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Gumroad Stories: Kyle Webster

Joel Packer on April 24th, 2013

Today’s seller story comes from Kyle Webster, an artist who has done work for huge publications such as Time, The New Yorker, Wall St. Journal, and ESPN. Kyle is using Gumroad to sell Kyle’s ULTIMATE Photoshop Brush Pack 1, a pack of 26 custom brushes he’s created over the past two years.

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What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?

I am selling a set of custom Photoshop brushes. I have been creating brushes for my own illustration work since this feature was first introduced in Photoshop nearly a decade ago. When Photoshop CS5 was released, the power of the brush builder was greatly amplified and I decided to put together a set of ‘Ultimate’ brushes that emulate natural media. Other illustrators and designers consistently asked me about my brushes and the ‘natural’ look of my work. I started to see the real value in my brush set and decided it would be worth selling to the digital art community.

Why is Gumroad a good fit for the brush set?

The brush set is a small download (2.3 MBs) and it can instantly be installed by the user. Gumroad’s streamlined sales pages are perfect for such a product. My customers do not have to cut through any clutter - they immediately see the video that demonstrates the brushes, they see the price, and they click to buy. I can’t imagine a more perfect delivery system.

What were the biggest contributors to your success?

I have a substantial number of followers on Twitter and I am plugged into the illustration and design communities. Before launching the product, I did some pre-release marketing with teaser images, descriptions of some of the brushes, and a sort of countdown, if you will, before the big day. This got the sales engine revved up before the product was even available and it built up some anticipation that really helped things take off from day one. Having a consistent message about the product across Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr helped a lot, and a couple of popular blogs announced the release of the brush set on the first and second day, which led to great sales bumps. Word spreads so quickly over the internet when something of value becomes available - I think the timing was good for this kind of product. There are so many digital artists now and most of them are constantly looking for new and better tools.

What have been your favorite things about using the Gumroad platform?

First of all, the intuitive and easy user experience for the seller AND the buyer is second to none. I created a sales page in a matter of minutes. I was astonished at how easy the process was and when it was over, I had a moment of disbelief when my first sale rolled right in. I thought, ‘How can it be this simple to sell online?’ Second, the ability to update products and stay in touch with customers is amazing. And third, I love the Analytics page - there is just enough information there to help me figure out where to focus my marketing efforts and it’s addictive to watch the sales grow.

What could we do better?

I wish I had something to offer here. I really love Gumroad. The only complaint I have received (and it is a small one) came from customers who wished to pay via PayPal. Mind you, this request came from perhaps only 2% of the total number of customers.

To learn more about how to sell Photoshop Plugins on Gumroad, see our guide.

Gumroad Stories: Zac Gorman

Joel Packer on March 20th, 2013

Today’s seller story comes from cartoonist Zac Gorman. Zac is the author of Magical Game Time Volume 1, a 139 page collection of comics, sketches, and character drawings. Based in Detroit, Zac was one of the pioneers of the current explosion of comics on Gumroad.

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What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?

I’m selling a collection of comics inspired by classic video games and the formative experiences that we had playing them, called Magical Game Time. The comics were previously available online on my website magicalgametime.com.

The comic is my way to pay homage to these great games and also a way to examine the intimate, personal connection that we have with them. I started it because there was some sort of emotion I really wanted to capture in the interaction we have with games.

The decision to sell the PDF collection was inspired by the combination of a sudden financial setback, which made me look for a way to monetize the comic while still providing my audience with something they can enjoy, and the ease of posting the collection to Gumroad.

Why is Gumroad a good fit for the comic?

Gumroad was a great fit for me because it was easy. Not only the ease of posting the PDF but for my users as well. The pay-what-you-will option made it available to everybody who wanted to buy it, from regular fans of my site, to brand new ones who might just want to see what it’s all about.

What were the biggest contributors to your success?

Thankfully, I had an audience prior to posting the book who was kind enough to show an outpouring of support. After only twenty four hours or so, I’d already earned enough to alleviate my financial burden and I was able to get on my feet again and back making comics.

What could we do better?

If there was anything that I could change about Gumroad, it’d be a way for my audience to be able to pay using PayPal as opposed to just a credit card. I have a lot of younger fans and international fans who would’ve found a PayPal option easier.

For more information on how you can sell comics on Gumroad, please see our guide to selling comics

Gumroad Stories: Skillcrush

Sahil Lavingia on February 4th, 2013

Today’s seller story comes from Kate McGee and Adda Birnir of Skillcrush (@skillcrush). Skillcrush aims to be your first step into tech, with everything you need to get started.

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What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?

Skillcrush is selling two products on Gumroad: The Basics of Web Design PDF ($9) and our first class, Skillcrush 101: Create Your Own Website ($75). Our most popular product is Skillcrush 101. In this two-week class we teach users what HTML & CSS are, how to write them, and then how to use their newfound coding skills to build and launch their first ever website.

The course is taught via a mix of videos, online interactives, and fun challenges. We also host a Google group where students meet one another, ask questions of the instructors, and support each other as they journey together into code.

The class is super beginner friendly and is the most fun thing we have ever had the pleasure of being a part of.

Why is Gumroad a good fit for it?

Gumroad is awesome because it’s so user friendly from both sides - the purchasing flow and the management flow as a seller. We had literally been searching for an easy way to fulfill PDF orders for weeks when a friend recommended Gumroad. Five minutes later, we were selling on Gumroad.

After that experience, it was only natural that we use Gumroad to sell our classes.

We are a super lean startup, and believe in minimizing waste. To us, building our own system or adapting a clunky plugin or platform integration this early in the development of our website didn’t make sense.

Gumroad has made it incredibly easy, and thereby positive and financially reasonable, for us to get straight to important stuff: figuring out how to monetize and drive early revenue!

Did you hear any feedback from buyers on the Gumroad buying experience? Any cool stories from them?

The best part about selling through Gumroad is actually that we don’t hear about the buying experience.

Before we started using Gumroad we were constantly being pinged by unhappy users who weren’t able to finish the transaction or hadn’t received their purchase. Since switching to Gumroad, our customer support hardly has anything to do.

What are your favorite things about the Gumroad platform?

Our favorite thing about Gumroad is that it’s so incredibly easy to use! Yep! I said it! Our ecommerce platform is EASY TO USE. Not a small feat! And we know, we have tested many different options.

The analytics are great, adding new products is awesome, and we love that we can process the whole transaction without a user leaving our site.

What could we do better?

Keep helping us with marketing and user acquisition! Win-win.

Gumroad Stories: Two Scoops of Django

Sahil Lavingia on January 25th, 2013

Today’s seller story comes from Daniel Greenfeld and Audrey Roy, an engaged couple who wrote ‘Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices for Django 1.5.’ They had a very successful launch this past week, so we caught up with them to hear their story and the strategies that have worked well for them. 

What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?

We’re selling ‘Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices for Django 1.5.’

Django is the most popular web framework for Python, and is used at Instagram, Pinterest, Disqus, Rdio, Mozilla, NASA, and a lot more. The idea for the book is that while it’s easy to get started in Django (thanks to a great official tutorial), there is a ton of undocumented knowledge you need to have in order to be productive and successful on real projects. In theory you can find a lot of this information in blogs, IRC, and Q&A sites, but a lot of the information in those places is old and in some cases, dangerously out-of-date. For years we kept seeing developers coming into Django and stumbling again and again over the same issues, often over things we took for granted. I blogged about good practices and patterns, we advised people personally and via email, but really getting the word out was impossible.

One day a friend of ours, Randall Degges, published ‘The Heroku Hacker’s Guide’ on Gumroad. He managed to land amazing technical reviewers from Heroku and other sources. It was a runaway hit, and he’s helped thousands of people get things done better on Heroku since the book launched, and he advised us to try the same thing.

Near the end of last year we started on the book. We wrote down everything we knew and got the best technical reviewers we could find to vet our content and writing. We put in a ton of code examples, which is a surprising amount of work to test and deliver. Since we knew that the book would be poured over for hours, we carefully considered the design of the book as well. We chose easy-to-read fonts, followed standard book layout practices, and used tables to make things more clear.

The Ice Cream theme was chosen because it lends itself to fun analogies, examples, and illustrations.

After hundreds of hours of writing, reviewing, editing, and hair-pulling, we launched the ALPHA version of the book on January 17th, 2013. The response was amazingly positive, and we stayed at the top of Hacker News for days. We’ve gotten a ton of constructive feedback, and have been making corrections to the ALPHA release while also working on the BETA.

The BETA release will definitely include additional material and possibly additional formats. We hope to have it in early February. Don’t wait until then to purchase, as the price will be going up and all ALPHA buyers get access to the BETA and FINAL releases.

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Why is Gumroad a good fit for the book?

For customers buying the book, it’s a great experience. The credit form is easy and intuitive, the email receipt is well done, and it’s all as seamless as possible.

For us as sellers, Gumroad is easy to use, provides a good measure of analytics, and allows us to review individual sales and send customer receipts. We can update the book at any time and send out emails as part of the process. We also maintain full control and ownership of the book.

A wonderful, unadvertised feature has been the old-fashioned customer service provided by Gumroad. We’ve had a lot of sales traffic, and much of that internationally. Unfortunately, sometimes banks will stop a cross-border sale and the customer’s card is sometimes blocked. When that does happen, the Gumroad support staff has been magnificent at helping buyers work with their bank in order to purchase our book.

What were the biggest contributors to your success?

We used a number of tactics to build our success strategy. When the project started, we had no idea that the book would do well, and so it felt like madness. We began mentioning on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media that we were working on a mad, secret project. That got a lot of people’s attention. Once we started mentioning Ice Cream and Django people got really curious.

Our page design reflected the colors and theme of the book. For content, we made a point to include testimonials from influencers in the Python and Django community, the table of contents, and a picture of ourselves. We wanted people to realize that we weren’t a big publishing company, but two developers who wanted to share. In the future we’ll probably include a preview chapter, links to the growing set of reviews, and more.

What have been your favorite things about using the Gumroad platform?

The customer service. It’s great to get quick and timely responses.

What could we do better?

Features we would love to see:

1. A chart of sales across the world.

2. A more obvious preview feature.

3. Better explanation of how $12+ works.

4. A method to handle multiple sales.

Gumroad Stories: BÖIKZMÖIND

Sahil Lavingia on January 11th, 2013

Today’s seller story comes from Gavin Strange of BÖIKZMÖIND, a 30 minute documentary film about riding fixed gear bikes in beautiful Bristol. The film shows the diverse cross section of riders and focuses on why riders choose bikes with no gears in a city that’s so full of hills — something we can relate to in San Francisco.

What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?

I’m selling ‘BÖIKZMÖIND’, which is a documentary film about riding fixed gear bicycles and the simply joy that comes with it. The film was finished and premiered here in Bristol, UK back in August 2011 and has since gone on to have screenings all over the world! I produced a physical copy back in Easter 2012, it was a DVD & Photo book package all wrapped up together in a special sleeve, but the digital version was only just launch a few months ago.

The film itself was 3 years in the making, and started life as an idea for a short, just showing some of my friends and their bikes, as simple as that, but it quickly escalated into becoming much grander and then turned into a documentary (despite never making a documentary film before!). It was all very organic, I just wanted to make a film that would explain to anyone, regardless of whether they rode a bike or not, exactly why I ride fixed gear and what other riders love about it, as simple as that. I essentially wanted to make a film I could show to my Mum and she’d say “ahhh ok, NOW I understand why you ride those things”.

Why is Gumroad a good fit for it?

Gumroad was a perfect fit because I was fed-up of the ridiculous lengths you had to go to to get something on iTunes, it didn’t make sense that in this digital age of media freedom there are still these massive gatekeepers holding all the keys to enjoying content. I had made this film and I wanted to get it online in the simplest way for people to check it out.

Then I found Gumroad! The utter simplicity of uploading and selling was perfect for me, no messing around and you guys are the only ones who don’t introduce bandwidth caps and charges - it was a no brainer because again it was just super simple, and that’s what I love. I made a film about the simplest bicycle there is, I wanted to get it online in the simplest way possible, so Gumroad was perfect for that!

Did you hear any feedback from buyers on the Gumroad buying experience? Any cool stories from them?

Yeah I did, people are just impressed by the complete ease of the transaction. At the end of the day, I have a digital film that I need to get to people, so they come to the site and click a button and enter a few numbers and that’s it. Nothing else to do or worry about, people just seem stoked with that, perfect!

What are your favorite things about the Gumroad platform?

For me, the clean & clear design and the closeness of the relationship - from the start I’ve been talking to you guys and you helped me get everything online so quick and so easy, via Twitter and email you guys have helped me every step of the way, I love it.

What could we do better?

Nothing i would change, just stay awesome! :)

Gumroad Stories: CameraSim

Sahil Lavingia on November 1st, 2012

CameraSim is an amazing learning and teaching tool for Mac and Windows that explains visually how to use a DSLR camera. They originally launched using eJunkie + PayPal, but saw 69% increase in revenue after making the switch to Gumroad quickly after launch.

Using Gumroad’s ‘Pay What You Want’ pricing, they left the price of CameraSim up to their buyers — whatever they thought it was worth. They’ve made thousands of dollars since launching on Gumroad, and their average buyer has paid more than 7x the minimum price, with several buyers paying hundreds of dollars for the simulator.

We caught up with Jonathan Arnold, one of the founders of CameraSim, to chat a bit about the app and his experiences with Gumroad so far.

What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?

A couple years ago, I built an online DSLR camera simulator because I wanted a way to explain the fundamentals of shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings to some friends that were interested in photography.

I put it online and forgot about it, but it started quietly growing an audience and now draws several thousand visitors every day. A few months ago, my developer and I created an iPad and iPhone version, and most recently created a Windows and Mac version. It’s this Windows and Mac version of CameraSim that we are selling using Gumroad.

Why is Gumroad a good fit for it?

Our product is still very much in its infancy, so we don’t have the time or resources to build our own fancy payment system. But all of the quick-and-dirty payment solutions that we looked at (and used initially) were simply awful from a user experience standpoint. Gumroad has been an excellent fit for us because it was so easy to set up and customize, and the user experience of making a payment is the best I’ve seen.

Did you hear any feedback from buyers on the Gumroad buying experience? Any cool stories from them?

Not a peep, and that’s what I love about Gumroad. I design apps for a living, and I believe that some technology should be like the air-conditioner in the room – you’re only aware of it when it’s not working right. The rest of the time, you’re oblivious to it because it’s doing its job so well. That’s how I feel about Gumroad — people sail right through the simple payment process!

What are your favorite things about the Gumroad platform?

Because we’re still doing market research — including what price to charge — Gumroad’s “pay what you want” feature has been huge for us. It’s given us insight into what the market will pay for our product, which is invaluable data that I’m not sure how we would have gotten otherwise.

Another great thing about Gumroad is the ability to reskin the user interface with custom CSS. Gumroad looks fantastic right out of the box, but being able to visually tie the payment experience in with the pages from our product site is a really nice feature.

What could we do better?

The Gumroad support is amazing, so no complaints there. I do get an occasional request from someone wanting to use a PayPal account, so PayPal integration would be nice to have. I’d also love to have more robust analytics to help us test our payment pages and measure conversion rates.

Gumroad Stories: Nathan Barry

Sahil Lavingia on October 11th, 2012

Nathan Barry is a user experience designer in Boise, Idaho, and he recently released his App Design Handbook through Gumroad. He made more than $12,000 in his first day, and has made $23,000+ in the four weeks since it was released. We chatted with Nathan about the book, his launch strategy, and his experience with Gumroad so far. You can follow him on Twitter here.

What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?
The App Design Handbook is everything I know about designing great iOS applications compressed into 125 pages. Since the iPad came out I’ve been fascinated with designing for iOS and have quite a lot of success designing and selling my own applications. People kept asking for design tips and practical information, that I had to put it into a book. I didn’t want a book about design theory or something abstract, but instead straightforward concepts with real world examples to learn from. All things that will help you craft an app that your users will love.
 
Why is Gumroad a good fit for the App Design Handbook?
I spend so much time talking in the book about how important it is to design a great user experience. Then when I went to find a payment processor all the checkout experiences were terrible, at least that is until I tried Gumroad. The checkout experience is focused and easy. The attention to detail is fantastic. It would be hypocritical of me to write a book about designing great experiences and then sell it through PayPal when I have Gumroad as an option.
 
You did something pretty unique with the different tiered bundles, can you explain that strategy a bit? Was it successful?
Yes, I had three different price points. $39, $79, and $169. The base package includes just the book, the next package has a bunch of resources and video tutorials, and the final package also includes code samples and even more resources. The idea was to have something for everyone. Different people are comfortable spending different amounts for training, so the packages let them pick the one that is right for them. If you want videos and code samples then that is available to you, or if you just want the book you can save quite a bit of money.

Was it successful? Yes, very. I made almost as much money from the complete package as I did from the other two combined. Despite selling less than 1/3 the number of copies. Offering multiple packages is the best decision I made throughout this process. It has, without a doubt, made me an extra $10,000.
 
Did you hear any feedback from buyers on the Gumroad buying experience? Any cool stories from them?
They loved it. Many asked who I used for checkout and how could I get away with not having a dozen fields for the payment information (address, name, etc). Selling with Gumroad was so easy that it immediately made me want to sell more products.
 
What are your favorite things about the Gumroad platform?
The focus on a great user experience. Even though the platform is new, so many details are just right. That and the support is really good. It’s rare that I wait longer than 20-30 minutes for a response to an email. You guys were awesome with answering questions as I got the product setup, and fixing issues along the way.

It is inevitable, when using any software, that something will go wrong. So what matters is how the team handles it when that happens. Gumroad support is very responsive and helpful with useful information. Not canned responses.
 
What could we do better?
There were a few issues that came up in the process. The two biggest had to do with emails being delivered and the receipts not being detailed enough. So I had to resend a dozen or so purchase emails, but conveniently that is really easy from the seller interface. The purchase receipts took some more time. Many purchasers, especially in the EU, needed detailed receipts for tax records. I made those on my own computer and sent them out manually. It would be nice to have the Gumroad receipt look more official so that it would work for taxes and company reimbursement.

Since I am using the Gumroad modal the browser doesn’t display HTTPS in the address bar, making people assume it is not secure. Not knowing the iFrame the payment modal is loaded into does use HTTPS. I brought this up to the Gumroad team and they had a fix within a day. Note that this wasn’t an actual security problem (everything always has been secure), just an issue with what users perceived.

I love seeing the rapid improvements to the platform. Thanks for everything!

How Fetchnotes Used Gumroad to Raise 9 Months of Server Costs

Sahil Lavingia on August 3rd, 2012

While preparing for the release of our new web app UI a couple weeks ago, Fetchnotes decided to give people an option to help fund our efforts — hey, we’ve got servers to pay for and engineers to feed. But “please give us money” felt cheap, undignified and so 2011. 

We asked ourselves, “What could we give to our users that they would pay for?” Tshirts? That costs up-front money. Our bodies? Illegal (we checked). After an additional seven seconds of brainstorming, we settled on our dignity: we decided to make a video of us singing karaoke. To which Chase responded, “Let’s go viral TODAY.” 

One problem — we didn’t have any infrastructure in place to accept payments. We didn’t have time to set up a Paypal button, and all the other solutions I spent 30 seconds googling for didn’t allow us to let users set their price. Then I remembered that I had been occasionally bothering a 19-year-old named Sahil about his blog posts for the past 4-5 months, and that he was working on a payments site called Gumroad.

Perfect! I get to support a fellow entrepreneur and solve a personal problem. We set up an account, put up the page, and set the “content” that Gumroad gives to buyers to a Google Form that allowed users to vote on a list of 10 songs we would sing. It took all of five minutes. As you can probably gather by now, I go for the path of least resistance. After all, Fetchnotes is all about simplicity in note-taking — you should check out if you want to make your life easier, just sayin’.

At around 3AM, we emailed our user base (~15,000 at the time) about the update and Gumroad page. On the walk home from the office an email came through that said, “You sold something on Gumroad!” The donation was for $5, so the time to set up the page was already well worth it. The next day, I woke up to enough to fund our servers for 4 months.  

Now we’re up to 9 months and still picking up a few here and there (we’re singing this weekend). All I can say is thanks to Gumroad for being the easiest way to make this happen!

Want to watch us sing karaoke too? Donate here!

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Alex Schiff is the co-founder and CEO of Fetchnotes, the note-taking app that fits your busy lifestyle.

Gumroad Stories: Last Call at the Oasis

Sahil Lavingia on July 6th, 2012

Last Call at the Oasis is a feature film that sheds light on how we use the world’s water in a non-sustainable way, and how we need to change the way we think about and use water. The soundtrack to the film is comprised of 20 songs donated by 20 bands, including Les Claypool, Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds, and My Morning Jacket. In order to raise funds for the cause, they let people pay what they want for the album, with all the proceeds going to charity.

Since they went live on Gumroad, they’ve raised thousands of dollars to support water conservation. Though the soundtrack was priced at $1+, more than 71% of buyers paid more than the minimum price, and the average price paid was 500%+ higher than the minimum price. These numbers got us excited, so we reached out to Jesse Patrone-Werdiger from ATO Pictures, who spearheaded these fundraising efforts, to hear more about the soundtrack and their experience with Gumroad

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1. What are you selling? What’s the story behind it?
We are selling our charity album Turn the Tide: Songs for Last Call at the Oasis.  It features 20 songs donated by 20 bands and was created to help spread the message of our documentary Last Call At The Oasis. The film’s message resonates strongly with most audiences, so the key was simply reaching people - we knew that once they heard the message they’d be won over.  

Music seemed like a natural choice for a vehicle; we have two sister music companies, ATO Records and Redlight Management, and musicians have a strong history of rallying to the side of charitable and eco-friendly causes.  We came up with the idea of spreading the film’s message through a “tribute” album, and passing any proceeds from it to not-for-profit groups that support water causes.

Getting bands on board was surprisingly easy once they heard about the film’s subject matter.  It was great hearing the personal ties that many of the artists have to water - Les Claypool of Primus is an avid fly fisherman, and Dave Matthews has a strong history of working with similar organizations. We have some obvious water-related tracks: “Oceans” by John Butler Trio, “Last Salmon Man” by Primus, “Unclean Waters” by Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Amos Lee gave us a really stunning unreleased live recording of his song “Black River.”

2. Why is Gumroad a good fit for the soundtrack?
As with many efforts that benefit non-profits, we had a severe limit on costs for the album.  All the music was donated for free, and there was no marketing budget – outreach was done exclusively through social media.  Gumroad fit perfectly with this model because there was no upfront fee, it was easy to share, and Gumroad only collected if the album received donations.

3. What are your favorite things about the Gumroad platform?
We love how simple and clean the interface is. We built a preview widget into the film’s website so people could listen to the tracks, followed by a link to Gumroad for download and donation.  Easy peasy.

4. What could we do better?
We didn’t know about the $0+ pricing option until now, and we always really wanted a no-minimum donation option. In the end, we’re actually happy with having the dollar minimum and don’t plan on changing it.

Gumroad Stories: CSSHat

Sahil Lavingia on June 15th, 2012

CSSHat is a photoshop plugin from the team at abdoc that turns Photoshop Layers into CSS3 with one click. After launching on Gumroad last week, they’ve seen tens of thousands of dollars worth of sales, of which over $9,000 came in before the end of the first full day of sales. We chatted with their CEO, Lukas Hurych, about their experience with Gumroad and CSSHat sales so far.

1. So tell us a little about CSSHat. What’s the story behind it?

The best way to answer this question is probably with feedback we’ve heard from our buyers. Here’s a few of our favorites:

“What you are doing is revolutionizing the work flow of web designers worldwide.”

“CSSHat is fantastic! Love it, it’s better than anything I’ve used before!”

“Hey you web designers out there. BUY THIS! #amazing”

CSSHat (a 24-hour hack at Startup Weekend in Prague) turns Photoshop layer styles into CSS3 with a single click. It’s a simple but sophisticated Photoshop plug-in that allows coders, designers, or web developers to click on a layer in Photoshop and get CSS3 code of all its layer effects.

2. Why is Gumroad a good fit for the CSSHat?

We always thought that buying things online should be simple as a snap – and that’s what Gumroad  really does well! It shouldn’t take our customers $20 of their time to purchase a $20 piece of software, and thanks to Gumroad, we don’t see our fans leaving the shopping funnel.We were also considering Mac App Store, but we felt that as a plug-in for a third party app, we wouldn’t fit into the theme there – Gumroad was the indie solution!

3. Did you hear any feedback from buyers on the Gumroad buying experience? Any cool stories from them?

Yes. Our customers loved the simplicity of Gumroad as much as we did. Here’s one of the many emails we received:“All-in-all the experience of purchasing your product was quite pleasant! Lightweight form, really rich subtle cues about what CC type was being used based on first 4 numbers of the card and how many CCV characters (and where on the card!) based on the card type were a really nice touch.”

4. What are your favorite things about the Gumroad platform?

Three S’s: Simplicity, Support, and Sahil. Being able to ask for a feature and getting email saying it is live the next morning – this wouldn’t happen in a year with the established payment providers!

5. Were you surprised at the level of sales on the first day? Were you expecting it? How did the first 24 hours feel for the team and you?

We sent off our special pre-sale newsletter to our e-mail subscribers (who got access a day before everyone else), and in 15 minutes, our sale-buzzer was ringing almost non-stop! We never expected so many sales this early – the team was super motivated and we responded to our first users’ emails long past midnight.

6. Did you see any difference between engagement from Twitter vs. Facebook?

Almost all engagement is coming from Twitter. On Facebook, the only real engagement we saw was from a group of people that knew us personally.

7. What could we do better?

We’d love to be able to send a simple invoice, where I can fill in some info that our customers need (such as VAT, business name, etc.), and we’re discussing this with Sahil.

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