The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia

Recently I listened to old episode of Indie Hackers podcast, episode #237, where Sahil Lavingia talks about his book. Liked the episode. Bought his book, The Minimalist Entrepreneur, on Kindle immediately.

He tells his experience with his company, Gumroad. He presents a playbook for an aspiring entrepreneurs. By the way, Gumroad sounded so foreign and made up to me, but now I'm used to it.

I got a bit bored in the beginning when he appeared to be repeating the obvious over and over again, i.e. have customers and be profitable, etc. Almost pledged myself not to buy another self-help book.

Soon enough, I got over the boredom as advice over advice I can relate to followed. Many parts of the book were not that relatable to me though as an aspiring indie hacker. Because he talks about next steps from previous. But I have no customers. Yet.

There are many great quotes in the book. I don't particularly remember anything specific right now. I would like to go back and check out highlighted pieces one day.

This book in a nutshell is:

Start.

Work for customers.

Be profitable.

Stay sustainable.

Enjoy your success.

Start. Really. Now.

Sahil is definitely a talented guy. The fact that he started his tech career as a designer first, then became employee #2 in Pinterest was somehow surprising to me.

He's talented in many fields: He can design/draw, code, run a successful company, is a Twitter influencer/quote maker, and an author.

He's writing is creative and decent, not as succinct as other full-time novelists though. It's definitely an easy read.

Writing this book is beneficial for him and Gumroad. It's like Indie Hackers used to say that their interests are aligned with Stripe in that the more people become entrepreneurs the more likely they use payment processing services, probably Stripe.

That's exactly the same for Gumroad. Incentives are pretty aligned if he could turn poor souls into the minimalist entreprenurs.

To be honest, I'm not very keen to read his next book, if it ever comes out. But I'm interested in his journey as a creator who works for creators.