Welcome back!

In this week’s newsletter you will learn:

How Arvid Kahl went from a successful founder to a successful creator.
This week’s new features.
How to optimize your efforts within the creator economy
Why it’s important to invest in yourself

Let’s dive in.

How Arvid Kahl Went From a Successful Founder to a Successful Creator

In 2017, Arvid Kahl founded and ran his bootstrapped company, FeedbackPanda, with his partner Danielle Simpson.

And just two years later, they were acquired. For the first time in a long time, Arvid went from working full time to doing nothing full-time.

He says, “For somebody who’s been working for decades, that’s surprisingly tough to accept.” So, he went off the grid to discover his next calling.

He found it.

Arvid’s new calling was to empower the online hacker community.

He turned to content marketing to connect with the hacker and bootstrapping community.

Here’s the problem Arvid saw: There wasn’t quality content on building a self-funded business as he did.

To change that, he started blogging.

Arvid dove through all his notes from Bootstrapping his company and started sharing them online.

Before he knew it, he had ten blog posts.

Then twenty.

Next, he had an immense library for hackers and bootstrappers to dig through.

This immense library was quickly structured and created as a guide for the hacker community.

And then it all clicked when someone replied to his post saying, “If I could print this as a PDF, I’d give you $10.”

And to monetize, he first built an audience.

Arvid chose Twitter as his main social platform.

Why?

He knew the hacker and bootstrapped community lived on the platform.

And so it began.

Arvid turned his blog posts into a newsletter.

His newsletter into a podcast.

And everything re-distributed back into Twitter.

He did this for an entire year. Creating value without any expectation.

And after all that time, his audience was ready to give back.

Arvid was ready to release his first book: Zero to Sold.

So, what happened when Arvid launched his first book on Gumroad?

Funny enough, Arvid thought he’d only sell 20 copies the first day.

He sold 350 copies.

And since, it’s been a smashing success on Gumroad.

So much, that just last week he launched his second book on Gumroad: The Embedded Entrepreneur.

The response has been amazing.

Read his full story here.

Here’s What We Shipped For Gumroad Creators

Creators, you can now accept Apple and Google Pay (and you have to do nothing to enable it.)

You can now search customers by their PayPal email address.

What’s happening in the Creator Economy?

Create a high converting Gumroad sales page.
Tell us which creators you want to hear on our new podcast (coming soon!)
Here’s how to increase your odds of succeeding.
4 affiliate marketing tips that made Gumroad creator The Giver nearly $30,000 in sales.
How to build automated workflows for your Gumroad audience.
Want to work at Gumroad? Here’s what the average employee makes.
A step-by-step guide to launching your Gumroad membership.
Here’s every feature we launched in May.

Ever wondered if you could use Gumroad to sell physical products?

Creative Impact Co used Gumroad to launch limited edition prints of their Creative Impact magazine.

Here’s how they did it.

Invest in yourself. Invest in your future.

There is no doubt that being a creator is hard.

At the same time, it’s incredibly self-fulfilling and rewarding.

But, to continue to grow as a creator, you must invest in yourself.

Here are 3 quick tips to help you invest in your growth:

Always try. Don’t wonder.
If you can’t define your goals, you can’t define success.
Make finishing a task a habit

Enjoy your Sunday.

Every creator needs a break.

See you next Sunday,

The Gumroad Team

UPDATED: OSS Hackathon extended to Sept 15 + $100k grand prize! 🚀

🚀 Gumroad April Recap: What We've Shipped

LifeMathMoney: How I launched my product and grew a following

Small Bets is joining Gumroad 🎉

Creator Spotlight: Kyle T Webster | How selling brushes on Gumroad led to partnerships with Pixar, Disney, and eventually Adobe

See all posts from Gumroad