Michelin three-star restaurant. Sukiyabashi Jiro ...

'', ''

Man on Wire ''Man on Wire'' is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's 2002 book, ''To Reach the Clouds'', r ...

'', ''

Gonzo Gonzo may refer to: People * Gonzo (nickname), a list of people with the nickname * Radislav Jovanov Gonzo (born 1964), Croatian music video director Radislav Jovanov, also known as Gonzo * Matthias Röhr (born 1962), German musician whose stage ...

'', '' Page One: Inside the New York Times'', and ''

Jesus Camp ''Jesus Camp'' is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a charismatic Christian summer camp, where children spend their summers being taught that they have "prophetic gifts" and can "take back America for ...

''. Best-selling

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

s like

Tim Ferriss Timothy Ferriss (born July 20, 1977) is an American entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru. He became well-known through his ''4-Hour'' self-help book series—including ''The 4-Hour Work Week'', ''The 4-Hour Body'', and '' ...

, Chris Guillebeau, and

John Green John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author, YouTube Content creation, content creator, podcaster, and philanthropist. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including ''The Fault in Our Stars'' ( ...

also publish their books on Gumroad.

Controversies

NFTs

On February 5, 2022,

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

Box Brown Brian "Box" Brown (born Brian Brown in 1980) is an American cartoonist whose first work was the online comic ''Bellen!''. He was awarded in 2011 a Xeric Grant for the comic ''Love is a Peculiar Type of Thing''. In 2011, Brown started a Kickstar ...

replied to a now-deleted tweet from CEO Sahil Lavingia about a project that uses

non-fungible tokens A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the b ...

. Brown was concerned if such plans were true. Gumroad announced via Twitter that it did not currently have plans to implement NFTs on the platform. In response to the controversy related to NFTs, Gumroad's competitors such as

Itch.io Itch.io (stylized as itch.io) is a website for users to host, sell and download indie games. Launched in March 2013 by Leaf Corcoran, the service hosts over 500,000 games and items (assets, ebooks, music) . Itch.io also allows users to host ...

and Ko-Fi, confirmed that they do not have plans to use NFTs.

References

External links