Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures • Hacker News Board

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#51

Post by ar90210 » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 11:22 AM UTC

porsupah wrote: post #22

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in SF, where the median rent is now $4,225/month, or $50,700/year. Realistically, you can't even expect to take home $50,700 on a gross income of $75k. http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2015/06/02/san-franciscos-...

Is it actually that bad? SF rents are certainly not low, but if you check Craigslist/PadMapper, it would seem difficult to pay $4k, let alone that being the median.

Your post suggests you must be single, probably living either with your parents or with roommates. Perhaps 75k works if you are in the above two situations, but not otherwise. Consider that 75k, after taxes will be 50k. Assume you are saving zero for IRA/401k, you still have other costs -- healthcare premiums, car/bus/train fees, etc. Oh, and food. Doctor co-pays, dental co-pays.

Now if you are married with kids: 1. Hospital co-pays, premiums, co-insurance, $45 drug co-pays, everything comes to about $5k/yr if you are just moderately sick. 2. You cant live with roommates, you actually need your own home. Can you imagine raising a family with roommates? 3. You def need a car, possibly two.

Forget about saving up for a house, most will be $1m+

Some people will say -- "oh, you are married, now you have two incomes" -- sure, until you have kids. Then most of your second income goes to child-care, and in the early years, you will pay MORE for childcare than you earn!

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#52

Post by jerrell » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 2:13 PM UTC

mattjaynes wrote: post #7

Interesting. I've been a customer of theirs for ~2 years. It's been really great until a couple months ago. Then something seemed to change. Rather than just being a great payment provider, they seemed to change direction in order to become a "platform". In emailing with Sahil about my concerns about Gumroad's new direction, he said "We want Gumroad to be the core channel for everything. We started with sales, and ar…

I've been using SendOwl for a few years now to sell music education eBooks and albums directly through my website.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Here are a few things I like:

- It works 100% reliably, has never let me down

- The checkout process is easy and neat from the customer's perspective

- Supports PayPal and Stripe which is the ideal imho

- Integrates with all popular email providers so you can do product-specific followup sequences with bonus gifts, etc. after purchase

- Provides simple support for running an affiliate program

- Support it absolutely superb: personal, swift and effective

- They handled the EU VAT mess better than anyone else I saw

- Monthly fees are very reasonable, I think I pay just $20-30/month

- It's easy to issue refunds and/or re-issue download link emails if you need to, so customer support can be handled quickly for those things

- You can create product bundles to support multiple products or discounted versions of products. After trying e-junkie and Clickbank before SendOwl, I can't tell you how much easier this feature alone made my life!

- You can do upsells/cross-sells during (or after) checkout

- They've been continually improving and extending the features offered in substantial ways - but without making a total mess of things.

- The reporting/analytics is simple but effective.

- In integrates effortlessly with e-commerce in Google Analytics so your sales (including dollar amounts) just show up in GA automatically.

Okay, that turned out to be more than a few things. I love SendOwl.

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#53

Post by prostoalex » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #14

serpentor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$75,000 isn't market wages for a developer?

Not in SF, where the median rent is now $4,225/month, or $50,700/year. Realistically, you can't even expect to take home $50,700 on a gross income of $75k. http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2015/06/02/san-franciscos-...

Yeah, but divide that rent rate by 8 roommates ...

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#54

Post by prostoalex » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 6:57 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #19

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in SF, where the median rent is now $4,225/month, or $50,700/year. Realistically, you can't even expect to take home $50,700 on a gross income of $75k. http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2015/06/02/san-franciscos-...

I've been thinking about this lately. Why doesn't Google or Facebook just pack up one day and go to... say, Detroit? Buy a shitload of property there, and tell all their workers that in the course of the next 5 years they want to have presence in two places: this new place in Detroit, and the old place in the Valley. Whoever wants to stay in the valley can stay... and whoever wants to move to Detroit can come move to…

1) Facebook or Google already have offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin and other lower-priced locales.

2) The moving scenario works great for single people with no attachments, less so for married people with non-Facebook and non-Google spouses, even less so for such married people living in a school district they like.

3) Even with a single non-attached engineer, how many are company men dreaming about retiring from the same company they work for nowadays? How many are just using Facebook/Google as springboard for their "next step", be it a switch to another large company, fast-growing startup or doing your own startup?

4) If you're not independently wealthy, you want to hedge your bets. Being let go of an engineering job in the Valley is probably less onerous than being laid off from software engineering field in Detroit, as far as job searches, networking, and sacrifices one has to make.

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#55

Post by binarycrusader » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #43

binarycrusader wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because money alone isn't enough; you need good schools, roads, and other public services.

Which follow when you send in the money. Not because throwing more cash at something is a magic fix, but because people that are capable of earning more money won't accept less.

Yes, but for the typical sort of talent that Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. want to hire, you need those things first.

Also, while those companies could start a long-term investment in an area, it's not something that could be done in a year or two, and ultimately they could only influence the process.

You need relatively successful leadership in that community to start to ensure those things happen -- the money alone isn't enough.

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#56

Post by mikey_p » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #19

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in SF, where the median rent is now $4,225/month, or $50,700/year. Realistically, you can't even expect to take home $50,700 on a gross income of $75k. http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2015/06/02/san-franciscos-...

I've been thinking about this lately. Why doesn't Google or Facebook just pack up one day and go to... say, Detroit? Buy a shitload of property there, and tell all their workers that in the course of the next 5 years they want to have presence in two places: this new place in Detroit, and the old place in the Valley. Whoever wants to stay in the valley can stay... and whoever wants to move to Detroit can come move to…

Do you mean Portland? It's a short flight from SF, in the same timezone, and has a huge software culture.

But even Portlanders are now complaining about the tech industry taking over and driving up rent.

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#57

Post by jasonglaspey » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 9:05 PM UTC

SingAlong wrote: post #48

mattjaynes wrote: post #7

Interesting. I've been a customer of theirs for ~2 years. It's been really great until a couple months ago. Then something seemed to change. Rather than just being a great payment provider, they seemed to change direction in order to become a "platform". In emailing with Sahil about my concerns about Gumroad's new direction, he said "We want Gumroad to be the core channel for everything. We started with sales, and ar…

I was part of GumRoad's recent 10-day challenge called Small Product Lab. I had this feeling that they were getting very good at their business. I'm about to finish up work on my ebook. I was to go with GumRoad. As per my research, they were THE best in terms of design, seller pricing and payment experience for end-users. The next best would be PulleyApp.com by BigCartel. Costs $6/month. Nowhere near Gumroad's percen…

I would encourage you to look around before deciding on Pulley. While I haven't used them in a while, when I did I was really blown away by how little support, features, and service they provided. It felt very half-assed and very slow to grow. I emailed them once about something and they seemed annoyed that I'd have a feature request. I left immediately after that, and that's when I went to Gumroad. Been happy there since. However, should I launch something new, I'll definitely look at SendOwl

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#58

Post by baobaba » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 11:01 PM UTC

Georgio_1999 wrote: post #50

I run a company called SendOwl, which is probably the biggest competitor to Gumroad, and I must admit I'm sad to see this. We've been watching them over the years and have been impressed with some of the work they've delivered. I've also met a few of their employees and have liked their thinking around selling digital goods and where it's going. You could see they wanted to make a success of the company. Their proble…

I just read your blog post on the topic. We need more voices like yours.

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#59

Post by SingAlong » Sat, Nov 07, 2015, 2:13 AM UTC

jasonglaspey wrote: post #57

SingAlong wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was part of GumRoad's recent 10-day challenge called Small Product Lab. I had this feeling that they were getting very good at their business. I'm about to finish up work on my ebook. I was to go with GumRoad. As per my research, they were THE best in terms of design, seller pricing and payment experience for end-users. The next best would be PulleyApp.com by BigCartel. Costs $6/month. Nowhere near Gumroad's percen…

I would encourage you to look around before deciding on Pulley. While I haven't used them in a while, when I did I was really blown away by how little support, features, and service they provided. It felt very half-assed and very slow to grow. I emailed them once about something and they seemed annoyed that I'd have a feature request. I left immediately after that, and that's when I went to Gumroad. Been happy there…

Thanks for tipping me off about PulleyApp ~! Didn't know that they were that bad at support :(

I did checkout SendOwl after reading posts on this thread. They look like the best alternative if switching was required. Their video show a very slick & kickass experience for buyers (I tried the demo too).

B/w it looks like Gumroad is sticking around. Going by Sahil's tweets. They do understand very well that a lot of people love Gumroad a LOT and depend on it.

Re: Layoffs Hit Gumroad as the E-Commerce Startup Restructures

#60

Post by niketdesai » Sat, Nov 07, 2015, 6:43 AM UTC

SHL learns a ton from this, gets experience most executives don't have. Optimistic in his future either way.

To the GR team, your work is not marginalized by this speed bump. GR is really good and something people love.

I hope other people recognize that and snap up everyone into good places.