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- Focus
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Gumroad
- 24/05/2012
Beyond the TipJar
Dave Dugdale, Creative commons (2010) ©Scope
Gumroad allows people to sell both digital and physical content that they have created. This might be anything from a song that they have recorded, a piece of code that they have written, a painting or a video game. In the highly competitive online retail market it stands out from much of the existing and firmly established competition.
Gumroad was founded by the 19-year-old entrepreneur Sahil Lavingia, who previously coded for Pinterest and Turntable.fm. Investment now totals $8.1m (including $7m from Kleiner Perkins, amongst others); no small achievement for a company which currently has only three employees. This is a clear indication that Gumroad has the potential to step up and play alongside the e-commerce big-hitters – or at least disrupt their business model. -
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