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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

sahillavingia.com

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Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#21

Post by dkdk8283 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #12
Pulcinella wrote: post #8

TL;DR The founder of Gumroad fired all his employees and replaced some with and rehired some on contract. Gumroad does not provide benefits like healthcare. Your hourly rate gets cut cut in half after you work more than 20 hours a week. The article is a nice way of saying that the founder largely just collects rent while putting minimal resources into the business.

Yeah, hard pass. If I'm gonna be a 1099 contractor my rate will need to be very high (roughly $500/hr). Otherwise I'm sticking with my FTE job. And I'd need to be able to pick up more than the 20 hours per week than this guy will give me too, so I'd need multiple clients.

20 hrs a week @ 500 is 520k/y. you only need one client.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#22

Post by dkdk8283 »

philipkiely wrote: post #15

I work at Gumroad, mentioned in this article. Sometimes, I read things by CEOs about how a company works on the inside and I wonder if it really looks like that, or if it is a view from the top that doesn't reflect what it's really like. This article, with its discussions of the upsides and downsides, is accurate to my experience and my understanding of other people's experiences. For many people, Gumroad wouldn't be…

I’d love something like this: I loathe the bullshit factory process has become.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#23

Post by conqrr »

Pulcinella wrote: post #8

TL;DR The founder of Gumroad fired all his employees and replaced some with and rehired some on contract. Gumroad does not provide benefits like healthcare. Your hourly rate gets cut cut in half after you work more than 20 hours a week. The article is a nice way of saying that the founder largely just collects rent while putting minimal resources into the business.

This is right. They sell the whole picture of freedom really well. Contractors have existed for long, nothing new. The product is in a unique position to not need a lot of Full time employees and like he said, its accidental. I do like it though (and had underestimated) that there are lots of people who are ready to consider working like this in tech.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#24

Post by philipkiely »

staunch wrote: post #13

I'm genuinely curious what Gumroad Creators are selling. Is it 95% porn revenue, with a veneer of ebooks and videos? Or is there actually a sizable market for other digital goods?

Not porn, mostly, see https://gumroad.com/company

Here is a small sample of things of interest to an HN audience that you can buy with Gumroad:

https://gumroad.com/fullstack

https://gumroad.com/adamwathan

https://gumroad.com/traf

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#25

Post by martincmartin »

an open source project like Rails. Except it’s neither open source, nor unpaid.

Do people still think of big, successful open source projects as unpaid? Rails, for example, was created at Basecamp/37Signals. Most Linux contributions come from companies like IBM. Or am I the one who's out of touch?

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#26

Post by hycaria »

thesausageking wrote: post #19

Let me understand this. Gumroad raises $8m from VCs, isn't able to grow fast enough, so the VCs agree to give up any claim on the company. Sahil fires all of the employees, hires a cheap contracting firm and some of the employees back as part-time contractors. The company now does $11m in revenue, most of which is profit and Sahil keeps. That's amazing. For Sahil. Not so great if you were one of his investors or form…

I think it’s $11M for the creators that’s going through gumroad. It’s not profit.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#27

Post by meowster »

dboreham wrote: post #10
tosh wrote: post #2

anti-overtime, interesting! > We also have an “anti-overtime” rate: past twenty hours a week, people can continue to work at an hourly rate of 50 percent. This allows us to have a high hourly rate for the highest leverage work and also allows people to work more per week if they wish.

Quick note from my HR friends: beware that there may be local labor laws that conflict with this scheme.

In the US, it makes sense for the company to be required to pay a higher overtime rate if they're requiring the employee to work more than 40 hours. If the company is saying they don't want you to work more than 40 hours, then it seems like the law is going against the spirit of its intentions.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#28

Post by DVassallo »

draw_down wrote: post #3

This is maybe the only “how we work” I’ve ever read that is actually appealing. It really does sound wonderful. My only question is around health insurance for the US based folks (I’m guessing the answer is “take the money we pay you and go buy some” which is unfortunately not a good solution) but otherwise yes, sounds ideal.

I work quarter-time at Gumroad, and I pay for my own health insurance ($950/mo for a family of 4). If Gumroad offered it, I would almost certainly still keep my own (unless it was at >50% discount). I prefer not having my health insurance tied to one source of income.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#29

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

staunch wrote: post #13

I'm genuinely curious what Gumroad Creators are selling. Is it 95% porn revenue, with a veneer of ebooks and videos? Or is there actually a sizable market for other digital goods?

I've seen some 3d printed items being sold (the blueprints)
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