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Back to #11 — Sahil Lavingia — Solo Journey, with Sahil Lavingia.

Who Is Sahil Lavingia

Sahil Lavingia is the CEO and founder of Gumroad, a platform to help creators create more through simple ecommerce tools. He is also a designer, writer and painter.

Sahil has gone many ups and downs in his startup career, from raising millions of dollars in venture capital and getting on the Forbes 30 under 30, at the time when every investor wanted a piece of his company, to laying off his entire company but himself, and battling with depression.

Today Gumroad is profitable and is on path to grow faster than ever, but Sahil no longer lives in San Francisco and works out of a shiny startup office. He’s moved to Provo, Utah, and among other things is always happy to share his newly found view on startups and life.

Transcript

#11 — Sahil Lavingia — Solo Journey ·

Below the Line with James Beshara

More from this episode

  1. What Is Living in Provo, Utah LikeProvo is the most conservative and the most religious city in america with over 100k citizens. Crazy mix given it's also a college town.
  2. Why Did Sahil Lavingia Move to Provo UtahWhen his company, Gumroad, was flatlining, he wanted to work on something he could control and writing fiction was one of them.
  3. What's Wrong With San FranciscoIt's a homogenous bubble where every thought you have is reinforced in the same way and you have very little chance to get any non-conforming opinion.
  4. Was It Hard to Be an Outsider in UtahIt turns out that every homogenous society operates on its own set of principles and outsiders are judged on a set of values common to that community.
  5. Are Religious People Terribly MisguidedReligion gives people a framework to live and to enjoy life in the same way as tech obsession fuels the lives of tech workers in San Francisco.
  6. What Is the Best Way to Create MoreShorten the feedback loop between ideation and a final product.
  7. What Is the Best Way to Be Good at SomethingInstead of competing with people at an existing game, create your own game and define the rules, then you can be the best at it by the virtue of being the…
  8. Why Does San Francisco Chase Scale While Utah Stays Local?Both communities believe that creating something is the best way to put energy into the world, but in Sahil's experience while San Francisco crowd aims to…
  9. Do You Find Provo to Be a More Creative Place Than San FranciscoThe competitive nature of San Francisco can push you to create a lot in a short period of time, meanwhile in Utah, while a much less competitive environment…
  10. Why Did Sahil Lavingia Start Attending the Mormon ChurchSahil grew up in Singapore, in a Muslim household, but considers himself agnostic.
  11. Why Go to Church Even Though You Do Not Believe in the FaithAccording to Sahil, Church is an excellent opportunity to meet new people from outside of your circle of friends and interests.
  12. Why Did Sahil Lavingia Write His Failure Essay?It was important for Sahil to understand why he had a goal of building a billion dollar company to begin with, what lead to his failure, and how he's been…
  13. How Did Sahil Lavingia Start GumroadSahil started with the idea for Gumroad while still working at Pinterest back in 2011.

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