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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

#51

Post by biztos »

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.

Based on the article it doesn’t sound like you couldn’t make that much, as long as you convinced the boss it was a good investment, and then made sure it was.

And on 1099 you can have as many clients as you want.

I can understand why someone would pass, but within its own context it doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me, particularly for people who for whatever reason don’t need to bill that high.

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

#52

Post by Pulcinella »

NationalPark wrote: post #45
caymanjim wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure the anti-overtime provision is completely illegal at least in countries like the US This is incorrect. The tldr is that US employees are either "exempt" or "non-exempt". Without getting into pedantic details, employees can be categorized as exempt if they make over about $23k/year. Exempt employees are not entitled to overtime at all, and the Fair Labor Standards Act doesn't prohibit reducing someon…

They're contractors not employees, but you are correct. There's nothing illegal about the arrangement.

The wording of the article seemed unclear to me. You can have employees who are on contract. E.g. most public school teachers in America are on contract and full time employees of the school district. Most employment in the US is at-will and not on contract, though.

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

#54

Post by drchopchop »

DVassallo wrote: post #28
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.

How on earth did you find standalone family coverage for $950/mo? What's your deductible / co-insurance?

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

#56

Post by lrossi »

> While Gumroad was no longer on track to become a billion-dollar company, I acquired a new asset: time.

That’s okay, becoming a billion dollar company doesn’t have to be your goal.

Staying smaller might be good not just for your work-life balance, but also for the user experience. Some prefer the stability it brings: you don’t have to worry that features or projects get canceled because they are not growing fast enough; that the app gets sold to some social network that starts spying on users or an AI is blocking accounts inexplicably etc.

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

#57

Post by biztos »

dkroy wrote: post #35
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?

Such an odd way to ask this question from my perspective. Though this could be because I am missing something. Is this product popular in that industry? Is there a reason you lead with porn?

I was wondering the same thing, because just yesterday I encountered a mention of Gumroad together with OnlyFans in a blog by a creator. Had that not happened I too would have found the parent comment odd.

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

#58

Post by tartoran »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #43
ska wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Process is one of those things you have whether you think about it or not. It's up to you collectively to decide if it is BS or not, too heavy, too light, etc. I'm not suggesting everyone has the influence to change process much at the place they work, but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading. It is true that process tends to nat…

> but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading. Is that what I said? No. I got into computers because I dislike people: leave me alone and let me work.

I personally don't dislike people but prefer small teams where we almost get to read each other's mind. There's no magic formula for that, it's just compatibility and it usually forms organically. But I also like to get some 'let me think alone' time without which my performance starts slipping..

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

#59

Post by riversflow »

tinyhouse wrote: post #46

I must say that's impressive. I've been thinking about this for some time. I'm wondering if this new wave of companies would be a problem for the economy. Running a company is getting easier every year. That's good, more companies means more job opportunities. On the other hand, as we can see from the article, you can run a very lean remote company and still grow and be successful. Such companies would hire less and…

It’s only a positive trend if society captures the wealth and spreads it back. I don’t think wealth inequality is a positive trend at all.
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