The Minimalist Entrepreneur

Sahil Lavingia

"Pay attention."-Jason Fried A revolutionary roadmap for building startups that go the distanceCracks are forming in the myth of the VC-funded, IPO-driven billion-dollar company. They're unprofitable, unethical, and unsustainable-so why bother chasing unicorns? The Minimalist Entrepreneur is the manifesto for a new generation of founders who would rather build great companies than big ones.Packed with hard-won, battle-tested lessons from Lavingia's own journey of building Gumroad, The Minimalist Entrepreneur teaches founders how to start from anywhere to build any kind of software-enabled business. You will learn how to:resist investments that set you up to failrun a tight ship amid the rise of the gig economy and remote workdevelop and release products without failing fast or oftenget to profitability and stay there.The Minimalist Entrepreneur offers essential knowledge for every founder aspiring to build a business worth building.

FACE OF A MOVEMENT: Lavingia's 2019 article about the personal experiences that led to this book made a huge splash in Silicon Valley; he articulated the growing discontent that many had with a VC-driven model of entrepreneurship that didn't leave room for great, profitable companies that didn't demonstrate hockey-stick growth. That article now has 115k claps on Medium and 11k likes on Twitter, and has been widely discussed among people like Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson of Basecamp, investors including Mark Cuban, Chris Sacca, and Naval Ravikant, and at venues including the Lean Conference and MicroConf.TIMELY: We are waking up to the fact that VC-funded and IPO-driven businesses aren't all they're cracked up to be. Every day, new headlines appear alleging business and ethical malpractice at companies like Uber, WeWork, Away, Glossier, and The Wing. Entrepreneurs are ready for a different roadmap.STAR ON THE RISE: Lavingia has garnered significant attention for the ideas in this book, including profiles in Wired and Fast Company. That attention has translated into ever-increasing followers and subscribers. He has 11k newsletter subscribers and it's growing quickly. Gumroad is also growing quickly (though sustainably), in large part because it was set up to weather the pandemic and is attracting new interest from creators looking for alternative sources of income.