Sahil built Gumroad to solve his own immediate problem: he wanted a quick way to sell a pencil icon he'd designed in Photoshop to his Twitter audience, without setting up a storefront.

“I built this over the course of one weekend in 2011 so that I could sell a pencil icon I designed in Photoshop.”

The first wave of users came directly from the Show HN post; Sahil reported roughly 50,000 page views and over 1,000 users within the first day or two.

“I have 50,000 page-views worth of traction and over 1,000 users - many of them making real money.”

Money started moving through the platform almost immediately after the HN launch; the same comment where Sahil reports 1,000+ users also says many of them were already making real money selling through Gumroad.

“many of them making real money”