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Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

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Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#31
post #18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brand and product simplicity, elegance of implementation. What is Dropbox's competitive advantage, or Instagram's?

Dropbox and Instagram both have much stronger network effects.

well, if Gumroad is first of its kind, or the biggest one, and will not turn out a rip-off, don't you think that people who recommend it would be a "network effect" ?

Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#32
We at Shoply.com share a vision with Gumroad about simplifying and democratizing ecommerce. We too started out as a pure widget play with the idea being sellers would leverage their existing networks to drive sales.

It turns out 'average joe' doesn't have twitter/facebook networks anywhere near sufficient size to generate decent level of sales. Just like they need help with tech aspects of selling online, so they need help with the marketing/sales and traffic elements.

We at Shoply dealt with this by aggregating products from all our sellers together into a centralised marketplace. Doing so allows us to help them by providing them an ongoing in-built sales channel too, alongside a quick and easy way to list products for sale and take payment

I expect Gumroad will experience a similar situation where sellers look to them to help boost distribution and ultimately sales.

Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#33
post #29

It's a great idea, and i was actually working on something similar before. I've said it before, but what scares me to death is when folks start selling copyrighted material. There is nothing to protect against it and the whole things pretty much revolves around good user behavior.

You can fix that with a "report this" link.

Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#34
I would love to know what their assumptions are, as well as their vision for the product. I hate being publicly critical of other peoples' startups, but from everything I've read I've really seen nothing that convinces me this is a good idea.

Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

> 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 engine…

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.

Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

> 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 engine…

I believe he is not affiliated with Gumroad, but just using their api.

Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

> 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 engine…

I don't think Gumshow.com is affiliated with Gumroad.com, it's just a site built on the public API.

Re: Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB

#40

I would love to know what their assumptions are, as well as their vision for the product. I hate being publicly critical of other peoples' startups, but from everything I've read I've really seen nothing that convinces me this is a good idea.

Not a good idea in what way? It's a terrible idea that people shouldn't use or it's an idea that should be used but won't take off?
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