Minimalist Entrepreneurship & Mental Shifts from Web2 to Web3
Tina He explains why language matters in web3. Sahil makes predictions about the creator economy, details Gumroad's modern success, and how that came from failure to build a billion dollar company.
The Deep End is a podcast where visionary builders, creators, and experts discuss world-changing ideas. We skip the surface level and go in-depth into ideas that matter.
If you’re new here, subscribe to get future recaps, VIP event invites, and more in your inbox every Thursday.
You might also want to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts, and YouTube.
🎧 Episode #36 | Mental Shifts from Web2 to Web3 with STATION’s Tina He
Listen on Apple, YouTube or Spotify
Tina He is an investor and builder in the crypto space. She’s currently working on STATION which is working to connect people and projects in web3
The language we use in web 3 moving forward matters. This conversation with Tina helps us understand what some of these guiding rails can be.
Tina He is an investor with Pace Capital and is also on the founding team at STATION - which bills itself as building the rails for web 3. Her work with Pace & STATION has helped her identify the myriad mental shifts that builders need to make when migrating from web 2 to web 3.
Today's conversation is about those mental shifts. For example, the legal infrastructure that exists today has not caught up to technology's most recent community-organizing abilities. As DAOs gain more credibility and sophistication, there will also need to be clearer distinctions made between companies and communities. Contracts will look different too. Will employees and 1099 contractors have the same kind of benefits as community contributors?
Tina also breaks down human-centric ideologies of web 3. The most talented builders are asking how we might redistribute value to the long-tail, as opposed to the FAANG behemoths who own so much of the overall value in web 2.
Mentioned in this episode:
🎧 Episode #37 | Minimalist Entrepreneurship with Gumroad’s Sahil Lavingia
Sahil Lavingia is CEO of Gumroad and author of The Minimalist Entrepreneur.
Many of our recent guests are recently-forged pioneers in the creator economy space, but Sahil has been building the passion economy since before it was cool.
In 2011, Sahil founded Gumroad to help creators sell content directly to consumers. He was 19 at the time.
But this episode isn't strictly about the passion economy, though we do chat about ideas like gatekeepers and shifting creator incentives. Much of today's discussion is Sahil reflecting on his ambitions to build a billion dollar company. Though Gumroad today is widely used by creators of all different sizes, its success story is not without growing pains.
A decade ago Sahil raised venture-backed money to try to scale Gumroad at light speed. He details the lessons he learned trying to keep up with the aggressive timeline of venture capital firms. For better or for worse, he found that Gumroad only grew as quickly as the market determined they would grow. Now, Sahil fancies himself a "minimalist entrepreneur." He elaborates on what that means in today's episode and in his new book.
Mentioned in this episode:
Sahil’s new book: The Minimalist Entrepreneur
Sahil’s essay, which he references, “Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion Dollar Company.”
That’s all for now! If you haven’t yet, subscribe to get future issues in your inbox every Thursday.
You might also want to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts, and YouTube.
See you next week!
- Jackson (Producer of The Deep End)