17 Year Old Developer Goes Up Against 19/yo with $1.1 Million

http://psocha.co.uk/im-a-17-year-old-developer-and-im-up-against-a-19-year-old-his-company-and-a-1-1m-investment

by chrisleydon • 14 years ago

61 43 14 years ago

psocha.co.uk

pg_bot• 14 years ago

What is your license agreement with regard to copyright? The only reason I am hesitant to use gumroad is the following agreement in their terms and conditions:

"When you give us content ("User Content"), you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, trademark, publicity, and database rights (but no other rights) you have in the User Content, in any media known now or in the future."

c168• 14 years ago

Hey, thanks for your question.

What you upload is owned by you, you made it and your rightfully own it- why shouldn't you?

In effect, we're just an online shop for digital goods. An easy online file payment gateway :)

pbhjpbhj• 14 years ago

It's an interesting clause - often such terms are simply to allow the content to be used on the site and nothing more nefarious. Under this clause it seems they shot themselves in the foot. If you transfer your rights it appears to revoke their license … I doubt that's what they intended.

joedev• 14 years ago

Keep on looking at it the "right way". Look, you'll rarely find a space where there are no competitors. As you eluded to, competitors serve as validation of your product.

cecplascott4• 14 years ago

That's a great way of looking at it! Thanks for the comment.

joshmanders• 14 years ago

Don't worry about it. Competition is good for both of you, and who knows, maybe yours turns out to be the one people like to use the most.

Good luck.

citricsquid• 14 years ago

This is dumb.

> While I’m very excited for Gumroad, as someone who was just about to launch their startup, from a business point of view this is pretty bad. Had we gone with launched as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) back in November as planned, things would have been much better, but we didn’t. Now I see why everyone in the startup world seems to be saying MVP in every second sentence; possibly because it’s damn well important getting your product out there.

This is just not true. Sahil (of Gumroad) is a very skilled person who has proven himself and has a lot of connections, his company (Gumroad) has been around since before November (in fact it's 11 months old now...) and this is such a cop out. He is not going to beat you because he has investment, he's going to beat you if his product is better than yours. You're also competing against kout (http://www.kout.me/) and I'm sure there are others I don't know about. The fact that Sahil launched Gumroad in a weekend and you've taken over 6 months should show you that he is not just some dumb kid who got lucky, he's someone good at what he does.

If anything this is a fucking wonderful thing for you, your idea has been validated and investors think there is money in the product.

If you're going to quit, quit, but don't blame the success of Gumroad for it, that's just a cop out. Oh and stop mentioning your age, it's irrelevant. Such a terrible link-bait title...

angersock2• 14 years ago

I was going to feel bad for the person, but then I tried to use their site and wasn't even able to get to an "About" page without needing to give up my email address. I literally have no idea what the author makes other than a simple sentence at the end of their post.

To the author: Keep up the good work, kid. Starting a business is rough, and sometimes you strike out right out of the gate--happened to my first company.

Get up, dust off, and keep going--and don't waste your time or ours by bringing up your age, because it doesn't matter.

c168• 14 years ago

Thanks for your comment, I brought up age as that was a big part of why I decided to persevere; we're both of similar age, have similar skill sets and he's been hugely successful. Is that not a big enough motivator to get right back up and keep working at it?

Sorry about the landing page too, you should be seeing the site but we're holding back the launch just a few more short days.

brador3• 14 years ago

Site isn't even loading for me. Building is easy, shipping is HARD. He's 17, Fresh from the positive reinforcement of an anti-competitive education system and thrust out into the real world. Lesson learned - take notes why you lost, dust off, get back on the horse.

cecplascott4• 14 years ago

We've got massive respect for Sahil, he's a very smart guy. You're completely correct when you say "He is not going to beat you because he has investment, he's going to beat you if his product is better than yours."

haliax• 14 years ago

The author never said that Sahil is "just some dumb kid who got lucky". He didn't say they're quitting, or blame Gumroad's success for that.

Instead, he was honest about why a well funded competitor is a daunting prospect to someone who's prelaunch, and went on to say that that's not a reason to quit. On the whole, a pretty admirable post.

Read the damned post before you spew this self-righteous nonsense.

consultutah• 14 years ago

They are both competing against me: http://jungleblaze.com

And I'm 36 and so much more mature. So there... ;-)

By the way, I am EXTREMELY impressed with what gumroad has been able to do. He announced it on HN a few weeks after I had started development of mine. While I do see it as a competitor, I also see companies like Digital River as competitors and love the fact that there are people making it easier for non-techies to sell things on the web.

billpatrianakos• 14 years ago

Can't you see the poor the guy is just talking about his frustrations? He sees a guy with a similar idea who just got a little over a million in investment and he's basically saying "damn, that could've been me but I did x, y, and z wrong plus there are a few things going against me that are out my control".

Nowhere did he say Sahil isn't skilled. Now, I've spoken to Sahil before and he really is a really impressive person but putting that aside, I don't think building a product in a weekend automatically makes the builder skilled (though in Gumroad's case, yeah, he is skilled). You can launch crap in a day just the same as you can in 10 years. Irrelevant.

I think you underestimate the power of investment too. A better product doesn't always mean success. To me that idea is a myth in the same family of the whole American Dream, you can do anything if you work hard idea. A better product is certainly an advantage but perception counts far more than reality and $1M can buy you a really valuable perception. That $1M gives Gumroad credibility and press. Meanwhile, this 17-year-old nobody could be on to something far better but nobody cares... yet.

He's not saying he's quitting, just that he feels like quitting. The really awesome thing about this is that while everyone here is piling on this kid he just helped himself out. Maybe he did use a link-baity title but it sure worked. He may get overly critical comments here but I know word will spread to places online where the people won't have the same mindset as we do over here and when this story reaches those places he's going to get a lot of positive attention instead. I like this kid, he's going to do well. And mentioning his age was smart, not irrelevant. If he were 30 this wouldn't even get posted but he's 17 and everyone wants to root for the young underdog and read his 1 in a million success story. This is really really sneakily smart of him. I think he knows exactly what he's doing. Lay off the guy.

fatbat2• 14 years ago

Wow, criticsquid you are overly critical (and confused) from someone's natural reaction. I think you should re-read the blog post again.

For me, I am glad that he vented because I would not have heard of Propelly otherwise. :)

darwindeeds• 14 years ago

I'm glad you came out and spoke about it rather than ranting about it. Remember Sahil is a famous guy around the startup circle, so dont expect a million dollar funding just because yours looks like gumroad. Have a business model that will make you revenue and build your user base. Listen to your customers and make it the way they want. Put some thought into refunds policies and Rating system that gumroad doesnt have yet.

I felt that gumroad funding was more for Sahil's credentials and than for gumroad itself, so please take that into account.

c168• 14 years ago

Hey, thanks for your comment!

Indeed he is, however both myself and my partner are from the UK. To some extent I believe this is a great opportunity since the London tech scene is progressively getting bigger and it gives us a chance to grow with it. Having someone such as Sahil of similar age and ability to look up to is something invaluable and quite honestly very encouraging.

jQueryIsAwesome• 14 years ago

The title sounds like tabloid journalism.

brador3• 14 years ago

How do these services deal with scammers? and on the other side, chargebacks?

Can anyone just throw up a link to an imaginary "product" and watch the $$$ roll in while delivering nothing?

c168• 14 years ago

Indeed you can, however in our case we're hosting the files. Prior to purchase (via PayPal, so you can still file a dispute) you are given information such as file type, size etc... Clearly if think you're buying a PSD and the site shows the file to be in .pdf format and 0.01mb in size, you know something is wrong.

brador3• 14 years ago

Ah I see, so it's a digital only service? that makes more sense.

fatbat2• 14 years ago

What if someone just uploads a 50MB zipped dummy file?

mattquinn• 14 years ago

Instead of worrying about trivial things like this, how about you focus on actually making your site/product available? The number of ppl these days who equate "launching" with only putting up a sign-up form (or launchrock page) is ridiculous.

cecplascott4• 14 years ago

We don't count our splash page as launching. We're talking about our physical product.

meow• 14 years ago

While I do understand that there might be some complexity involved when dealing with payment gateways etc, 6 months sounds too long.. were you learning development on the way ? I'm honestly curious...

c168• 14 years ago

There were multiple complexities along the way, mainly that education is still an important part of my life. When I wasn't studying I was coding, and quite often I'd go till two in the morning just to get back up at six and start the day again.

Additionally both myself and my partner have learnt a lot along the way, for instance we now have one designer we can rely on to get the job well done and on time. Our previous one disappeared for a month on holiday without warning and I admit, we waited too long before deciding to move on and find a new designer. Little niggles such as this slowly but surely kept pushing back our deadline.

We've had users persistently asking us when are we going to launch so you're not the first, nor the last. Thanks for your interest however :)

PonyGumbo• 14 years ago

The site seems to be down.

OGxSWAG• 14 years ago

Why do you feel the need to mention your age several times?

c168• 14 years ago

The age difference is a huge motivator, with a small age gap, to me it signifies that anything is possible for both myself and my partner. Just look at Brian Wong from Kiip as another prime example.

I hope this answerers your question.

radicalbyte• 14 years ago

It's great to see someone of your age taking the initiative to start their own business. It's commendable.

However, if I were you I wouldn't make a big deal about your age & lack of funding.

As a potential buyer, I'm not comfortable with giving my credit card details to a 17yo kid. Especially as the problem space is such that it's really easy to get started but pretty hard to get right..

idl2• 14 years ago

If I see one more 'teenage startup' post like this on HN (or elsewhere) I think I'll be sick.

It was cute at first, but now I only cringe whenever I see a title like this. Tech blogs do it, news sites do it, and as we can see even the teenagers themselves do it. It's pure link bait.

As said in another comment here, it's irrelevant. Almost every single young entrepreneur's website I see puts their age to the very forefront. "Look at me! I'm only this age! Here's my startup!" (which, a lot of the time, turns out to be nothing but a LaunchRock page).

An associate of mine is the about the same age as these teenagers, but is the complete opposite. He runs numerous 'web startups' and, more importantly, actually generates revenue (high seven figures annually). Investors would fall over themselves to invest. Tech blogs would salivate at his story. But he stays away from that.

The thing is, there are countless young founders like this. Generating huge profits, making big VC deals behind the scenes, working away under the radar. Don't be fooled by the way tech blogs and news outlets try to make it seem so unique.

Disregard your age. Ship a real product. Get users. Generate revenue.

brackin3• 14 years ago

I know many young founders doing all of this and not creating huge hype around themselves. I do agree with your points but you can't put all young founders in the same boat.

Playing devils advocate, if it gets you users, press, etc why not? I'm not using it in this circumstance but if you want to get TechCrunched, have a great product your age will help, why not use it?

The press always needs a story, every blogpost has a story, it may not be age it may be funding or the fact you worked for Google or though of it on a mountain, regardless every tech blogpost has a story not just 'this product has launched'. Blame journalism, not the people conforming to it.

idl2• 14 years ago

I fully agree with you, do whatever it takes to help your startup. And yes that's just how journalism works.

I'm mostly referring to the young founders' perspectives. Many of them get a false sense of accomplishment and specialness by building a half decent prototype just because of their age, and don't understand how beneficial it is to have killer execution. They often see getting TechCrunched as an end goal, instead of gaining true traction and building a real business.

corkill• 14 years ago

If you want to hustle do it now, get aggressive, get your product out there, make a better product, cut a better deal with influences/power users etc.

Keep working on this or other ideas and don't blame your lack of success on external factors it is self defeating. First to market historically has almost always lost, all about how execute it's a long long race to the top and when you get there, better not slow down. Google wasn't first, facebook wasn't first, apple is never first.

ck2• 14 years ago

Is there any doubt we are in a bubble?

brackin3• 14 years ago

Why? Because there are young founders or something else? There always has been and these (and many other) people have been building products before there was any mention of the second bubble.

colin8chSE• 14 years ago

I'm not sure why you're viewing GumRoad's funding as a negative.

I look at this as even more validation for my payments startup http://merchee.com, which has similar basic functionality to GumRoad, but focuses on subscription billing, offers affiliate marketing and checkout pages that match your website.

A bunch of really smart people, who see a lot of different products, teams, deals- They are betting that there is a market that will deliver ROI for innovation in the payments space, and they're putting their money behind Sahil, who has done a great job earning their backing. Please consider, he hasn't come out of no where, this isn't a sudden "overnight success". Even more validating is that lot of seasoned investors are doubling down on innovations in the payments space- look at stripe's 1st and 2nd round of funding for example (now with a valuation of $100 Million!).

Your competitor's ability to gain market adoption, traction and to raise funds should motivate you to raise the bar and build a great product, now that you "know" that it's a market that can reward your efforts.

redrory• 14 years ago

Site is down; Any cached version?

17 Year Old Developer Goes Up Against 19/yo with $1.1 Million

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