The Minimalist Entrepreneur Quotes

“You don’t learn, then start. You start, then learn.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“The most profound thing I have learned running a company has been the difference between behavior and intention. Behavior is what someone is doing; intention is why they’re doing it. Most people judge themselves based on their own intentions but then judge others based on their behavior.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Launch to Celebrate A launch is a stepping-stone. A thing that happens when your business already has customers, is doing well, and is going to last. Many companies go out of business within the first year. Why make a big deal out of a business before you’re sure it’ll stick around? Instead, build a successful business and “launch” as a celebration of your success. Spend your business’s profits on it, not your own money. Better yet, celebrate your customers’ success. I think celebrating a milestone is a great excuse to launch. What about having successfully sold to a hundred customers? Once you’re running a growing, profitable business with a hundred customers who love you and whom you care about, you can celebrate them—by launching. Throw a party. Invite all of your customers and thank them for their ongoing support. Do that, and you’ll have customers lining up at your door. They’ll be people you already know, and who know you. Some of them will bring their own friends and families and maybe even members of their own communities too. They may even help promote your event before it happens because you’ve told them about it and they’re excited about supporting you. Plus, they can actually speak to others about how great your product is and how much better it has made their life. Your customers may be even better salespeople than you are. Good—there’s more of them than there are of you! Or perhaps you decide you don’t need to launch at all. That’s fine too. But entrepreneurship can be lonely, and it can be a good excuse to rally—and reward—your community for helping you get this far. Once you have a hundred customers, some of them now repeat customers, selling your product better than you can, you’re ready to move on to the next chapter of your business: marketing.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Narrow down who your ideal customer is. Narrow until you can narrow no more. Define exactly what pain point you are solving for them, and how much they will pay you to solve it. Set a hard deadline and focus fully on building a solution, then charge for it. Repeat the process until you’ve found a product that works, then scale a business around it.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Behavior is what someone is doing; intention is why they’re doing it. Most people judge themselves based on their own intentions but then judge others based on their behavior. Transparency makes that difficult, if not impossible.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Drs. John and Julie Gottman, well-known couples therapists, say they can predict the end of relationships using “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” their name for four types of communication styles that start to appear in a relationship: (1) criticism, (2) contempt, (3) defensiveness, and (4) stonewalling.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“There are only four different types of utility: place utility, form utility, time utility, and possession utility. What can you make easier to understand, faster to get, cheaper to buy, or more accessible to others?”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“What started as a blog in 2015 about her personal passion has become Blossom and Root, a business that employs dozens of people and helps thousands of families every month.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Building a minimalist business does not mean settling for second best. Instead, it’s about creating sustainable companies that have the flexibility to take risks to serve the greater good, all while empowering others to do the same. Being profitable, hopefully from the very beginning, means being able to focus and to stay focused on the reason you started a business in the first place: to help others.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Yet plenty of early-stage startups still end up raising venture capital because they can’t fund their businesses in a sustainable way through profits. As a result, they’re locked into the pursuit of huge, winner-take-all markets where growth is the most important asset of their businesses, not revenues, profits, or sustainability.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“build the house you want to live in You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world . . . but it requires people to make the dream a reality. —Walt Disney”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Think about the following before you team up for the long haul: Do not start a relationship with someone unless you really, really trust them. Do introduce vesting so that each of you earns your stock over several years. Do make sure you are aligned on your values, what you want to build, and how you want to build it. Do not ignore the possibility that one of you may leave. Plan for what a successful exit from the business may look like. Do have the hard conversations as early as you possibly can. Just like there’s no point in dating someone for five years before you figure out if they want what you want, early in any serious professional relationship, it is important to explore and understand each other’s values and ambitions. Because hard conversations get harder the longer you wait to have them. Here are some questions worth asking your potential partners: What does a happy relationship look like? What does success for this business look like? What does an exit look like? How fast do we want to grow? Why are we starting this together? Have these hard conversations again and again. Think about specific check-ins to reevaluate these goals so that disagreements don’t fester silently, and make sure that whatever path you plan on taking, you’re on the same page about”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“In 2012, President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law. This bill, among many other things, included the ability for private companies like Gumroad to sell shares to the general public, making it possible for almost anyone to invest in the business. On March 15, 2021, the legal limit for regulation crowdfunding went from $1.07 million to $5 million. These new rules also allow for “testing the waters,” allowing companies like Gumroad to see how much demand there is to invest in the company before committing to a crowdfunding campaign. I believe that crowdfunding will reorganize the funding landscape. There will always be a place for venture capitalists, but who better to fund a business than its customers, who understand how valuable its offering is? And once founders can vet demand before committing, we should see the numbers skyrocket. In the old way, the number one downside of raising money was that you created two distinct sets of stakeholders: your investors and your customers. This new practice will allow entrepreneurs to minimize complexity by turning customers into investors. All of a sudden, you have a single group of people you are serving: your community. I can speak from experience: On March 15, 2021, I used Regulation Crowdfunding to allow some of Gumroad’s creators to become part-owners. In 12 hours, we raised $5 million from more than 7,000 individual investors. Now we have thousands of our creators as our investors too, keeping our interests more cleanly aligned. For the businesses that neither need to bootstrap completely nor want to go the venture-backed path, I’m hopeful that Regulation Crowdfunding will offer a middle ground. But the ultimate long-term goal remains profitability (read: sustainability). Once you’re in control of your destiny, you should never let it go.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Don’t move to Silicon Valley. Even before 2020, I would have said, “Don’t quit your job, don’t move to SF, don’t pass go, and don’t collect $200 (from VCs).” After all, San Francisco is expensive, traffic-heavy, and not a great place to raise your children—or even a dog. Now, post-COVID, remote work is the new normal, and that means you can stay where you are. Sam Altman, the former CEO of Y Combinator, said that he was “very excited to see SF have to compete with other cities.” Me too. Not only is it cheaper and less competitive to build your company in a smaller town or city, but it’s also better for the local community, which as we’ve learned can pay dividends for your business.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Don’t get an office. I believed this pre-pandemic, and I, and millions of other people who weren’t already convinced, believe it now. An office creates an insane amount of associated costs. Plus, you now have to manage an office. Unless you really need one, avoid it. (You can get one later if you really want it as a reward for building a meaningful, sustainable business.)”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Hire software, not humans. People are expensive. Software is not, usually because a lot of it is VC-subsidized in the name of growth. Take advantage of this by using Pilot or Bench instead of hiring an accountant or a CFO. Use Gusto to run payroll and benefits in five minutes. Because you are putting off hiring, you will also save money on all of the people-managing roles in your company, like an HR person and an office manager (see below). You may be surprised how far you can get with cheap software tools. For example, you can hire a human being to follow up with new customers every time someone signs up for your service or you can use automation tools like Zapier to send a follow-up email and to add those new customers to a queue to call later.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Ultimately, you should be trying to minimize your business’s burn, but also remember that the goal here is to provide yourself enough of an income to be able to focus on what matters: helping your customers solve their problems.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“A lot of people interested in those things will still not be interested in buying your product or service. A lot of people who like ice cream won’t buy your ice cream. They may be dairy-free, or only eat ice cream on date nights, or they may like looking at ice cream more than they wish to actually eat it. Or perhaps they used to eat ice cream every day and now they’re repenting for it. Who knows? You certainly don’t. But somebody (spoiler: Facebook) does. You don’t need a whole marketing department, you just need a Facebook account. With their help, you can compete with the world’s largest brands in just a few hours a week.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“You don’t have to blog four times a week if a monthly newsletter with meaningful content is what you can manage and is more suited to your business. As with social media, experiment with how best to use your email list. If you send something out and readers unsubscribe en masse, don’t do that again. But if you offer your knowledge, your insights, your experience, and a discount, and you see a response, do that over and over.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“My accounts are my own (@shl) and Gumroad’s (@gumroad). My personal account’s goal is to encourage more people to start businesses. If you’re reading this book, that’s probably not surprising to you. Gumroad’s goal is to inspire people to become creators, on Gumroad or otherwise. There’s a subtle difference—creators and business owners are separate identities, but the fundamental questions are the same: Who is your audience, what do they want out of their life, and how can you help them achieve their goals? Too many people think their business account is enough. No, it’s not. People don’t care about your business and its success, they care about you and your struggles.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“market by being you Marketing is really just about sharing your passion. —Michael Hyatt”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Schmidt started 2012 with new, modern packaging for the deodorant, which was designed to set it apart from the competition. She looked beyond the direct-to-consumer sales channels and the natural and wellness retailers that her competitors used almost exclusively; in 2015, she expanded into traditional grocery stores and pharmacies, which allowed her to reach more customers and to enable greater access to healthy natural products. Her creativity, innovation, and hard work paid off. Schmidt earned appearances on Fox News and The Today Show; mentions on social media from celebrities and influencers; articles in national publications; and distribution on the shelves of Target and Walmart. Though it was bittersweet, Jaime realized that a larger company with more resources could bring her vision and mission to an even wider customer base, and she signed the deal with Unilever right before Christmas 2017. Reflecting on her journey, she says, “When I’m asked about what made Schmidt’s so successful, I often say that my customers were my business plan. It started when I listened to those at the farmer’s market, and it continued through each step of growth. Staying hyper-tuned-in to my customers always guided and served me.” Not sales. Not marketing. Customers, educating, and being educated.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“If you need help getting started, here’s an example: Hi John, I saw you’re selling a PDF on your website using PayPal, and manually emailing everyone who buys the PDF. I built a service called Gumroad, which basically automates all of this. I’d love to show it to you, or you can check it out yourself: gumroad.com. Also happy to just share any learnings we see from creators in a little PDF we have. Let me know! Best, Sahil, founder and CEO of Gumroad Don’t copy-paste. Each email will refine your ability to write better emails. Done right, you’re not only educating customers, but educating yourself about what you can do better. It’s a learn-learn situation. Manual “sales” will be 99 percent of your growth in the early days, and word of mouth will be 99 percent of your growth in the latter days. It’s not a glamorous answer, but it’s true. Things like paid marketing, SEO, and content marketing can come later, once you have a hundred customers, once you’re profitable, and once your customers are referring more customers to you. Only then!”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Cold Emails, Calls, and Messages Long before you get to the bottom of the list of people you already know or could know, you’re going to be sending a lot of emails, you’re going to be making a lot of calls, and you’re going to be knocking on a lot of doors. It’s your job to reach out to friends, family, and members of your community whom you may not have seen for a while. Your calls are a chance to tell them what you’re up to and ask them if they’re interested in becoming customers. Some will say yes, but many will say no. Once you’re okay with the nos, you’re ready to sell to strangers. In the early days (read: years) of Gumroad, we scoured the web for people who could benefit from a product like Gumroad and then told them about it. Literally thousands of times. That’s the only way, really, when you’re young and no one cares or knows who you are, to get folks to use your product. Over time, you can get away with doing it less and less. But until you have a lot of customers or some other force that can supply ongoing momentum, there’s nothing better than knocking on doors. This is a tried-and-true technique used by political canvassers, the LDS Church, and others . . . because it works! Trust me, if there was a better way, people would have found it.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“This experience isn’t so different for software businesses. Two excitable cofounders work on an app, submit it to Product Hunt, and see thousands of sign-ups on the first day. A few months later, no one is using it, and they’re on to a new project. Rinse and repeat. But businesses are not something you engage with once, talk to your friends about, and then forget as you move on to the next thing. Your business should have customers for life, not just for a Friday night. That’s because the real story of starting and then growing a business isn’t really that thrilling most days. Between start and success, it can be a slog. It can take years. And it often isn’t nearly as glamorous as you expect. But you will have many small victories, and over time they will build into a sense of satisfaction and pride that comes from not giving up.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“For example, if you are building a software business, you can visit Makerpad.co and learn how to connect Gumroad and Carrd to accept orders on your website without writing a single line of code. And when you are ready to automate your manual fulfillment process, it will teach you how to add Airtable and Google Forms and Mailchimp. There are products like Notion, which we use to run our entire company. And there are services like Zapier, which allow you to automate the connections between all the software you use. Seriously, check out Makerpad. You’ll be surprised how much you can build without writing a single line of code.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Like me, Ryan doesn’t believe that founders should start with code. “Do shitty work people love at first,” he says. As more and more infrastructure gets built by new businesses (including, perhaps, the one you’re working on now), it is getting cheaper, faster, and more accessible to build an MVP without code. What that means is that you shouldn’t wait until tomorrow to get started. The lower the barriers to entry, the more competition you will have.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Constraints Lead to Creativity If you’re a minimalist entrepreneur, the early stages are all about constraints. Now that you’re productizing, you have to add in more limits. In addition to your product doing just one thing (at first), there are other ways to control the temptation to try to do everything at once . . . or to try to do it perfectly. I ask myself four questions every time I want to build something new: Can I ship it in a weekend? The first iteration of most solutions can and should be prototyped in two to three days. Is it making my customers lives a little better? Is a customer willing to pay me for it? It’s important for the business to be profitable from day one, so creating something valuable enough for people to pay for is key. Can I get feedback quickly? Make sure that you’re building a product for people who can let you know if you’re doing a good job or not. The faster you get feedback, the faster you’ll build something truly valuable and worth paying for.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“Key Takeaways It’s the community that leads you to the problem, which leads you to the product, which leads you to your business. Once you’ve found community-you fit, start contributing with the intention of becoming a pillar in that community. Pick the right problem (it’s probably one you have), and confirm that others have it. Then confirm you have business-you fit too. When in doubt, always go back to the community. They will help you keep going and ultimately succeed.”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less

“If you’re struggling here (many do), some Economics 101 may help. There are only four different types of utility: place utility, form utility, time utility, and possession utility. What can you make easier to understand, faster to get, cheaper to buy, or more accessible to others? Place utility: Make something inaccessible accessible Form utility: Make something more valuable by rearranging existing parts Time utility: Make something slow go fast Possession utility: Remove a middleman”
― Sahil Lavingia, The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less